Monday Morning Media Minute

It’s usually easier to come up with the right answers if you know in advance what the questions are.

Most reporters won’t give you a list of questions before an interview.  But you can – and should – come up with your own list as you prepare.

With a little thought, you should be able to figure out most of the questions you’ll be asked most of the time.  Much of the time, you’ll be able to figure out all of the questions you’ll be asked.  And then you can figure out what your answers are before you find yourself face-to-face with the reporter.

Last week, I heard a BBC radio story about “salary transparency” – the idea that all employees should know how much their fellow employees are paid.

There’s an obvious question for every interview on that topic:  How much money do you make?

That question came at the end of the story I heard.  And both of the spokespeople promoting salary transparency refused to say.

After a little hemming and hawing, the first one to respond said he’d have to check to find out what his company’s policy is before he could say.  He clearly hadn’t given any thought to the possibility this question would come up.

His colleague, who had the benefit of hearing his stumble, said other employees within her own company knew the answer but she wasn’t free to tell people outside the company.  Why not?  And I’m not sure I believe her since she wouldn’t give a more transparent response.

With those responses, these two spokespeople negated everything they’d said during the interview about salary transparency.  And it sounded like neither of them had anticipated the question.

That kind of stumble can negate the success of any interview.  Don’t let it happen to you.

That’s my two cents’ worth.  What’s yours?

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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.

Consider the difference in these two statements:

“Mark my words. It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy.”

“Mark my words. It will not be six months before the world tests our next president . . . and Barack Obama is the candidate who has the brains and judgment to meet that test.”

If you were paying attention to the presidential race even a little bit last week, you recognize the first version as coming from Joe Biden.  It was a mistake because it supported one of the key messages of John McCain — that Obama doesn’t have the experience to be President of the United States.

With a very small change in wording, along the lines of the second version, Biden could have stayed on message and out of trouble.

Two points.

Point Number 1: Anyone who talks to or within earshot of reporters regularly should know immediately that Biden’s statement was a problem.  Anyone who doesn’t understand how to avoid this kind of mistake shouldn’t be speaking on behalf of your organization in any setting that could lead to news coverage.  If you have an executive or spokesperson person prone to gaffes like this one, get them media trained.  And make sure they understand the difference between the two statements that appear above:  The first one points to your guy as having a problem and the second points to your guy as the one who can stand up to the inevitable challenges ahead.  There’s a big difference.

Point Number 2: If you have an executive or spokesperson who continues to make gaffes like this one even after being media trained, try to find a way to keep that person from talking to reporters – even if it’s your CEO.  Joe Biden’s a U.S. senator and a candidate for vice president.  He’s going to say things that are quoted by reporters.  But he’s famous for this kind of mistake.  If they could, Obama’s media handlers would never let Biden talk in public without a script.  If your CEO repeatedly makes this kind of mistake and isn’t trainable, you may have to live with it.  But look for strategies to have someone else talk to reporters instead, if you can.

That’s my two cents’ worth.  What’s yours?

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The Monday Morning Media Minute is now available as an eBook.  My 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.

Rosanne Gain of Colorado Springs sent me a link to a blog entry last week encouraging speakers not to emulate Barack Obama.  Not because he’s a bad speaker.  But because he’s good enough to get away with things the rest of us shouldn’t do.

“If Barack Obama is indeed elected President, he will turn out to be one of the most articulate Presidents ever,” says Blogger Jon Greer.

But, Greer notes: “Since he’s so articulate, he can get away with things other speakers can’t and shouldn’t try.”

That’s good advice when it comes to working with reporters, too.  Some people are better at pitching stories and doing interviews than others.  If you have a choice, pick the person who will do the best job of telling your story.  Sometimes that’s the CEO or the executive in charge of whatever your story is about.  But not always.

That’s my two cents’ worth.  What’s yours?

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The Monday Morning Media Minute is now available as an eBook.  My 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.

