Don’t Say Too Much
One of the most common mistakes people make when talking to reporters is trying to say too much. It happens in a couple ways:
Too many messages: If you have more than three messages for an interview, you’re not focused enough. You won’t get more than three messages into a story. Usually, you’ll be doing good to get one or two messages into the story. If you throw too many messages at a reporter, s/he may choose one of the ones you don’t care about. And no one, including the reporter, will remember them all. Say too much and your message will get lost.
You should have a primary message — your “headline” — and at most two secondary messages. Focus on your headline. That’s the one thing you want the reporter to hear if s/he misses or ignores everything else you say and the one thing you want people who see the story to hear, understand and remember.
Opening too many doors: I like to think of interviews as happening in a room with a lot of doors. Your job is to open the door that leads to your story. Every time you answer a question, you potentially open another door. If you open too many doors, the reporter may find a find a more interesting story behind one of them than the one you want to tell. Try not to open any doors except the one that leads to your story. Then make it interesting enough that the reporter will be willing to stay there.
That’s my two cents’ worth. What’s yours? Next week: More mistakes people make during interviews.
———
The Monday Morning Media Minute is now available as an eBook. My new eStore features five eBooks based on the Media Minute. To check them out, visit my eStore and buy early and often. The eBooks come as PDF files. You don’t need special eBook software to read them.
Tags: Media Interviews, media minute, media relations, Media Training, Messages, monday morning media minute