The Media Interview

Fascinating issue brewing in Hamilton, Ontario, where a recording and transcript of an “off the record” media interview with the city’s mayor have been released to some media outlets. In that interview with Hamilton Spectator columnist Andrew Dreschel, Mayor Fred Eisenberger apparently reveals some sensitive information from an in-camera council meeting. Dreschel won’t confirm or deny what was said, sticking by the “off the record” nature of the conversation.

It turns out that the mayor’s communications director kept recordings of all media interviews, including this one. Dreschel too kept his own recording of the session. The city councillor who released the recording and transcript won’t say who gave them to him. Speculation on that point is being fueled by the fact that the city is currently being sued by the mayor’s former communications director, apparently for unfair dismissal.

The mayor was quick to admit that he had in fact revealed sensitive information during the “off the record” interview and has called for a police investigation, saying the recording of the interview was stolen.

From an interview with author Mike Cox - on the Writers in the Sky blog - who has written extensively about the Texas Rangers law enforcement organization:

In a way, I’ve been working toward The Texas Rangers: Wearing the Cinco Peso, 1821-1900 all my life. I grew up hearing stories about some of the old-time rangers from my granddad, L.A. Wilke. Then, as a newspaper reporter, I met a fair number of rangers. Finally, as spokesman for the DPS, I dealt with many rangers over a 15-year period. Most of the rangers would sooner be in a gunfight than do a media interview, so I had good job security. [My emphasis]

During my blogging slump earlier this year, one of the blogs I missed reading was PR Buzzsaw from Sawmill Marketing Public Relations - they’ve got a great series of media training tips going, plus lots on PR in general, all done with a fun easy style.

Well, I’m back reading and their Tip #30 is about counting down your points - if you’ve got three points to make, physically count them out on your fingers. Now here’s the nice little twist they give to this advice: “[counting down] signals your agenda to the reporter.” I hadn’t thought of it that way before, but it is a perfect bit of body language to communicate your intentions to the interviewer. Thanks Buzz!

A good reminder from Pam Perry on the PR Distinction blog: taking media training does not mean you don’t have to prepare for each interview. She uses the analogy of exercise, which I’d like to apply in my own way here.

Suppose that you learn a series of exercises to help you stretch before running. First of all, you make sure you do those exercises before each run, but more importantly, you adapt the exercises to each run. If one leg has been hurting, you do different exercises or vary the amount. If you know you’re doing a 10k race, you work out differently than if you were doing a quick mile before breakfast.

Every media interview is different, but your media training gives you tools to deal with each one by properly preparing.

A comment by one of presidential candidate John McCain’s advisors, quoted in a Fortune magazine article, has created quite a stir and raises an interesting issue about the transparency of media interviews.

Here’s part of the LA Times story on the comments by Charlie Black:

Then, the longtime political pro got a bit too honest. Asked about the political impact of another terrorist attack on U.S. soil, Black replied: “Certainly it would be a big advantage to him.”

Black may be correct, but he’s not supposed to be quite so blunt in coldly calculating the upside for McCain of harm coming to Americans. Others — unconnected with the campaign — could offer such an assessment, but he should have dodged the question.

He knows it, and The Times’ Maeve Reston reports that outside a McCain fundraiser today in Fresno, Black said: “I deeply regret the comments — they were inappropriate. I recognize that John McCain has devoted his entire adult life to protecting his country and placing its security before every other consideration.”

McCain, for his part, did what he’s supposed to do — stressing his lifelong commitment to protecting America and flat out disputing Black’s premise. “It’s not true,” he said when asked in Fresno about his aide’s remark.

Black’s regret at his comments suggests that this was indeed a major slip of the tongue during an interview - there’s no claim that he was taken out of context or anything like that.

For the record, here’s the quote in the context of the Fortune article:

On national security McCain wins. We saw how that might play out early in the campaign, when one good scare, one timely reminder of the chaos lurking in the world, probably saved McCain in New Hampshire, a state he had to win to save his candidacy - this according to McCain’s chief strategist, Charlie Black. The assassination of Benazir Bhutto in December was an “unfortunate event,” says Black. “But his knowledge and ability to talk about it reemphasized that this is the guy who’s ready to be Commander-in-Chief. And it helped us.” As would, Black concedes with startling candor after we raise the issue, another terrorist attack on U.S. soil. “Certainly it would be a big advantage to him,” says Black.

While it seems that the reporter has been accurate in framing this quote - Black has had ample opportunity to challenge the accuracy - it would be fascinating to read the transcript of that portion of the interview.

It’s a good example of how we trust journalists (mainstream or otherwise) to boil down all of their information into a story which still accurately captures meaning. Sadly, that trust is lacking among the general public - journalists are often well down in the poll results of people we trust - and I think one way they can regain that is to use the freedom of the internet to back up their stories with transparency (printing transcripts, for example). Which is not to say that this is an easy thing to do; how would you like people questioning your work based on the misjudgments or outright lies of others in your industry?

As for Black, I like the LA Times comment: “he should have dodged the question.”

Sage words from the PR Lawyer Blog:

So, I’m sitting here five hours later wondering to myself, “What did I say on that interview earlier today.” My media relations advice is: don’t ever talk to anyone after having Novocaine. Go home. Shut your door. And go to bed!

