How to Give Great Media Interviews: Prepare, Control, Educate

by Mary Balice

How many times has a reporter interviewed you? And how many of those interviews did you live through? The good news: media interviews are rarely hazardous to your health. The bad news: simply living through a media interview does not make you an effective spokesperson. Fortunately, with some effort and practice, you can learn the skills you'll need to become a more confident, powerful media ambassador for your organization.

Effective spokespeople have learned several insider "tricks of the trade." These allow them to:

• Treat every media interview as an opportunity to communicate their messages to their target audiences;
• Further their agency's mission and educate reporters on their key issues;
• Think like a reporter and anticipate the questions a reporter will ask;
• Turn every interview into a mutual dialogue, not a one-sided interrogation; and
• Give quotable quotes-often!

Prepare

Before you ever conduct an interview, identify the three core "messages" about your organization or issue that you want to communicate. For example, "Our agency fights for access to affordable, quality health care for people with epilepsy. People with epilepsy are our friends and neighbors. They deserve and need better health care services." Write down these messages, distribute them to key spokespeople in your organization and review/update them often.

Effective spokespeople rarely conduct interviews "off the cuff." When a reporter calls, buy yourself some time by telling the reporter that you need to call him/her back. Find out the topic of the interview, when and where the story will appear (on an early morning radio program, in the morning newspaper or in an upscale monthly magazine), and his/her deadline. (While a reporter working on a breaking news story has an urgent deadline, most reporters have some flexibility.) Promise to call back within a short amount of time and keep your promise. But first, compose yourself, get a glass of water and prepare for the interview. Start by asking yourself these questions:

Why am I conducting this interview?

Be clear on what you want to accomplish by talking with this reporter. Do you want to increase awareness of your agency's efforts? Increase public support of issues your constituents care about? Influence pending or prospective health care legislation? Know your agenda. If you don't, only the reporter's goals will be met, and you'll likely be dissatisfied with the outcome.

Who is the audience?

Once you know in which news outlet the reporter's story will appear, make an assessment of its audience - what kind of people are likely to watch/listen to the program or read the newspaper/magazine - senior citizens? At-home mothers? Business executives? Then ask yourself, "What does this audience care about?" Be sure to refer to their core issues and values in your interview.

What do I want this audience to know/remember/do?

Repeat your key messages during the interview by weaving them into your answers. You probably will have a thousand things on your mind once you begin the interview, so stay focused by writing down your three key messages on an index card to keep with you during the interview.

What questions will this reporter ask?

What are your most effective answers to these questions? Identify and develop answers to the positive questions you'd like the reporter to ask AND to the negative, tough questions you hope are never asked. Also, identify the three top questions that you most want to answer because they give you an opportunity to articulate your key messages and success stories, e.g. "What is your mission?" "What obstacles to quality health care do your constituents face?" "Why is this legislation so important?"

Control the Interview

To level the playing field between you and the reporter, you must know your agenda and have the skills to meet your goals during the interview. The following techniques will help you maintain control and guide the reporter to the important information you want to communicate:

Bridging

This technique will allow you to maintain a dialogue with the reporter. There are two Bridging formulas: one for questions you like and another for questions you dislike:
Positive Questions: When the reporter asks you a positive, "friendly" question, Bridging helps you steer the conversation and pose a second, related question of your own. Here's how it works:
A reporter asks you a positive question, such as "What is your mission?" You answer. Many spokespeople would stop here. But not you! You "bridge" to another question that you want to answer by saying, "Another question your readers may be interested in is" Pose one of the questions you identified that allow you to state your message(s) and then enthusiastically answer your question.

For an example of a press conversation by John Chase, and drug war discussion, click here

Example:

Reporter asks: "What is your agency's role?"

You reply: "To improve our constituents' quality of life."

You Bridge: "Another question I'm often asked is 'What successes has your agency achieved?'"

You answer: "Our constituents now have access to"

Negative Questions: All questions require an answer; however, difficult questions can be sufficiently answered with one word or a short phrase when you use the bridging technique. Here's how it works: The reporter asks you a negative question, such as, "Is your agency operating at a budget deficit again this year?" Rather than a full-blown answer, you may address the negative question with a succinct answer ("No," "Yes" or "I disagree" are favorites) and then bridge to a message that you want to communicate.

Example:
Reporter asks: "Aren't you just wasting time and money fighting for this funding?"

You reply: "No."

You Bridge: "The more important question is 'Why is this funding a sound investment in our children's future?'

You answer: "Let me explain"

Hooking

This technique forces reporters or their listeners/viewers to listen to more information than they expected. When asked a question, you "hook" them by stating that you have two or three key points to share and then enumerate each point as you make it, such as "the first point is the second is etc."

Flagging

You "flag" a question by telling the reporter that the information you are about to share is important. Before you answer the reporter's question, you verbally "flag" it by saying, "That's the most important question you've asked me" or "That's the smartest question I've ever been asked." Always use this technique when your answer to the question includes one of your key messages.

