Kwik Tips: Media Interviews
Written by Aaron Kwittken on March 27, 2006
Do:
Focus on your key messages at least three but no more than five.
- Know what you can cannot say to the media
- Anticipate and prepare for likely and tough questions, appropriate answers
- This is not a quiz, you don’t have to answer every question or know every answer
- Your homework and customize your messages
- Use emotion, but in a measured manner
- Speak positively
- Draw on personal experience and cite outside experts, data
- If you’re asked a series of questions simultaneously, pause and select the one you want to answer
- Know what you don’t know.
- Assume there are no such things as “off the record” or ‘on background”
- Respect deadlines
- Be comfortable with silence
- Repeat key messages and remember this is not an ordinary conversation
- Remember that it is YOUR interview, so take control.
Don’t:
- Say it if it’s not something you would want to see in the newspaper the next morning…
- Use industry business jargon or overly technical terms or data
- Get defensive or be evasive
- Ask the reporter to send you a draft of the story
- Comment on things you have not seen or heard or you’re not on expert on
- Exaggerate the facts
- Knock competitors, rather make them generic by referring to them as “they”
- Repeat a negative
- Think there’s such thing as “off the record”
- Ever say “no comment”
- Over-answer. Short answers are better than long answers, always.
- “Address” questions, don’t answer them. Bridge to MESSAGES.
- Break intro jail, be comfortable with silence
For Telephone Interviews:
- Stand up, smile.
- Buy prep time by asking to call the reporter back if deadline allows.
- Ask the reporter how much time THEY have for the interview so you can set YOUR time limits.
- Establish an “interview atmosphere” and mindset.
- Ask questions in order to gain feedback, better understand the reporter’s angle.
- There is no such thing as “we,” remember to say the company/organization name periodically.
For radio:
Speak visually use words to paint pictures
For Television Interviews:
- For men, a dark suit and blue shirt. For women, avoid solid black or white and busy patterns. Bright colors are ok.
- Don’t wear large, shiny or noisy jewelry.
- Remember to turn off all cell phones, blackberries, two-way pagers anything that could distract.
- Sit erect, but not ramrod straight, slightly forward in the chair. Unbutton suit jacket when seated.
- Resist the urge to shout into the microphone. If remote, don’t touch the earbud.
- Talk to the reporter, not the camera, unless by remote.
- Keep a pleasant expression; smile when appropriate.
- Maintain your interview game from the moment you are lit until the interview is over and you are alone.
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