The Media Interview

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.

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.

Part of a posting by Alex Zuffoletti, a graduate student in journalism, about her class’s trip to the IMG/Bollettieri Academy, which trains high-level athletes:

one talk that I did enjoy was with these two former actors. They led the “game on” aspect of the program, which basically teaches sports stars, or wannabe sports stars, to not bore everyone with their talk about their training, their sports performance, and their diet. They need to have “coins” (interests, personal qualities, something fascinating to say), so that people will want to be friends with them, and so that they don’t look like stupid jocks when the media interviews them.

I’m not sure about wanting people to be friends with you, but having “coins” to use during your media interview is crucial for connecting with your audience.

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.

Having finished a confrontational radio interview, Lowell Massachusetts school committee member, Jackie Doherty attends a breakfast meeting and is introduced to one of the radio station’s owners:

We talked about whether radio had to be nasty to attract listeners. He said you can have “provocative” radio without being overly negative (wouldn’t that be something).

The culture of radio in the United States over the last couple of decades has grown increasingly confrontational. Whether you experience this, of course, depends on how controversial your subject matter is, but I think some radio personalities will look for controversy and confrontation on any subject because they feel that’s what their listeners want. It’s yet another reason for making sure you’re familiar with the style and personality of your host before going into an interview.

It always pays to know at least a bit about the reporter, the show, the blog, the station, etc. before you go into an interview. Here’s how internet marketing expert David Erickson prepped for a recent radio interview:

Considering the topic, I did some online research about her and learned a great deal about the reporter. I discovered plenty of news stories she’d produced, so I got a feel for what she was interested in professionally. I learned where she had gone to college, some of her attitudes about college, that she is very smart because she’d been awarded some fellowships to work abroad, so I also knew where she had traveled. I found a full color photograph of her.

Further, from the information I found, I could also deduce her age and her income. I had essentially built a fairly comprehensive demographic and psychographic profile of this reporter.

Now, to be fair, Erickson was doing the interview about online reputations and the reporter had asked that she be scrutinized for her reputation. Still, it shows how much you can fairly easily dig up about people nowadays through the web. There are no excuses any more for not knowing something about your interviewer.

Finally got to see the much-talked-about Paris Hilton interview on Letterman last week. I’m no fan of Hilton’s public persona, but I felt for her to a certain extent. Letterman starts in with questions about her stay in prison, and never ever lets up. Even after 4 minutes, when Hilton says she doesn’t want to talk about prison, there’s another four minutes of prison questions and she gets closer and closer to tears.

The biggest problem here is that Hilton doesn’t take the bull by the horns - she just passively waits for the next question. After a couple of prison questions, she’s got to see where this is going, and that was her opportunity to go on the offensive, talk about prison on her own terms, make some jokes about herself, and turn things around. But she’s a deer in the headlights.

Don’t know who’s advising Paris Hilton these days, but she really seems unprepared for being asked questions about her time in prison. Could be they thought that this was an entertainment show and the focus would be on her new perfume and movie, etc., but Letterman? It didn’t even cross your mind that he’d at least make a joke about her jail time?

Lesson learned: Always be prepared when you know there’s something controversial about you - have some way to diffuse the situation, or in this case, a great chance to poke some fun at yourself.

According to Mollygood, Hilton broke down completely after leaving the set. I also liked Mollygood’s final comment:

Sad to know that she has to go onto a comedy show to get even slightly tough questions about her prison stay.

Anyone who’s been on a long media tour or simply didn’t get enough sleep before an interview will really feel for Israeli President, Shimon Peres, as he literally nods off on live TV.

Author Carolyn Hughley is doing her first TV interview in the morning and she’s having a bit of trouble sleeping…

I crawled back out of bed and headed to the bathroom to take two sleep aids, thinking they might help. I no sooner swallowed that last pill when I suddenly began worrying that I’d sleep too soundly and not hear the alarm. Then I worried maybe the alarm wouldn’t go off, or I’d forget the things I wanted to say.

To find out how the rest of the night went and what happened at the interview, check out this blog posting from Carolyn, the self-proclaimed “Queen of Worry.”

Reading through a post by Mr. Obie Joe about his disappointment upon hearing a favourite online journalist speaking live, I was reminded of one of my favourite scenes from the movie Singing in the Rain, when silent screen star Lina Lamont opens her mouth to do her first talkie. Yikes, does she sound like THAT?

A similar revolution is happening in the world of the internet and in mainstream broadcast media to some extent. Everybody is getting their 15 minutes on camera or on mike - sometimes a lot more, sadly - and maybe they should have stayed in print or been completely anonymous.

Who cares if you’re coming across poorly on some video blog? Well, if you’re just after YouTube fame, maybe it doesn’t matter, but if you’re interested in credibility, think about preparing yourself for ANY media opportunity. As we love to point out on this blog: what goes on the net, stays on the net.

UPDATE: Here’s what happens when someone tries to make the transition to video unsuccessfully - you get blogbasted!