Media Interview Tips

November 13, 2009
Important Do’s and Don’ts When You’ve Made a Connection With a Reporter

Even the most carefully crafted news release, eagerly received by a reporter will not guarantee effective coverage for your cause, product or service. It can take time, patience and the careful nurturing of relationships to get to the point where the reporter picks up the phone or shoots off an email to say, “yes, I’d like to talk to YOU.” It is this point where the rubber, as they say, meets the road. (Read more…)
November 10, 2009
21 Media Relations Do’s and Don’ts for Optimal News Outcomes?

You hope the strong news release you have worked so hard to polish will generate media interest and inquiries. But if it does, and if your spokespeople aren’t prepared for the media, your best effort can get derailed in a hurry. (Read more…)
June 25, 2009
The News Conference: Controlling Your Message

You have some important issues you want the public to know about. You are so concerned about it that you call a news conference. (Read more…)
June 16, 2009
PR Quotes: How Being Controversial, Despite Being Wrong, Attracts Media Coverage

I follow the television industry. It’s a medium I devote about five minutes a day trying to follow largely by headlines and RSS feeds. Today I saw this headline and had to dig deeper: Big Media Sites Like Hulu “Anti-Consumer, Anti-Media Employees, Anti-America”? (Read more…)
May 14, 2009
Media Training Can Turn Your Clients and Employees Into PR Experts

Not every client or employee is equipped to deal with the media on an intimate level. When I was a journalist, public relations contacts would sometimes sit in on interviews I conducted with company executives. In most cases, the public relations department was there to lend support — as either a confidant, or a source of additional information. In other cases, however, it was clear that the executive needed his hand held because he could not handle on-the-fly questioning alone. But media training can help clients and company employees prepare for encounters from journalists and interviewers. (Read more…)
May 12, 2009
Public Relations Basics: Speak Slowly and Carry a Big Stick

One of the joys of writing PR Fuel is that it helps me think through my own public relations failings. By putting ideas down on paper — OK, a computer screen — I’ve helped improve my own public relations skills immensely. That’s part of why I’ve come up with a set of rules for dealing with reporters during phone interviews. Hopefully, I can follow them. (Read more…)
May 11, 2009
Public Relations Basics: Tips for Your First TV Interview

August is supposed to be a slow month for me, one where I catch up on long-term projects that I’ve managed to ignore for several turns of the calendar. This past August I was interviewed on television four times, a public relations coup. The four interviews — on Bloomberg TV, the BBC, CNBC and CNBC Europe — went off without a hitch. I was well-prepared, well-dressed and ready to tackle the subject at hand. Looking back on last week, here are some lessons that I tried to remember before my interviews, as well as ones that I discovered after the fact. (Read more…)
May 8, 2009
Public Relations Basics: Preparing for a Media Interview

Recently, I was transcribing a very casual media interview; it was an amiable chat, even when the questions got tough. Listening to the tape, I was struck by my constant “um’s” and “ah’s.” I came to the interview well-prepared, and I still sometimes sounded as if I didn’t know what I was talking about. There are many potential mistakes even a seasoned public relations consultant can make during the most relaxed media interview. Your responses can be too rapid. (Read more…)
May 1, 2009
How to Keep Your Public Relations Strategy “On Message”

A politician gets asked about abortion and the answer somehow comes back to education. They’re asked about tax reform and the answer relates to education. Foreign policy is inexplicably linked to, you guessed it, education. What’s going on here? The politicians are using messaging points, the essential and core elements of an argument or pitch. It’s the message that you want to get across, regardless of the subject. It’s like getting a piece of press on “your terms.” Too often, success in public relations is measured by how much publicity you get. But if the publicity isn’t “on message,” what good is it? (Read more…)
April 21, 2009
Blind Dates: Preparing for a Media Interview

If you’ve ever been on a blind date, you know it can be a harrowing experience. You’re thrust into a situation — one you may not even want to be in — and the only information you usually have is second hand. You want to make a good impression — unless you’re trying to get home early — so you have to be prepared. A face-to-face media interview or in-person meeting with a journalist is a lot like a blind date. (Read more…)