Educate

Remember, few reporters will be experts on your issues. They won't know your group's many acronyms or understand your agency's "insider speak." And, if the reporter doesn't understand what you're saying, there is little hope that his/her audience will understand.

Worse yet, the reporter may get it wrong. You later can claim that you were misquoted, but guess what? Too late! You are responsible for ensuring the reporter "gets it." How? Translate the jargon. Practice explaining key issues in language that your high school-aged neighbor would easily understand. Be sure to send the reporter relevant fact sheets, charts and graphs that reinforce your messages.

Most of all, reporters want a good story that they can "sell" to their bosses. It is your job to give them those good stories - give them your insights and opinions, but also your passion and real-life stories about your constituents, such as the man whose life was saved by the defibrillator your agency fought to have installed in the airport.

You know the daily ordeals your constituents face. Make them come alive for the reporter. And be sure to communicate your passion for the work you do. You don't have to be theatrical - just make it easy for the reporter to share your emotion and commitment with his/her audience.

Translate the jargon. Practice explaining key issues in language that your high school-aged neighbor would easily understand.

Copyright Pfizer Inc 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003

Mary Balice is Vice President of Training for MSI Strategic Communications based in Chicago.

How to Give Great Media Interviews
PREPARE - CONTROL - EDUCATE

Conversation by John Chase - Adapted from article by Mary Balice

PREPARE

Three key messages
Now - before that phone rings - and memorize two or three "messages" about what we do, and why. For example... and you should paraphrase these quotable quotes as YOU would say them...

(1) "The mission of The November Coalition is to speak out to the public about the uselessness of the drug war so we can get drug war prisoners back home working and paying taxes."

(2) "There are almost a half million drug offenders incarcerated - and it is buying us nothing. A market cannot be stamped out by making it more profitable. We learned that in the 1920s with alcohol."

(3)"In order to get them some near term relief we speak out on the need to bring back federal parole and increase good time eligibility so well-behaved prisoners can earn their way back home."

Other core themes
(a)"Driving any popular drug underground just makes it more dangerous. Just look at what illegal alcohol did in the 1920s. People went blind... and tens of thousands died each year... from adulterated liquor. Politicians tried to blame it on the bootleggers, just like they're trying to blame today's 'meth labs' on greedy drug dealers. But it's not the drugs and not the dealers. It's the money of drug prohibition."

(b)"If we were serious about driving drug dealers out of business we'd take the profit out. It drove out the bootleggers when we ended prohibition in 1933. But this time we've gotta go one step further; we should use part of that huge revenue stream to run free clinics to offer free drug treatment - even drug maintenance - to all who ask for it. Right now about half of all who ask for treatment go on waiting lists."

(c)"The public is conditioned to believe that these drugs are worse than legal drugs, but it is not true. Alcohol is as intoxicating as the most intoxicating illegal drug [probably crack] and tobacco is as addictive as the most addictive illegal drug [any of the opiates]. People confuse the danger of the drug with the danger of its illegality. Try to imagine life today if tobacco had been illegal for 30 years... We'd have tobacco busts, tobacco king pins, tobacco conspiracies, tobacco felons.... The real danger of an illegal drug is its illegality, not the drug itself."

(d)"If you believe dangerous drugs should be outlawed, what about glue (model airplane cement)? It is intoxicating and lethal. You'd think that it would be illegal, but it's not. Law enforcement will say it doesn't need to be outlawed because no dealers are 'pushing' it. Ever wonder why dealers don't 'push' it? Because Walmart sells it for $0.97/ounce. Meth, on the other hand, retails for over $2500 per ounce, so it's no surprise that dealers 'push' meth.

(e) "Prohibitionists defend their drug war by saying the we don't need any more legal drugs.... or that these illegal drugs are more harmful than legalizers will admit. These assertions assume that making a drug illegal makes it safer for the public, but in fact the exact opposite is true, as we discussed earlier."

(f) "Prohibitionists also defend their drug war by saying that few prisoners are low-level nonviolent participants. Not true. Just like the 1920s. The federal prisons were full of little guys, but big time bootleggers like JFK's father were never caught. As for the violence, most of it is bred by prohibition. You've heard of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre? Machine Gun Kelly? Pretty Boy Floyd? Besides, now we have 30,000 women in prison on drug convictions, almost all nonviolent." Then tell your own story about what happened to your own loved one or a friend caught in the drug war ...............

Buy yourself some time
Effective spokespeople rarely conduct interviews "off the cuff." When a reporter calls, buy yourself some time by telling the reporter that you need to call back. But first ask the topic of the interview, when and where the story will appear (on an early morning radio program, in the morning newspaper or in an upscale monthly magazine), and his/her deadline. (Unless a reporter working on a breaking news story, most reporters have some flexibility.) Promise to call back within a short amount of time and keep your promise. But first, compose yourself, get a glass of water and prepare for the interview. The reporter will probably ask about recent events, so it would be good to browse recent posts in our 'Announcements' elist. Then make sure you know:

Know why you are doing the interview
Be clear on what you want to accomplish by talking with this reporter. Do you want to increase awareness of our efforts? Increase public support of issues we care about? Influence pending or prospective legislation? Know your agenda. If you don't, only the reporter's goals will be met, and you'll likely be dissatisfied with the outcome. It is very likely that the reporter will want to talk about marijuana, since that subject will be in the news. You will have to work hard to 'bridge', 'hook' or 'flag' to the topic of drug prohibition. See below.