Remember Sarah Palin?  The one running for vice president.

After delivering an acceptance speech that turned her into something of a political rock star, Palin’s largely disappeared from public and media view.  And the few interviews she’s done have been – to put it kindly – less than rousing successes.

From outside, it looks like the McCain campaign has put their VP candidate under wraps because they’re afraid she’s not ready to handle questions from the media.  Understandable at first since she hasn’t been on the national political stage before.  But at some point it becomes an issue.

I’ll leave it to you to make up your own mind about Palin and whether she should be talking more often to reporters.

But the media fortress that’s been built around her reminds me of a problem I see too often within companies and agencies who see themselves as besieged by a hostile media.  They simply quit talking to reporters except when they feel they have no choice.  And they go into the few interviews they do with a chip on their shoulder, assuming the reporter’s only there to do them harm.

The problem with this kind fortress mentality is that it fosters the kind of negative coverage it’s designed to protect against.

Some reporters do practice gotcha journalism.  Most don’t.  But reporters are human.  And, like all of us, they draw conclusions about the people they come in touch with based on how those people react around them.

Most of us assume that people who are constantly on the defensive have something to hide.  Reporters do, too.  And they’ll reflect that in the stories they write.  Most of us assume that people who defend the indefensible or say things that are misleading or untrue are untrustworthy.  Reporters do, too.  And they’ll reflect that in the stories they write.  And that’s the very behavior that seems to go with a fortress mentality when it comes to dealing with the media.

You don’t have to answer every question a reporter asks – or even agree to every interview.  But if you’re too evasive at some point it becomes an issue.  And if you have a chip on your shoulder every time you do an interview because you assume the reporter’s only out to “get” you, you’re not going to like most of the stories written about you.

Talking to reporters is different than talking to your neighbor.  You need to understand how to tell your story effectively and stay on message.  That’s one reason why good media training is so important.

But if you know the rules of engagement, have a solid story to tell and tell it clearly you’ll do just fine most of the time.  Or at least that’s been my experience.

That’s my two cents’ worth.  What’s yours?

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The Monday Morning Media Minute is now available as an eBook.  My 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.

How important is media training?  How important is your job to you?

Don’t take my word for it.  Ask Carly Fiorina.  She was unceremoniously dumped last week as a spokesperson for John McCain after she told a radio interviewer Sarah Palin isn’t qualified to run a major corporation and later clarified her statement to say McCain isn’t, either.

Apparently realizing her mistake, Fiorina quickly added that Barack Obama and Joe Biden aren’t up to the job, either.  But too late.  The damage was already done.

A few folks suggested Fiorina obviously wasn’t qualified to run a major corporation, either.  She was fired as CEO of HP several years ago before being hired — and subsequently fired — as a spokesperson for McCain.

I committed journalism for 20 years before changing places 25 years ago to spend part of my time answering questions from reporters.  I assume I’m putting my job on the line every time I do.

Screwing up a single interview probably won’t cost you your job — unless you stumble as badly as Fiorina did.  But one bad interview — or even one inadvertent comment overheard by a reporter you didn’t know was around — can hurt your career.

And most of the time it isn’t lying or factual mistakes that get people into trouble.  The damage comes from getting off message.  More often than not people get into trouble for saying something that’s “true” but embarrassing.

Does that mean you should lie to reporters?  No.  But it’s important to stay on message.  And it’s important to recognize when a reporter has asked you a no-win question and to know how to respond without falling into the trap of saying something you shouldn’t.

Good media training — and regular refreshers — will help you keep on message.  How important is that?  How important is your job to you?

That’s my two cents’ worth.  What’s yours?

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The Monday Morning Media Minute is now available as an eBook.  My 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.

