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The Interview
Reporters want answers to their questions. You should have an agenda of what you want to accomplish by the interview, and determine what messages to communicate in order to accomplish it. Without an agenda your interview will accomplish little. Without being interesting to the reporter, the interview will be short and you will not manage to communicate your messages. In a successful interview you interest the reporter while communicating your messages.Table of Contents
- Initial Contact
- Stating Your Terms
- Preparation
- Recording the Interview
- During The Interview
- Conclusion
An interview is the most common way of exposure in the media. The main problem with interviews is that they are edited extensively. What you say can be cut up, shuffled around and rewritten. This increases the chance that what gets published is not what you intended. Our goal is to craft quotes which are used as is, without editing.
Initial Contact
If somebody wants to interview you, and you are not prepared, do not respond to any question upon the initial contact with the journalist. This is a time for you to ask questions, in order to prepare for the interview. If the reporter contacts you for an immediate interview, you can ask to call back in 10 minutes because you are busy (you really are busy... you are preparing for an interview!!) and use them to collect yourself."Interview" the Reporter!
When a reporter approaches you, you need to size up the reporter and the story assignment. You can ask the questions as part of the social chat: Here are some ideas for questions, which can help you prepare for the interview:- The Assignment
- What exactly is the story assignment, and who thought it up.
- When will the story run, what is the deadline
- How much time/space the story will be given.
- Who else the reporter has/is going to interview.
- What other research the reporter has done.
- The Reporter
- The reporter's knowledge and opinions related to the story.
- Some idea of the reporter's intelligence and experience.
- The Interview
- What does s/he want from you.
- How the interview is to be made: it could be via email, via the phone, or face to face.
Dealing with Preconceptions
If there are preconceptions about the subject, and the story assignment came from the editor, it will be very hard to convince the reporter the story concept should be abandoned. A reporter may have a preconceived story in mind. However, we can suggest a different story to replace it. This way the reporter doesn't go back to his editor empty handed. If the reporter is working on a wrong preconception you need to set the facts straight immediately. The strength of your objection may impact the direction of the story. At first be friendly, but if the reporter persists with the original story you should get more aggressive and provide more information, detail and substantiation.You are an Expert, not a Teacher
Don't try to "teach" the reporter and do not refer the reporter to overly complex resources, like books, in order to "educate" them. Trying to "teach" the reporter may add confusion and increase inaccuracies. Reporters are not experts enough and lack the time to sort through great amounts of information you provide them, and choose the main points. Instead, you should take it upon yourself to summarize the important points from such complex resources in advance and communicate them, and only them. Provide the reporters only what it takes to write the story you want. Sum it all up in several sentences. This gives you an opportunity to control what gets printed, and the reporters will appreciate it as well.Stating Your Terms
For total control you can write and publish on the internet. These are great activities, but they probably cannot get the same impact as media coverage. Once you agree to do the interview then you have agreed to give up control. Whatever conditions you may have should be determined in advance with the reporter. There are limits to the demands you can impose on journalists. Furthermore, they might promise you something yet not be able to deliver on it, since they depend on other people. An editor might decide to rewrite the article, and it would get published before the journalist has time to object.Anonymity
The RTNDA code of ethics allows confidential sources when the person providing the information might be harmed. Publicizing the identity of interviewed ashers may have severe implications upon how they are treated in the work place and by their families. The family of an "outed" asher may forcibly hospitalize them. An asher who is a teacher in an elementary school might be fired. So an asher could argue for his anonymity. On the other hand, the situation might be different for people with professions who are accountable to the public such as politicians, teachers, doctors, and other people who are responsible for government spending, public health or public safety. These are less likely to be allowed to remain anonymous since their behavior can affect their service to the public, thus the right of the public to know may override the importance of personal privacy.Control over Content
Journalists are unlikely to give you the questions in advance especially for radio and TV interviews. Giving the questions is considered unethical since interviews are supposed to be spontaneous. However, reporters can disclose the broad topic. Most reporters won't let you see a story before it is published, but it doesn't hurt to ask. You might get luckier with reporters from weekly newspapers and rural communities, but not with big-city newspapers. From the reporter's point of view, the problem with showing you the story is that you become essentially like another editor, but since you are biased you may influence the reporter to such a degree that the story loses objectivity. In fear of your words being distorted, you may want to condition the interview such that your words will appear unedited, however, editors cannot usually accept such conditions since this is essentially handing over responsibility to somebody else, when in fact it is the editors who have the legal responsibility. A news organization can be sued for various behaviors, so they cannot sublet their responsibility to somebody else. However, you can make a condition that either your words will appear unedited, or they will not appear at all. This leaves the editor in control, and thus is more likely to be accepted. However, to be quoted you will probably have to be brief.Preparation
- Learn about the medium and audience of the publication. Read the journalist's publication on the Internet or buy a copy.
- Read the reporter's previous articles.
Recording the Interview
If you can, record the interview. You can listen to it afterwards to improve your skills as an interviewee, but it also tells the reporter that you will have a transcript and thus the reporter might be more careful in quoting you correctly. Furthermore, in case you want to complain, you have the tape to back your claims. Before recording the interview (made either by phone or face to face) ask "You don't mind if I record this, do you?".During The Interview
In addition to looking for anything that is Newsworthy the reporter is looking for emotions, in order to bring the story to life. Expressing emotions shows your humanity. Communicating your exact feelings, succinctly, can be done by choosing an appropriate word that say how you feel, for example: abandoned, abused, aggravated, afraid, alienated, angry, betrayed, cheated, deceived, deserted, frightened, helpless, hounded, mad, hopeless, isolated, outnumbered, pessimistic, sad, scared, victimized, powerless, surrounded. You can remember and use such keywords in communucating your attitude towards society, psychologists, etc... Reporters also look for analysis: an assessment of the situation. But don't go into too much detail. They want the bottom line, in everyday language. During the interview, you should repeat the central idea of your agenda. It should be short: one sentence.- Attitude
- Don't hold a grudge against reporters which have written bad articles about ash in the past. Holding a grudge will result in bad relations and will decrease your effectiveness in communicating your messages.
- Stay calm and collected. Don't be arrogant or try to fight with the reporter, there is no way you can win.
- Stay alert and in control. Retain control by being assertive and supporting your statements, for example, with facts, quotes or references.
- Listen carefully to the questions, and if you do not understand, ask for clarification.
- Remain focused on what you want to accomplish, and what you want to say.
- Before Answering
- Take your time: the journalist should typically be more concerned about what you say, and not how fast you say it. Do not get frustrated if you cannot answer immediately. Collect your thoughts.
- Do not be afraid of silence: some journalists may actually use silence as a technique to make you come out with unplanned information. You should take particular care of this if you are the type of person which likes to please others.
- Answering
- Never allow wrongful allegations to go unanswered: correct the journalist immediately. Do not repeat the incorrect information or question, since repeating may appear to reinforce it.
- Try not to avoid questions, instead give a brief answer to problematic questions.
- Be prepared for TrickQuestions.
- Answer Plus One: each question is an opportunity to communicate one of your key messages. Answer the question, and then add one of the key messages according to your plan. Build a bridge to your agenda by using phrases like "Let me put that into perspective" or "Let me put that into a different context."
Conclusion
Guidelines to giving good interviews are not difficult, but applying them during an interview is. You must prepare and practice in advance. Review the game plan and do a practice interview. Go over your key messages and answer the questions from your game plan. If possible find another asher, have him devise questions, and practice the interview.EverDawn