Coldplay lead singer Chris Martin simply got up and left in the middle of an interview on BBC Radio 4’s Front Row program, leaving presenter John Wilson and the band’s drummer Will Champion to carry on:

Wilson: Do you start with that idea, Chris… [sound in background] did you start with the song Viva La Vida, and the idea within that song of the deposed dictator looking back on his life… [voice in background] is that… could I just ask you just to move back in to the mike [garbled]

Martin: [off mike] ….I’m not really enjoying this…

Wilson: Aren’t you?…

Martin: [off mike] Yeah…

Wilson: Why?…

Martin: [off mike] [garbled] two minutes…

Wilson: Sure.. yeah… You feeling a bit under pressure?

Martin: [off mike] No. Yeah. I just don’t really like having to talk about things.

Wilson: Really? [long pause with muffled sounds and voices in back] Have I upset him?

Champion: I don’t think so.

Wilson: [slightly off mike] …I don’t think I said anything conscious[garbled]…

Champion: No, no, I don’t think so…

Wilson: Well, let me ask you [the interview continues on]

Then at the very end of the interview, Chris Martin returns for one last question:

Wilson: Chris, can I just attempt to.. to begin bringing you back by… reminding you of a couple of things you said in the… [Martin: uh huh] before the album was released, you said the process was about letting the garden grow unkempt, letting the bloodhound off the leash [Martin: uh huh] uh, so you were… consciously trying to… find new musical territory then…

Martin: Um… [clears throat] yes, yes, yes… exactly [pause]

Wilson: [Closing show] Reluctant pop star Chris Martin…

My transcription of parts of the full interview which you can listen to online.

Wilson had made some comments during the early part of the interview about Coldplay’s newest album being morbid, and Martin had disagreed with that, but it wasn’t entirely clear why Martin got up and left.

What’s interesting here is that this was not a live interview; the BBC deliberately left in the sequence I’ve transcribed above. I’ve noticed more and more mainstream media doing that - leaving in things from an interview which would have been removed in the past.

I wonder if it’s partly a response to the more free-wheeling podcasting of the internet and also the ability of bands (or anyone) to post the full transcripts of interviews to try and counter what they see as mainstream media taking things out of context.

The worlds of US politics and journalism are still reeling from the sudden death on Friday of Meet the Press host Tim Russert. The 58 year old Washington bureau chief for NBC news had just finished taping The Tim Russert Show for CNBC and was working on voice-overs for Sunday’s Meet the Press when he collapsed and died of a heart attack.

Russert took over the helm of Meet the Press in 1991 and was the longest-serving host of the 60 year old institution. Many people have quoted Russert as saying it wasn’t his show - he was only a custodian of it - but Lawrence K Grossman, the president of NBC news 1984-1988, gave this assessment to the NY Times:

[Tim Russert] saved ‘Meet the Press,’ which had been in big trouble because it was not being watched, it was a half hour, it wasn’t different from the other programs. It had launched the whole Sunday morning information programming but had been very disappointing and nothing seemed to fix it properly until he came along.

I’ve gathered some quotes about Russert’s interview style from the many TV tributes over the weekend.

Betsy Fischer, Executive Producer for Meet the Press, commenting on how Russert’s legal background helped him:

…the way he would structure the questions was very lawyerly. He always knew how a candidate was going to respond - he was prepared enough to know that - and he would sketch it out in his mind: I’m going to ask A, that’ll get us to B, that’ll get us around to C, and then… there’s D. And he knew how to get you into that cycle and he was very skilled at that.

Political strategist James Carville, who prepared many politicians to be on Meet the Press:

… it was a very easy show to prepare for, in the sense you knew he was not going to ask you any questions out of left field, you knew his thing was going to be entitlements, you knew his thing was going to be past statements, you knew… you knew where he was coming from. So, in one sense it was a very hard show, but you could prepare for it, because it was very fair, always very fair.

As one of the other commentators put it, it was your own fault if you messed up on Meet the Press because you didn’t do your homework the way Russert did.

Former Secretary of State Madeline Albright, appearing on Larry King Live, was someone who experienced firsthand Russert’s penchant for finding old quotes and playing them back for guests:

It was such an honor to be on his show and yet it was terrifying, I’ve got to tell you. …we would all get ourselves ready and prepared to be on the show and I ah, heard some of your other guests talking about these quotes that he would put up. I remember the first time it happened to me, I came back to my office and I said ‘You guys are not going to believe this - Tim had me debating with myself.’ [Laughter] You know, how could I have said that? And so, it was really an amazing method of extracting information, but the part about it too, Larry, was that he always let you answer and really be able to explain yourself, even if it sometimes it was difficult.

I haven’t been able to find the quote, but someone else mentioned that Russert was very good at really listening to what a guest had to say - he didn’t just throw out these quotes and then move on, he listened to the response and followed up with relevant questions.

Comedy writer Mike Snider has a great list of RADARs that people possess. It’s a take off on the notion of Gay-Dar, the ability immediately to know if someone is gay or straight. The list is hilarious, but this one jumped out to someone obsessed with media interviews:

ReallyFarDar - ability of spokespeople for NASA and JPL giving media interviews to sense which folksy metaphors or slang terms for large astronomical distances will resonate with particular audiences.

Barbara Walters on one of the main reasons she stopped doing the TV newsmagazine 20/20 back in 2004:

…it seemed that every celebrity, every murderer…had a lawyer or a press agent all interviewing the interviewer to determine where they could get the most airings for their clients, what kind of questions would be asked, and how much promotion and advertising would be guaranteed. The interviewer had to audition to land the interview.

From her memoir Audition, p.561.