Last week I listed eight common interview mistakes.  Here are eight things you can do to make your interviews more successful:

1. Have a clear objective: Know what you want to happen as a result of talking to this reporter.  A “positive” story isn’t specific enough.  Why are you talking to this reporter?
2. Have a clear message: Be able to repeat it in 15 seconds or less.  Not because of soundbites (most of them are shorter than that), but because if you can’t say your message in 15 seconds or less you haven’t made it simple enough and clear enough for the rest of us to hear it, understand it and remember it.
3. Talk to your audience: Everybody’s favorite subject is me.  Know what you want to accomplish, but talk about it in terms your audience will care about.  I’m less interested in a story about you than I am in a story that’s useful to me.
4. Be responsive: Answer the reporter’s questions unless there’s a good reason why you can’t — the answer’s confidential or you don’t know the answer, for example.
5. Be honest: Real honesty involves some transparency.  Saying things that are literally true, but misleading, isn’t being honest.  You probably don’t want to share your deepest, darkest secrets with reporters.  But sometimes conceding a small, obvious flaw buys you more credibility for the points you really care about.
6. Be yourself: What you say is important.  How you say it is, too.  You don’t have to be “polished” or a great orator as long as you’re believable and likable.  For most people that means being yourself.
7. Get to the point: Deliver your punch line first, then add the supporting details.  Building to a conclusion usually isn’t a good idea when talking to reporters.  Start with your message and then tell me why.
8. Stick to the point: Be responsive to the reporter’s questions.  But come back to your message every chance you get.

That’s my two cents’ worth.  What’s yours?

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The Monday Morning Media Minute is now available as an eBook.  My 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.

Interviews are the most important tool for telling your story to the media.  And the most dangerous.  For the past few weeks, I’ve been discussing some of the most common mistakes people make during interviews.  Here’s a list summarizing eight of the most common ones:

1. Being unprepared:  Without question, the most common mistake people make when talking to reporters.  Sometimes it’s because they’re overconfident – executives who are good speakers and think they can wing it, for example.  Sometimes it comes from not realizing the importance of being prepared.  And sometimes it happens because the person being interviewed doesn’t know what s/he wants to say.  You should know what your objective is (why you’re talking to the reporter), who your audience is and what your message is before beginning any interview.
2. Overselling the story:  Reporters interview people every day who oversell their stories by being too optimistic and refusing to acknowledge obvious problems.  Think about the people you know who do that when talking to you.  You don’t believe them.  Reporters won’t believe you, either, if you oversell your story.  Do it too often and your credibility will be ruined for good.
3. Saying too much:  If you have more than three messages (including one primary one) for any given interview, you aren’t focused enough.  Throw too many messages at a reporter and the one you care about may not be the one that ends up in the story.  And failing to stick to your message is a formula for saying things you shouldn’t.
4. Saying too little:  There are times when it’s perfectly okay to remain silent when reporters want to talk to you. But when the public health and safety are at stake, you’ll be expected to disclose information and answer reporters’ questions.  The stronger reporters and the public feel that you owe them an answer, the more likely you are to pay a price for remaining silent or limiting what you say.
5. Speaking hypothetically:  Reporters love to ask hypothetical questions to get people to say more than they should.  Any time a reporter asks you a question that includes a variation of “what if,” alarm bells should go off in your head.  Don’t speculate or respond to the hypothetical scenario described by the reporter.  Stick to facts you know.
6. No line in the sand:  If you change your position on a topic or situation to fit what’s convenient on any given day reporters will learn to distrust you.  Be consistent in speaking your truth, even if that feels inconvenient at times.
7. Being combative:  We’ve all seen news stories where the person being interviewed becomes angry and argumentative.  Have you ever seen one where the person being combative won the argument?  Me, neither.
8. Being dishonest:  As obvious as it is, it requires repeating.  You’re entitled to a point of view and to make the case for your point of view.  Most reporters won’t fault you for that.  They will fault you for being dishonest.  Being dishonest includes being misleading by saying something that may be “true” but is designed to mislead.  One lie can destroy your credibility forever.

