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 [...]

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 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 [...]

A fascinating new trend in interviewing has emerged during the course of the US presidential primaries: the live-to-web editorial board interview. Sitting around the table with editors of a media outlet is a long-standing tradition, but the idea of streaming it live over the internet adds some interesting new dimensions.
Take the editorial board meeting [...]

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 [...]

A public relations firm out of Florida recently offered to media coach President George Bush, for free. An article in the South Florida Daily Business News says that O’Connell & Goldberg Public Relations made the offer back in August. According to the article, the firm feels
there’s plenty that could be done to help [...]

The days of hiding behind the microphone in a radio studio are long gone, at least for anyone in the public eye. Either the video media is covering the interview, or the station itself is making a video, or it’s even being simulcast over the web or some TV channel. Just look at [...]

Love this observation from the Capital Cloak blog:
Professional athletes and government intelligence officials have at least one shared characteristic: Both give a lot of media interviews, but despite an abundance of words spoken neither offers anything beyond tired clichés. I often wonder why journalists bother conducting such interviews. Rarely will a professional athlete state anything [...]

U.S. Senator Trent Lott gives a very clear example of the “Sorry, but the answer will have to wait until I make my point first” technique for handling live interviews:
BLITZER: I know you have concerns about this troop increase going forward in Iraq. But I just want you to spell out what your concerns are.
LOTT: [...]

I’m not sure how straight many of the answers were 20 years ago - questions were just avoided with less pinache perhaps - but this journalist makes a good point about the effects of media training on political interviews:
…twenty years ago you could interview people and ask them straight questions and have a reasonable chance [...]