The Media Interview

There’s no way that I can sit here and be a normal human being, because being interviewed is one of the most abnormal things that you can do to somebody else. It’s two steps removed from the Inquisition.

- Frank Zappa
in a 1983 TV interview with Britain’s Channel 4, posted on YouTube

Sometimes a surprise media interview isn’t a welcome thing:

In a small, windowless conference room in downtown Mountain View later the same day, [Roger] Lee [of venture capital firm Battery Ventures] does his best to introduce a six-month-old startup to a Mercury News reporter. But the company’s 25-year-old founder, whose mirrored sunglasses sit perched atop his closely cropped hair, only wants to talk about the ground rules for the interview.

“I’ve given this some thought, and none of this can go on the record,'’ he says. “Not my name, not the name of this company, not the names of potential customers.'’

“If (the customers) read that we’re 13 guys in a cramped office, their perceived risk is much higher,'’ he continues. Plus, he says, lowering his voice, “one of my competitors is keeping very close tabs on me. I don’t want him to Google my name and find this story.'’

It’s an awkward exchange for which Lee apologizes an hour later, after the meeting ends.

Thanks to Don’t Eat the Shrimp for pointing me to this San Jose Mercury News story.

In this clip from a 1983 TV interview, musician Frank Zappa places media interviews just slightly above the Inquisition, but also makes an interesting point that he “accommodates” each interviewer by being the Frank Zappa that suits the interviewer’s level of questioning. Thanks to Todd And for finding this clip and posting it on his blog:

Here’s a cautionary tale about being misrepresented through the editing of an interview. It concerns a Columbia University professor of the philosophy of physics, David Albert, who agreed to be interviewed for the movie What the Bleep Do We Know? This pseudo-documentary, released in 2004, claims that quantum mechanics proves, among other things, that reality is a construct of the mind, and Albert’s interview clips make it sound as if he endorses such claims.

Nothing could be further from the truth. But how to get the word out, particularly when the film somehow managed to get theatrical release and went on to major sales (by documentary standards), including DVDs? Enter the internet, in the form of an expose article in Salon, which reveals the film as an infomercial for a new age cult group, and put on record one of Albert’s few responses to the film:

“I don’t think it’s quite right to say I was ‘tricked’ into appearing,” he [Albert] said in a statement reposted by a critic on “What the Bleep’s” Internet forum, “but it is certainly the case that I was edited in such a way as to completely suppress my actual views about the matters the movie discusses. I am, indeed, profoundly unsympathetic to attempts at linking quantum mechanics with consciousness. Moreover, I explained all that, at great length, on camera, to the producers of the film … Had I known that I would have been so radically misrepresented in the movie, I would certainly not have agreed to be filmed.”

“I certainly do not subscribe to the ‘Ramtha School on Enlightenment,’ whatever that is!” he finished. Albert provided Salon with an excerpt from a piece he’s writing on the subject, in which he says, in part, “I’m unwittingly made to sound as if (maybe) I endorse its thesis.”

It was fortunate that Salon published this much of the forum posting, because the link they provide to the forum no longer works, and if you go to the What the Bleep site and click on forums, they’ve been moved to a new location, which also doesn’t work (as of the date of this posting). [And in case the Salon article ever disappears, sites like mine are preserving the words as well.]

A couple of years later, in an email exchange with Annie Wagner of The Stranger, Professor Albert reflected on the process which led to the original interviews:

When I was interviewed for the first film, I had no idea what sort of a film it would turn out to be, and I had no clue as to the background or the agenda of the producers. This may have been at least in part my own fault. I was not as skeptical, I was not as inquisitive, as I ought to have been. Had I known then what I know now, I would certainly not have agreed to appear in that film.

Now, why was Annie Wagner writing about this 2004 film in 2006? Because it was re-released that year with an additional hour of material - but it still included the scenes which Albert, at some of the film-makers’ own events, had publicly denounced as complete misrepresentations.

What do you do in a situation like that? Professor Albert chose to be re-interviewed for the expanded version of the film:

I decided… to do whatever I could to insure that the sequel (or the director’s cut, or whatever it is) contained at least a suggestion - however short and fragmented and out of context and pushed off to the side - of what an intellectually responsible treatment of these questions might actually sound like. Whether or not that attempt was a success, whether or not it did any good, whether or not it would have been better (in the end) for me to insist that I be withdrawn from the sequel altogether, only time will tell. [from the Wagner email]

This is a good case study of the dangers involved in allowing yourself to be interviewed for a project about which you have little information; how many people in the movie Borat are kicking themselves for not asking more questions or getting something in writing to protect themselves?

