The Media Interview

The website Media Matters says CNN “deceptively cropped” the June 29th Face the Nation interview with retired General Wesley Clark during a report on its American Morning show June 30th. Here’s the Media Matters transcript of the CNN video clip:
CLARK [video clip]: That large squadron in the Air — in the Navy that he [...]

Ahh, such promise for freedom of the press during the 2008 Olympics in this headline from the Guardian:
Beijing promises open media environment for Olympics
Then we find out that it means this:
“BOCOG will apply a zero refusal policy for interview requests, which means that all requests for interviews will be replied to,” the China Daily quoted [...]

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 [...]

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, [...]

Jason McIntyre co-creator, writer, and editor, of the blog The Big Lead interviewed on Sports Media Guide:
Q. Do you do your interviews by e-mail or phone?
A. Kornheiser was over the phone – he doesn’t do e-mail. I prefer e-mail. I started doing it by e-mail because I was anonymous at the time and didn’t feel [...]

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 [...]

76 year-old country music star George Jones in an interview with the Wichita Falls Times Record News:

Q: You don’t grant many interviews. Why not?
A: I don’t do as many interviews as I used to because, frankly, what else is there to know about me?

Barbara Walters was on CBC’s The Hour recently to talk about her new book Audition, and host George Stroumboulopoulos asked her:
Stroumboulopoulos: Who would you like to be your last interview?
Walters: (long pause) Osama bin Laden… [banter] …I have said that I don’t want to get any more big “gets,” but if Osama bin Laden [...]

Freelance writer Hrag Vartanian blogs about being misquoted:
I was interviewed by Steve Malanga for a recent profile of Bushwick, Brooklyn for City Journal and found this paragraph that proved to me (yet again) that you should always be cautious about giving interviews, even to nice guys–which Steve obviously is:
Some early arrivals claim that landlords hoodwinked [...]

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 [...]