Know your audience
Once you know in which news outlet the reporter's story will appear, make an assessment of its audience - what kind of people are likely to watch/listen to the program or read the newspaper/magazine - senior citizens? At-home mothers? Business executives? Then ask yourself, "What does this audience care about?"

Know what you want this audience to know/remember/do
Repeat your key messages during the interview by weaving them into your answers. You probably will have a thousand things on your mind once you begin the interview, so stay focused by writing down your three key messages on an index card to keep with you during the interview.

Be ready for questions this reporter might ask
And what are your most effective answers to those questions? Identify and develop answers to the questions you'd like the reporter to ask AND to the tough questions you hate. Also, identify the three top questions that you most want to answer because they give you an opportunity to articulate your key messages and success stories, e.g. "What is your mission?" "What obstacles to ending the drug war do your constituents face?", or "Why is this legislation so important?"

CONTROL

To level the playing field between you and the reporter, you must know your agenda and have the skills to meet your goals during the interview. The following techniques will help you maintain control and guide the reporter to the important information you want to communicate:

Techniques to steer the interview your way

Bridging
Very important technique to make the interview a dialogue rather than an interrogation. There are two Bridging formulas: one for questions you like and another for questions you dislike:

Positive Questions: When the reporter asks you a positive, "friendly" question, Bridging helps you steer the conversation and pose a second, related question of your own. Here's how it works. A reporter asks you a positive question, such as "What is your mission?" You answer. Many spokespeople would stop here. But not you! You "bridge" to another question that you want to answer by saying, "Another question your readers may be interested in is" Pose one of the questions you identified that allow you to state your message(s) and then enthusiastically answer your own question:

Example:
Reporter asks: "What is your organization's mission?"
You reply: "In the short run, bring back federal parole and increase good time eligibility. In the long run to end drug prohibition.
You Bridge: "Another question I'm often asked is, 'How's it working for you?' "

You answer your own question: "Well, so far, our petition to revive federal parole has about 50,000 signatures to build support for legislation for when it is filed. As for ending prohibition, the ground is beginning to shift. Just look at the public opinion polls on medical marijuana... as high as 75% favorable and climbing each month... and look at what other Western countries are doing . . . . . etc etc......"

Negative Questions: All questions require an answer; however, difficult questions can be sufficiently answered with one word or a short phrase when you use the bridging technique. Here's how it works:

Example:
The reporter asks: "Law enforcement has gotten serious lately about cracking down on meth labs. How can that be bad?
Rather than a full-blown answer, you answer with a succinct ("Yes, they have") and then bridge to a your message.
You Bridge: "The more important question is How did those meth labs get there in the first place? Let me explain" ....

Then talk about how the money - $2500/oz - draws unskilled men into this unsavory business - the same way unskilled immigrants were drawn into bootlegging. Take out the profit and you take out the meth. Nothing else will work. We should have learned that by now.

Hooking
This technique forces reporters or their listeners/viewers to listen to more information than they expected. When asked a question, you "hook" them by stating that you have two or three key points to share and then enumerate each point as you make it, such as "the first point is the second is etc."

Flagging
You "flag" a question by telling the reporter that the information you are about to share is important. Before you answer the reporter's question, you verbally "flag" it by saying, "That's a really good question" Always use this technique when your answer to the question includes one of your three key messages.

EDUCATE

Credibility
Very few reporters will know much about drug policy beyond the mainstream media, most of it from law enforcement. So if you tell them things that contradict what they believe, they will tend to glaze over. So move slowly from topic to topic and keep it simple. If the reporter doesn't understand what you're saying, acknowledge that 'the public just doesn't know this because no one tells them' Then explain.

Accuracy
Worse yet, the reporter may get it wrong. You later can claim that you were misquoted, but guess what? Too late! You are responsible for ensuring the reporter "gets it." How? Translate the jargon. Practice explaining key issues in language that your high school-aged neighbor would easily understand. And be sure to offer to send the reporter relevant fact sheets, charts and graphs that reinforce your messages.

And passion, too
Most of all, reporters want a good story they can "sell" to their bosses. It is your job to give them those good stories - give them your insights and opinions, but also your passion and real-life stories about your loved ones or friends you know of. You know the daily ordeals of families blindsided by the drug war. Make them come alive for the reporter. And be sure to communicate your passion for your work as a volunteer in the drug policy reform movement. You don't have to be theatrical - just make it easy for the reporter to share your emotion and commitment with his/her audience.

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