It also demonstrates how the internet can be a powerful double-edged sword. What The Bleep Do We Know? has a Long Tail because of the power of the internet. You’ll find thousands of links and postings about the movie - most of them positive that I’ve been able to discern so far - and word about it continues to spread as I’m sure do sales. At the same time, those who’ve been misrepresented in the movie and those who oppose its pseudo-science have just as long (if not as large) a tail for their publicity efforts.

Washington DC media trainer Lou Hampton recently posted some good tips about preparing for media interviews with investigative reporters in particular:

You should assume the reporter has details of your private life as well as your private business dealings.

He goes on to talk about the ease with which those details are accessible these days, a point that was driven home to me last night as I watched part of the movie All the President’s Men - we forget how much time and energy it took thirty years ago just to track down a person’s phone number!

Now the internet has made access to “private” records available, easily and often at little cost. (A Wall Street Journal article, quoting Breit, Drescher & Imprevento PC, gave these figures: credit card transactions-$75; full list of assets-$295; list of brokerage accounts-$350.) It has also made public records easier to access. And practice of disaffected insiders to leak confidential memos and emails seems to continue to gain popularity. With these increased sources of information, even the lone freelancer can now become an investigative reporter with clout.

Everyone is talking about the judge who wouldn’t stop talking - the unusual, eccentric, unorthodox style of Judge Larry Seidlin during the televised hearings into the custody of Anna Nicole Smith’s body. At one point, Judge Seidlin paused to assess his performance:

Ohhhh, I did a lot of talking. You know, the more you talk in this business the worse off you are, really. The less you say, the better. I mean, I knew that from the beginning.

Good advice for courtrooms and for media interviews. Don’t let yourself ramble; not only do you get off topic easily, but you can end up saying things you didn’t mean to reveal.

Journalists know that often the best course is to not say anything after the interviewee is done talking, so the interviewee starts saying more, thinking they should be filling the gap. Say what you want to say, and stop.

A young Chinese woman who’s in the United States on a cultural exchange and performing with the group “Up with People”, received some media coaching the other day and it’s interesting to see the one point she felt worth writing in her online diary:

…today we learned a lot about how to be interviewed by the media. That’s right the media always like the conflict rather than harmonious.

Heard this on CBC Radio’s The Current, yesterday, and it’s a good example of why people can be suspicious of being interviewed by the media. Peggy Thomas was on a committee of the Ontario Library Association which approved a book that several school boards later banned:

I got a phone call from a reporter… and he was quite adamant about the book, and he kept saying this one question over and over and over to me - ‘Do you believe this is an appropriate book?’ - and I kept answering him and finally I said you’re asking me the same question over and over and he said - ‘That’s because you’re not answering it’ - and I said, am I not answering it or am I not giving you the answer that you want, because obviously, as a selector, as one of the people who chose this book, I obviously think it’s appropriate.

Sometimes reporters will ask a question several times to ensure they get a consistent answer or to try and get someone to say something in a more quotable way, or in the case of evasion, at least show how the interviewee won’t give an honest answer. Things get dicier when the reporter is repeating a question because they’re not hearing the answer they want; perhaps they want things more black and white or more forceful or more controversial.

Even worse, this sounds like a case where the reporter can’t believe the person’s opinion and, what?, hopes they’ll change their mind after enough repetitions of the question? That’s turning into a (poor quality) debate and not an interview.

[Disclosure: The reason I don’t mention the book or the reasons for the ban or the name of the publication is simply that I don’t want people distracted by the details of the case; my focus here is on the method of questioning and those details aren’t relevant.]

in my personal experience, the few really good interviewers have either breadth of knowledge or depth of insight

- Leonard Bernstein
quoted on journalist Martin Perlich’s website as part of a review of his book The Art of the Interview.

Came across a new reality TV show in which 12 felons will be put on an island with some bounty hunters. The winning felon gets a $50,000 educational scholarship for their child and $1 million dollars that goes toward their last victim. It’s called Danger Island and here are some of the requirements for felons who wish to apply:

Be a convicted felon who has completed serving his sentence and no longer be on parole

You must not have any wants, warrants or criminal charges pending against you

You must agree to a full background check

You must have at least one child

You must be free of all alcohol and substance abuse problems and agree to random testing by us

You must be prepared to submit a three minute VHS audition video of yourself

You must be in excellent mental and physical health

You must never have been convicted of murder, rape, or child molestation

You must agree to be interviewed by the media if called upon to do so

Oh, now I see why they call it Danger Island.