The Media Interview

Answer: carry on as if they did and have your own people pose questions to you.

That’s what FEMA did back on October 23rd. Having informed the media of a briefing on the California wildfires 15 minutes before it was to start, it’s not surprising that no one turned up.

A couple of reporters listened in on the 800 number (listen only - no questions). One of them, a Washington Post reporter, began to notice that the questions apparently being posed by reporters to Deputy Administrator Vice Adm. Harvey E. Johnson were not very probing. Turned out, it was FEMA staff members calling out the questions as if they were reporters.

Here’s what it looked like, as carried live by Fox News:

FEMA’s deputy director of public affairs defended the botched news conference by saying that the questions were ones that reporters had been asking earlier in the day and that Johnson did not know what he was going to be asked. So that’s ok then… hmmmm.

The two most obvious courses of action would have been to reschedule the briefing or read a statement. To pretend that the media is asking questions is to give the impression that some scrutiny is going on.

I’ve never been a huge fan of talk shows (or any show) that has a street-level window for a backdrop. Inevitably, something distracting is happening on the street… like the other morning in Ottawa, Canada:

Morning Show Mooning Revisited - Watch more free videos

Thanks - I think - to Keith Olbermann on Countdown for tipping me off to this video.

NEW YORK, Oct. 23 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Michael D. Brown, Former FEMA Director and Current Director of Cotton Companies, one of the leading disaster preparedness and restoration organizations in the nation, is available for comment regarding the wild fires that are devastating Southern California.

Offering yourself for media interviews when you have expertise on a current news story is smart, but not if your name is currently mud. Michael Brown was one of the officials who oversaw the disastrous response to the Katrina disaster - why would we suppose he’d have anything of value to say about California’s fires?

The problem with a bad rep is that you might have something valuable to say, but we can’t trust you.

I’d also say this was a bad move on the part of Cotton Companies - why would you make the public aware that you’ve hired a person who has no public credibility in your industry?

Wrestler Chris Jericho was on Fight Network Radio recently to talk about his new autobiography, A Lion’s Tale. I loved his response when asked if he was “sick of media interviews yet”:

I’m happy to talk to anybody. I just did an interview with a fourteen-year-old kid that has his own website. And yesterday I did VH1 … national cable news shows, all the way down to a fourteen-year old kid’s website. So, whatever it takes. I’ll come to your birthday party and do an interview for a hot dog and a glass of orange juice, similar to the match that I had in 1991 when I wrestled at a kid’s birthday party for the same payoff. No ketchup or mustard even!

Great attitude - you have to get out and talk to your audience! Thanks to F4Wonline.com for posting the transcript from which this was taken.

A lot of people fall victim to this problem in their media interviews - thanks to Griselda for voicing it:

The word absolutely drives me nuts! Everyone seems to be using this word for every answer instead of yes.

Absolutely, Griselda!

Save words like ‘absolutely’ for the moments when you strongly agree with a point the interviewer or another interviewee has made - if not, then everything takes on the same level of urgency or importance (which of course means, nothing is more important).

One of the dangers of doing phone interviews (or IM interviews) is that you’re free to do all sorts of other things at the same time, as blogger Rene Gutteridge discovered:

…I realized not too long ago that I was getting to an almost frenzied state of multi-tasking. This occurred to me one day during a live radio interview. I was discussing my book and the interviewer was talking about how much she liked it. We were having a very pleasant conversation when suddenly I reached for my mouse to check my e-mail. As I scanned the messages, my mind came to a screeching halt. What am I doing?? Checking my e-mail during a live radio interview? Was I nuts?

NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker on paying for media interviews.

From MediaBistro’s transcript of an interview with FT.com managing editor Chrystia Freeland in June 2007:

ZUCKER: Well look, I think the key thing is, anytime you do an interview with anybody is that you disclose what you’re doing.

FREELAND: So if you say ‘we paid a million dollars for this interview,’ that’s okay?

ZUCKER: Well I don’t know that it’s okay, but certainly, it certainly, uh, disclosure I think goes a long way toward, umm, it goes a long way toward making people understand, uh, what has transpired.
Now, that’s not to say that I think we should be paying for, uh, interviews per se. I think that if somebody has something to say, hopefully there’s a way to do it without any checkbook journalism. I think historically there have been many instances where there have been fees paid for services, videos, photographs, and people have gotten around this, including the most famous interviewers on American television.

FREELAND: So it’s not an entirely new phenomenon?

ZUCKER: I don’t think it’s an entirely new phenomenon, but obviously I believe disclosure is the most important thing.

Advice from a media training guide produced for the Texas Department of Transportation has people talking in the blogosphere and in the mainstream media:

“Keep calm. Leave wrestling to the pigs. They always end up looking like pigs.”

Texas state senator Dan Patrick, who’s a radio talk show host, appeared on Glenn Beck to voice sentiments he also expressed in a letter to the TxDOT:

According to the media report, TxDOT’s vendor refers to those who host or call talk radio as ‘pigs.’ This is just another sad example of the total lack of respect certain segments of government have for the people it is to serve.

I think the point of the advice is: when faced with hostile, crude, obnoxious behaviour during a talk show, don’t act that way yourself - rise above it and remain calm. No one is saying that all talk radio hosts and callers are pigs.

I don’t know what media report the senator was referring to, but it sounds like someone in the media was taking it personally and took the comment out of context. And isn’t it that kind of poor reporting that the TxDOT is trying to fight by being prepared with some media coaching?

According to an article from the San Antonio Express-News, the TxDOT commissioned the media training as part of a campaign to sell people on new toll roads being proposed:

The agency… has a $20,000 contract for talk-radio training for transportation officials with the Rodman Co., which subcontracted with ViaNovo, whose team includes former Bush strategist Matthew Dowd. It plans another $4,500 training class, and the two consulting companies plan two telephone town-hall meetings at a cost of $17,480.

Rodman and ViaNovo worked on the radio training guide, said TxDOT spokesman Chris Lippincott, who also had input on the document, titled “Talking on Talk Radio.”

“The talk radio environment runs the gamut from productive and thoughtful to vitriolic and silly,” Lippincott said. “We certainly want to prepare (agency spokespeople) for all possibilities, and that includes everyone from a skeptical talk-show host to an outright hostile caller.”

Perhaps for halloween I’ll go dressed as a “famous interviewer,” as the costume companies carefully describe him.

This is a follow up to my original posting about NBC reportedly offering $1 million dollars for Paris Hilton’s first post-jail TV interview - some information I missed at the time.

According to a June 21, 2007 report in the NY Post, “NBC Universal boss Jeff Zucker personally called Hilton’s father Rick and made the pitch.”

In a video interview with Financial Times managing editor Chrystia Freeland five days later, Zucker denied any personal involvement:

ZUCKER: …I think our news division was interested in doing an interview with her. There were some demands placed on what it would take to secure that interview–

FREELAND: Financial demands?

ZUCKER: There were some, at certain points. And I think at the end of the day, our folks did not feel comfortable with what was being asked, and so the decision was made to move on.

FREELAND: Does that include you? Were you uncomfortable?

ZUCKER: You know, I wasn’t involved in this. The news division kept me apprised of what they were doing, but ultimately it was their decision. I support their decision.

This transcript is from MediaBistro, where I found the Post and FT links.