I woke up this morning to an early holiday present. The Associated Press story on International Air Travel that I was quoted in seems to have made the rounds from the AP wire to USA Today, CNN:Money and now the International Herald Tribune in less that two weeks.
This all falls into what I call “the art of the quote,” which isn’t always something that is easily mastered. But I’ve been talking to reporters, newscasters and broadcast producers since I was 14 years old so its really a natural thing for me. Having also participated in a large number of Media Training sessions that were both formally and informally held dating back to my days with the Philadelphia Wings (1974) and then Philadelphia Flyers youth hockey program, Hockey Central (1976-88), I often found that being natural and sharing insight was the best way to get the story out. I also learned a lot about this watching and working with professional athletes, sports team’s General Managers and Coaches. Back then I used to tell high school age hockey players like former NY Ranger star Mike Richter and the late Scott (the Shot) Chamness that the most quoted and sought after interview subjects always were media friendly, boyish in charm, and had an “aw-shucks” natural quality about answering questions. Nothing really has changed. I used to always tell them my golden rule “ask what the reporter wants to know.”
Unfortunately too much time in interviews is spent on what is called getting out the “message points” when the subject of the interview really should be listening to the questions the reporter has on their mind. Reporters and also those who know how to give an good interview naturally tune out when the subject message point “zones out,” and when this happens that’s why so few people end up in print.
Unless the reporter is doing a feature on YOU or YOUR company/product/service/technology going into obvious message point mode is a quick way to not really being in the story. In many ways it is also instant death for your company for getting included in the story beyond the casual mention.
Reporters want you focusing on the questions they have, not what some PR person has prepped you to say. Unfortunately so many PR people end up around the interviews that the reporters also pick up the sense they too are being handled. It’s one of the reasons I tend to not sit in that often on client interviews and only want my team monitoring some early round interviews for quote accuracy and follow up after the interviews are concluded. If the PR person doesn’t have trust in the spokesperson, why should the reporter, so don’t give them more grounds for being suspicious.
Think about the people who end up in hard news. Mayors. Police chiefs. Fire officials. They are talking about the incident or matter in question. not about themselves. Look at news coverage during political campaigns and see how the more charismatic campaigners are focused on the questions and issues. So too goes your quest to tell your story.
Good interview subjects are natural. They don’t need handlers and they don’t need to be told how to get their points across. In turn reporters remember who gave the “good interview” and those end up back in stories again and again and become solid news sources and get quoted regularly. This is called giving background. Do it right and you end up in the story. Do it wrong and your competition does, not to mention what it does to PR your person’s day.
I admit, its an art, and 34 years of being around it, doing it and living it has pretty much provided the kind of experience that tells me when to talk, what to say and most importantly, when to stop talking.