The Media Interview

I’ve posted before about the fact that publishing things on a blog is akin to having an interview published in a magazine or aired on radio or TV - be prepared to have yourself quoted by others.

Now it’s common practice for journalists to write stories quoting someone from a variety of other sources, but the issue is how they do this. For example, I read an article about Pete Townsend and reported disagreements he was having with fellow Who member, Roger Daltrey. The article quoted Townsend in a way that made you think the writer had spoken with the guitarist. There was a brief mention of Townsend’s blog at one point in the article and, when you went there, the quotes were all clearly taken straight from the blog. I think the journalist should have stated that the quotes were from the blog.

At least with a blog or other web-based source, it would be possible to Google for the quote and check its source. But what about non-web material such as press releases not posted on the internet - journalists often quote from these as if they’d talked with the person, yet they don’t qualify it by saying “in a statement” or “in a press release”. Of course, it’s not a lie to say “they said”, because you have their statement in writing, but I think it’s important to acknowledge the source because it can explain the fact that some other line of questioning was not pursued since there was no interview.

Lest you think this is all just semantics, consider the situation of a blogger named Rachel from north London. She has been harassed (as have several other people) by a woman who would not quit, even after being warned several times by police and a conviction. The woman is now going to jail thankfully.

For various legal reasons, Rachel has refused all media interviews on the subject, but at least one journalist has been using material from her blog in a way that makes it look like she granted a media interview. Hence, this copyright notice on her site:

Commercial useage terms: (This applies to a journalist, not the ones linked below, who has been publishing extracts from my blog as if I have given an exclusive interview, when I haven’t.) You need to get permission from me in writing to quote this blog. I’ve explained why I am not doing interviews. I can’t, for solid legal and professional reasons. I have a contractual obligation to my publishers to do interviews relating to the book about PTSD which is out in a few weeks. Some of the interviews have already been written, timings agreed, and it is not fair and it is not professional to mess up other people’s hard work by going off on one and talking about Lowde and cyberstalking, which is nothing to do with the book and the work I do. The timing of this could not have been worse for me, professionally. Please help me out here. Thanks

Nikki Finke posted this on her Deadline Hollywood blog on Thursday:

I just confirmed that Sicko documentary creator Michael Moore was barred from making a scheduled media appearance inside the New York Stock Exchange today. His publicist says it was because he and a group of nurses intended to call for Wall Street investors and Main Street consumers to divest themselves of HMO, health insurance, and drug company stocks. The Oscar-winner and representatives of the California Nurses Association were slated to do a series of interviews with financial media outlets from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange this afternoon.

Finke went on to say she was

very surprised that the NYSE would interfere like this, especially given that these “on the floor” media interviews are commonplace.

Non-sequitur alert! Allowing some media interviews on your property does not imply that you are going to allow all media interviews. The interference is even less surprising given Moore’s anti-business philosophy. Add to that the fact that he would not have been giving advice to investors (as Moore’s people apparently tried to spin it), but merely staging a protest against a sector of the business community. Nothing surprising anywhere there…

On the other hand, Finke does make a good point: since the media interviews went ahead anyway (outside of the NYSE), the ban just gave Moore more attention.

John Stamos, late of Full House, now of ER, seems to be following in the footsteps of Paula Abdul, or rather, the missteps. On a media tour in Australia earlier this week, he apparently slurred and strangely gesticulated his way through one TV interview, as related by host Olivia Bishop on the blog of WHO magazine:

I knew something was wrong when instead of taking my hand to shake it, former Full House heartthrob John Stamos pulled me into a hug, telling me “you smell nice” when we were introduced before our interview on June 25.

In the country to promote his new role as Dr Tony Gates on medical drama ER, the actor arrived 30 minutes late for his first interview at 11am, because he was (according to a Channel Nine publicist) “napping”.

