How do reporters prepare for media interviews?

I was asked this question in a media training session the other day. I recalled an interaction with the reporter/host trainer at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation a few years ago and the “lunch and learn” he organized for me to address a collection of CBC radio hosts/producers/researchers. An article I wrote about that session – “Learnings from lunch with the CBC” – is repeated below. One piece of advice that I gave that media group, when I was asked about how to break the dreaded “message track” of interviewees, was that reporters should ask the interviewee to tell them more about the message the interviewee was delivering. My advice was based on the premise that if the interviewee had more good information of interest to the audience, then the “tell me more” prompt might get them past any stress induced freeze-up and bring out that information. If, on the other hand, the interviewee had only prepared a superficial message, they’d be hard pressed to expand that message and would look appropriately foolish. I was interested to see this technique referenced in a very interesting blog post on Politico by Mike Allen titled: “Reporters war-game Obama questions” and found at http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0309/20403.html .

Learnings from lunch with the CBC

There’s a saying in manufacturing: You can’t manage what you can’t measure. Let me apply that sentiment to media and message. We can’t get to win/win with media and message without understanding and a mutual goal. Studying, analyzing and discussing the media relations process leads to learning and understanding of the needs of the participants.

Ever since I wrote a column titled “The win/win interview: Can we get there from here?” I have received a large volume of comment, anecdotes, attaboys, and invitations from readers. One particular interaction, with Ira Basen, a radio producer and trainer at CBC in Toronto, led me deeper into how some media feel about the spokespeople they face, whether from politics or business, and their extreme frustration with the “message track.” This all led to my joining Ira and CBC Radio host Andy Barrie for a ‘lunch and learn’ with CBC staff in Toronto. Let me share how it went and what I learned.

First, the session was well attended and everyone was welcoming and engaged. I was given more than a fair share of airtime to voice my opinion. No ambush, no piling-on. Just a lively and enlightening interaction. I even had one participant sticking up for a point I made, and Ira has been supportive and fair, although not always in agreement, since we first met after he read the win/win column.

What did we learn? The trust situation is damaged. Although both camps have positive experiences, we are drawn to the bad experiences that we’ve had or observed and that causes us to distrust each other. In fact it was Ira who voiced the outcome of this in our first meeting. He said that our camp probably developed the message track (the mantra-like repetition of the exact same message) to counter interviewers who, through their control of the interview and the process, prevented the message from getting through in any form. That fits the law of unintended consequences. The result, however, is bad media interactions. Bad for the audience, the media and, I think, our camp. This was my message to the CBC folks.

My solution is for our camp to bring good stories that are relevant to the audience of the medium with which they are interacting. The media, I suggested, should help their interviewees tell their story in order for both to get to win/win. Well, there was some strong reaction to that at the lunch and learn, I must say.

When one attendee asked what I thought he should do when faced with a mantra-like message track, I suggested that one option would be to say to the guest, “Tell us more about that?” He didn’t like that answer. But I explained that if he asked any other question, he was going to just get the mantra again. So why not see what else the interviewee had to say? And once the interviewee opens up, the dam will have been breached.

I also said that I don’t teach people to do mantra-like message tracks because I don’t think they have any credibility with an audience. I train people to develop their story, make it absolutely relevant to the audience of the medium and to be a good interviewee. We coach people to be the interviewee the media like to have on their programs.

Control is an issue. Several of the CBC participants expressed the view that they decide what the content should be. They decide what the audience needs and wants. In fact, some believe that they are their audience. Andy expressed this: “What I’m told frequently when I do what could be considered a hostile interview – and I don’t set out, believe me, to do that – is people will say to me you asked exactly the question I wanted answered, that was on my lips.”

Andy also believes there is a natural antagonism that exists because the company spokespeople represent the interest of their companies’ shareholders while he and others in the media are representing the public good. So, he rejects my suggestion to let the spokesperson tell their story and let the audience judge. I argued against the idea that the spokesperson is there to promote the shareholders’ interests. I said that I couldn’t remember a media training session where the shareholders were a factor in the discussion.

What I argue for, although I know not everyone who does media training agrees, is that the spokesperson should be thinking first and foremost about the legitimate interests of the audience that is reading, watching or listening and should tell their story in the context of the audience’s interests. The rest will take care of itself – including shareholder value. But that trust thing is always there. And both sides can bring up examples of the worst behaviour of the other. Then we all get tarred by the same brush.

We talked about the rehearsed versus the unrehearsed interviewee. One participant mentioned that they really wanted someone unrehearsed. My response was that few of us go to important meetings unprepared and unrehearsed. Media interactions are important business meetings. Why wouldn’t we approach them on the same basis as other important meetings?

I asked the group if they’d had an interviewee who couldn’t tell their story – in effect had nothing to say. I took the response to indicate this was a reality and an unpleasant one at that. So, I said, wouldn’t you rather have an interviewee who had thought about your audience and their interests and brought a coherent, interesting story that spoke to those interests? Intellectually, I think that’s exactly what they want. Emotionally, I don’t think they trust our camp to deliver on that.

So, there’s a sampling of the learnings from the CBC lunch and learn interaction. A worthwhile investment of time from my perspective.

How did the CBC folks feel about it? Here’s Ira’s e-mail: “ The feedback has been very positive. Even people who were pre-disposed not to like you (most of the people there) agreed that you made some important points.” That’s what I mean by win/win. It should always be the goal.

Tags: media training