That’s my two cents’ worth.  What’s yours?  Next week:  More mistakes people make during interviews.

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The Monday Morning Media Minute is now available as an eBook.  My 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.

Don’t let the facts get in the way of your story.

Every good storyteller follows this rule.  So should you.  No, I’m not suggesting you play fast and loose with the truth.  Far from it.

This is about boiling your story down to its essence.

You don’t memorize the morning newspaper or the evening news.  Your audience won’t memorize what you say, either.

One of the most common mistakes people make when talking to reporters is sharing too much information.  Most of the time, too many details will blur your message — the real nuggets of what you have to say.

Assume reporters will ignore 98 percent of what you say and everyone else will forget 98 percent of what you say.  Focus on the two percent that matters.

That’s my two cents’ worth.  What’s yours?  Next week:  More mistakes people make during interviews.

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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.

What if you could rule the universe for a day, with your every whim coming true? Would you end world poverty? Bring peace to the Middle East? Give yourself a trillion dollars? All that and more?

A fun parlor game, perhaps. But if it’s a question from a reporter, beware. Any time a reporter asks you any question with “what if” or some variation in it an alarm bell should go off in your head.

Reporters use hypothetical questions a lot. Almost always, they do it to get people to say things they wouldn’t — and shouldn’t — say otherwise.

The problem? A reporter can ask a hypothetical question in a way that the only logical answer is the one s/he wants you give: “If the toxic chemicals stored in your building got into that river over there, would that be bad for people living downstream in Podunk?” Well, yes it would. And if you answer the question as asked to say there’s a hypothetical threat you may find yourself being quoted as saying the chemicals stored in your building are a real threat to people living in Podunk – even if you know there’s no way those chemicals can get into that river and there’s no real threat.

Reporters on deadline frequently ask hypothetical questions during the early stages of a breaking story when there are few hard facts available. They need to write a story or go on the air with a live report. That’s hard to do if you don’t have anything to say. So, they look for someone who’ll speculate. If the speculation turns out to be wrong, it’s your mistake — not theirs.

Here’s my recommendation: Don’t answer hypothetical questions. If a reporter asks you a hypothetical question, either tell the reporter you can’t speculate on hypothetical situations or restrict your answer to what you know — even if that’s little or nothing. And stand your ground. It’s almost always a mistake to speculate for the benefit of reporters looking for a story.

That’s my two cents’ worth. What’s yours? Next week: More mistakes people make during interviews.

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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.

Just as you can say too much when talking to reporters (see last week’s Media Minute), you can also say too little.

There are times when you don’t want to say anything. And, despite some media trainers who claim you should never say “no comment,” sometimes no comment is a perfectly acceptable answer. In fact, sometimes it’s your only sensible answer.

Reporters are fond of referring to the “public’s right to know.” And serving our collective right to know is what makes being a reporter a worthy profession. But the public doesn’t always have a right to know.

For example, if you work for a company with publicly traded stock, you can’t give previously undisclosed material information to a reporter without issuing a news release disclosing the same information to everyone else. Some information’s private – personal medical information and personnel information, for example. Some information’s propriety. And some things simply aren’t anyone else’s business.

If it’s okay to say nothing, how can you say too little?

There’s a simple rule of thumb I’ve found works almost every time: How strongly will reporters and the people who see their stories feel that you owe them a response? The stronger they’ll feel about that, the more likely you are to pay a price for remaining silent or limiting what you say.

If the public health and safety are at stake, you’ll be expected to respond to reporters’ questions – or even volunteer information without being asked. And you’ll be expected to tell everything you know if it’s information the rest of us believe we need to know it.

Another rule of thumb: Answer a reporter’s question unless you have a legitimate reason not to – it’s propriety or private, for example. And it’s generally a good idea to give your reason for not responding if you’re not going to answer the question.

That my two cents’ worth. What’s yours? Next week: More mistakes people make during interviews.

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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.