One Hand Clapping

Media training
I've been heavily multitasking today, and not with computer matters.

Jeff Jarvis will be on CNN tonight at 10 p.m. EDT, being interviewed about Michael Moore's latest travesty, Fahrenheit 9/11. Jeff saw the film and reviewed it here. Hint: he didn't like it, which is the understatement of the year.
Update: In an all-too-brief segment, Jeff appeared thus -->

Good on yer, Jeff!

Speaking of being interviewed, an Irish interviewer kept interrupting President Bush during a taping to be shown later in the auld country. In the 11-minute interview, the reporter interrupted five times.

"Let me finish. Let me finish. May I finish?" Bush said early in his interview with Radio and Television Ireland Thursday, according to a transcript released Friday.

Has the prez never had media training? Okay, he is the president and should be granted a certain level of courtesy that you might not grant a county alderman, but still, that just isn't how you handle interruptions. Here's how (I used to teach this stuff):

You, answering question 1: "And so that decision led to a reconstitution of nixworthy optional developments, which made the board of directors adjourn for lunch at the beach. This was notwithstanding the fact that the Dow Jones average had been arrested only the night before ..."

Reporter: "But what about the left-threaded kanootin valve?"

You smile briefly and say: "We can come back to that, but I was explaining that with Dow Jones having to make bail, the practice at Carnegie Hall for the LA Lakers was postponed until the thirty-third of last month. ..."

Reporter: "Isn't it true that the wamplepopper can't succeed without the correct kanootin valve?"

You: "However, with the Lakers cancelling their session at Carnegie, the inflation rate was called to testify before the Senate Prawnwhumping Oversight Committee" (and so forth).

The point is that when being interviewed to remember it is your interview, not the reporter's. You make the points you want to make. Don't let him/her control the topics or the agenda.

Another interviewing anecdote: I served in the Pentagon in the Army's Office of the Chief of Public Affairs when the old USSR went away and much more vigorous military-to-military contacts between the Russian Federation (now gone, too) and the USA were being done.

My boss, Col. Rick Kiernan, was part of a team that attempted to introduce American concepts of public affairs to the Russian army. There were other teams doing other subjects, of course. But the Russian army, no longer the Soviet army, was faced with having to found an actual media-relations office that responded to public and media inquiries, rather than just hand out the Party's latest swill.

In the class on handling media relations for high rankers, a Russian officer asked how much per hour to charge a reporter for interviewing a general - did the rate go up as the rank went up?

Col. Kiernan explained that the idea was to make sure the army's accurate information was put before the public through the media, so they should be eager to arrange interviews for generals and marshals, not charge reporters to conduct them.

Light bulb moment, yes? Alas, the next question: "Oh, then we should pay the reporters to interview our generals! That way they will have to print what we tell them to."

As Rick said to me later, "It occurred to me that there was some really basic work that had to be done."

by Donald Sensing, 6/25/2004 08:40:02 PM. Permalink |

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