Unable to keep his eyes open, the actor slurred his way through a 15 minute chat with me, which I cut five minutes short, due to the actor’s erratic behaviour. Struggling to sit up, falling into the cushions perched beside him and constantly rubbing at his face, the 38-year-old attempted to answer my questions…

So what about his bleary-eyed appearance and muddled speech? “I’ve had the worst jet lag,” he said. “ I can’t get over it.” Before asking me: “I wonder if I had beer, would that work?”. We don’t think so…

As the actor arrived in Sydney on Thursday, jet lag seemed an unlikely cause for his demeanour.

Stamos was then taken to task for this performance the next day in The Daily Telegraph by television writer Stephen Downie. Stamos tried damage control on another TV show the next day - including attacking Downie - but did more damage. See what you think:

After this second interview, all of Stamos’s remaining interviews were cancelled and he was on a plane back to the US. According to his publicist:

John has been traveling extensively for the past few weeks in Greece, Egypt and Tokyo and had a difficult time adjusting to the time difference in Australia, which in turn led to many sleepless nights since his arrival. He acknowledges that his behavior was completely out of character during these interviews and apologizes.

Side note: The double-edged publicity sword which we call the internet rears its ugly head again - without YouTube and blogging, this story might have stayed down under, so to speak.

A lot of people, including me, have mentioned that People magazine paid $300,000 for the first print interview with Paris Hilton after she got out of jail. I did say that the Hiltons had withdrawn all request for money, but I wasn’t very clear that this included People magazine.

Here’s an exchange between Anderson Cooper and Jess Cagle, who did the interview for People, that sets the record straight - it also addresses the issue of whether money was paid, not for the interview itself, but for photos/videos:

COOPER: CNN did not pay for this interview or for use of any pictures.

And, Jess, I know there are rumors on the Internet that “People” magazine paid, for your interview, $300,000. Is that true?

CAGLE: No, it’s absolutely not.

I mean, we — we made it — we have been approaching them since the time she got in trouble. We wanted to talk to her when she got out of jail. I mean, it’s — it never even — we don’t pay for interviews. So, it was never brought up.

There was — a couple of weeks ago, there were some discussions that I wasn’t having, instead of doing our own photo shoot, we might buy photos through an agency, but that certainly never came to pass. We — there was absolutely no money that changed hands…

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: So, just — just to be clear, were there — did any money change hands? You know, because some news organization will pay for pictures that the family provides. Did the magazine — did “People” magazine pay for pictures, like, personal photographs?

CAGLE: No, no, not at all.

COOPER: OK. So, no money from “People” magazine, to your knowledge, went to the Hilton family or — or Paris Hilton — or Paris to secure this interview?

CAGLE: No, absolutely not.

COOPER: OK.

In Cindy Adams column in the New York Post today, she quotes Barbara Walters on why, when Paris Hilton’s people withdrew demands for payment for the heiress’s first post-jail interview, Walters turned down a free interview. After all, ABC had originally offered $100,000 for the “get”:

Look, I’ve done prison interviews before, but people like the Menendez Brothers were really important news stories. This wasn’t. And even though I’d already written my questions, when all that pay-for-play stuff happened, I suddenly felt this was not up to my standard. It . . . felt . . . sort of . . . tawdry. The whole thing somehow was beneath me. Besides, it was a no-win. If I did a tough piece and her tears started to flow, it would be, ‘Oh, there’s Barbara Walters making people cry again.’ Too soft, and I’d be criticized.

If the context and accuracy of this quote are right, it seems that Walters is standing on some shaky ground:

1. The importance of the story didn’t change between the time of the ABC offer and Hilton’s decision to not seek any payment.

2. The no-win problem also didn’t change in that time frame.

3. How is the haggling over different offers any less “tawdry” than making an offer of $100,000 for an interview with a famous-only-for-being-famous celebrity?

I can perfectly well understand Walters coming to realize that she had been party to a struggle to perpetuate and cash in on the Hilton phenomenon, and wanting no part of it any longer (I could applaud that), but it would require a very different explanation than the one she’s apparently giving here.

Ben Silverman, a former journalist who writes a column for PR Fuel, tells this story of a reporter getting things wrong - then offers ten tips to try and minimize such problems:

I was two beers into my weekend last Friday when a reporter from the West Coast called to confirm something with me. I had spoken to her a few days earlier for about twenty minutes, talking about a subject I knew pretty darn well.

