The Media Interview

Putting the brakes on guests, Don Newman style

george — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 14:24:49 +0000

Great bit on interviewers interrupting guests. Don Newman is a well-known Canadian political interviewer and recently on the comedy show The Rick Mercer Report, they did a parody commercial selling a DVD boxed set of Don Newman’s greatest political shutdowns.

Under the magnifying glass of public life

george — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 17:48:25 +0000

My neighbour is running for city councillor and his wife was telling me about the first all-candidates meeting he attended. She was shocked at how little things get magnified when you’re in the public eye. For instance, while her husband was listening to other candidates, he was grimacing and frowning, and she realized [...]

Can you find these interviews with J.K. Rowling?

george — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 14:57:54 +0000

Billing itself as “the largest archive of J.K. Rowling interviews on the web” (and when you see it you’ll have no doubt it is), the website Accio Quote! asks fans of the writer to be “canon nifflers” and help find obscure interviews to round out the collection. Any interview nifflers out there? (I am informed [...]

Dealing with the uncertainties of edited media interviews

george — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 15:58:52 +0000

Dealing with the editing of media interviews is never an easy question. Take this post from a conservative blogger’s take on what happened to Alaskan governor Sarah Palin during the 2008 presidential race: Her campaign staff fumbled her introduction to the nation. Her initial interviews were cut by hostile editors in order to make her [...]

Forget satellite split-screens, try a hologram

george — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 14:57:53 +0000

Missed this during CNN’s election coverage, but on November 4 they pulled off a television first - they brought someone into studio via hologram. Correspondent Jessica Yellin was in Chicago, but she was “beamed” into the Washington studio with Wolf Blitzer. As a tip of the hat to Star Trek (and good old [...]

Ralph Nader’s final word on the election

george — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 14:53:40 +0000

In the final hours of the 2008 presidential election, third-party candidate Ralph Nader held a press conference at which he would only reply to questions with single-word answers. MSNBC.com’s Bob Sullivan reported the encounter at Washington’s National Press Club this way: The stilted question-and-answer session felt at times like a bad game of “Jeopardy.” Reporters [...]

ABC News headline writer takes a big leap

george — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 12:54:46 +0000

ABC News posted a promo for an interview with Sarah Palin and the headline makes quite a leap from what’s in even the limited transcript released by ABC. The headline says Palin “vows to remain player in 2012″ although in the partial transcript, when asked if the criticism she’s received makes her want [...]

Portland commissioner parodies homophobic interview

george — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 12:58:36 +0000

If you like the semi-improv comedy stylings of The Office (British or American versions) or Christopher Guest and company (Waiting for Guffman, etc.), you’ll love this parody interview with an actual Portland, Oregon commissioner by the name of Randy Leonard. How he manages to not to crack a smile during his feigned homophobia toward a fellow [...]

Pittsburgh blogger shows how to do retakes

george — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 13:18:44 +0000

If you have to cough or sneeze in the middle of an answer, or a loud truck rolls by in mid-sentence, it’s important that you be able to start again so that they have a complete sentence to edit. You also need to make it sound like you’re doing it for the first time. Pittsburgh [...]

Blind-sided by the obvious - Sarah Palin flunks her first interviews

george — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 13:52:57 +0000

There are three possible explanations for GOP Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s poor showing in her first two major media interviews: 1) she is receiving no media coaching 2) she’s receiving very poor media coaching or 3) she’s receiving good media coaching and is not yet able to implement it. What is even more startling [...]