“OK, so, I just want to make sure I got this right. You worked with John Doe [not his real name] and did business with him?” the reporter asked.

“No,” I said, “we were in the same business at the same time and crossed paths every so often. I had no relationship with him though and he probably has no recollection of me.”

“Great, gotcha,” the reporter said.

Gotcha indeed, because when the story was published, it sounded as if I was the guy’s best friend.

The error I committed occurred during our original phone call. I spoke too fast, went off on tangents, and I did not qualify some of my remarks. In the end, the reporter burned me, but I lit the fuse.

Silverman’s ten tips on what interviewees can do to try and prevent errors in stories make a very useful read - here’s one you don’t hear that often:

7. Confirm What the Reporter Is Saying

My biggest fear is that a reporter will give me bad information. It has happened before - resulting in me looking like a dunce. If a reporter calls you and runs some information by you, make sure that you can confirm it. Obviously some stories will be about speculation. If that’s the case, there’s nothing wrong with offering an opinion. However, if a reporter calls and says, “The President called you a skunk,” make sure that he really did.

And the winner is - well, maybe “winner” isn’t the word because I personally don’t see getting an interview with Paris Hilton as anything to be proud of - CNN’s Larry King.

After ABC’s $100,000 offer for Hilton’s first post-jail TV interview was rejected, and NBC pulled out and denied any deal had been made, and the Hiltons started denying that they were seeking any money for any interview… the NY Times reported over the weekend that Paris will do an hour-long segment on Larry King’s show this Wednesday:

A spokeswoman for his program, Bridget Leininger, said yesterday that no money had been paid for the interview. “Larry King never pays for interviews,” she said.

What was interesting was that even after the Hilton’s said they would not take any money for photos and videos, including a $300,000 deal they’d set up with People magazine, ABC and NBC still turned down the interview.

The trick these days is that deals are made to purchase materials such as photos and videos that accompany an interview - that way, no one is technically paying for the interview. And where does Larry’s King’s show stand on that?

Ms. Leininger said she was unsure whether the program was going to use any photos and whether any fee would be paid to Getty Images, a photo agency that had previously made a deal to acquire rights to the first pictures of Ms. Hilton home from jail.

Randy Tinseth, vice president marketing for Boeing Commercial, blogging from the Paris Air Show, came up with a fiendishly-clever plan for scheduling media interviews:

I’d also be remiss if I didn’t describe the uniquely-air show phenomenon of trying to conduct a media interview in the afternoon while competing with the roar of jet fighters screaming overhead. The actual “air show” portion of the air show can be so loud it shakes the chalet and makes conversation nearly impossible. I have an idea, though. Next time, we’ll have to remember to schedule interviews with our not-so-favorite media during the afternoon show times! [my emphasis]

Busy day in the gossip mills as rumors flew about which American TV network would first get to interview Paris Hilton (and pay dearly for it) when she’s released from prison. Following a detailed story in the NY Times this morning about ABC losing out on it’s bid of $100,000, reportedly to NBC, the omnipresent, omniscient TMZ.com began a day-long series of exclusives: NBC had a producer and crew lined up and the interview was on, it was off, it never existed…. whew!

You know that someone is going to interview her - just doesn’t look like you’ll see it on the Today show.

For those of you who’ve been sleep-deprived on a media tour, consider the story of Tony Wright, a researcher who recently stayed awake for more than 11 days and nights. (thanks to Nosy Snoop for this)

[Fellow researcher Graham Gynn describes the situation] our main concern was not the record but to show that Tony could train his mind in such a way as to stay awake for 11 days and remain coherent and aware of what was going on around him. That was the main object and I believe what he has done will surprise many scientists who did not believe it was possible.

Tony not only stayed awake but handled 10 media interviews a day…

His diary became increasingly surreal as lack of sleep took its toll, and he spoke slower and slower in interviews on television and radio as the marathon wore on.