Guy Clapperton, Author at Clapperton Media

I’ve often used this blog to highlight bad practice in interviews so I thought it might be worth highlighting some people who’ve done incredibly well.

Put it another way: I’ve been watching the Commonwealth Games and been incredibly encouraged by how the competitors treat each other. This seems to be a common feature among modern sportspeople but the Games have highlighted a few interesting examples.

For example, I was watching the diving yesterday. I know nothing about diving other than I once stood behind Tom Daley in a fast food place at King’s Cross Station which doesn’t make me much of an expert, but the skills and athleticism on display was awesome.

In the 10m synchronised event yesterday, British diver Matty Lee won the bronze. The BBC pulled him over and interviewed him and he was fine, speaking respectfully about the other participants and ensuring everyone knew he was happy with his bronze and that he was just glad to be in the others’ company. So far so routine – then the winner, Cassiel Rousseau, happened to be passing so the BBC pulled him into the interview and asked him about how he felt.

So your media interviewer suddenly loses interest

There were two interesting points from my point of view as someone in communications.

First, no serious competitor in the history of the universe has ever enjoyed coming third. It’s not why people compete and when they’re asked immediately afterwards how they feel, many people such as tennis players or footballers can be pretty grumpy. I don’t criticise that just after they’ve been focused on the win but I do feel Lee was incredibly gracious and positive given his circumstances.

Second, basically the interviewer decided they’d found someone more interesting and pulled them in – with Lee still standing there dripping. He had to listen and nod graciously as Rousseau celebrated the fact that he’d pulled off more or less the perfect dive (and he’d done so, there’s no question that the right person won). Lee continued, nodding and congratulating him.; Rousseau acknowledged Lee, of course.

These were very young people just after the battle of their lives so far, and one will have been bitterly disappointed. They still managed to conduct themselves perfectly and professionally. Maybe next time you see a businessperson, possibly someone from your own team, growing impatient with a journalist, next time you see a politician accusing the press of being “deliberately misleading” because the point wasn’t made clearly in the first place, you might reflect that some very young and inexperienced (in life at least) people in Birmingham have given a masterclass on how to cope over the weekend.

Do you or (if you’re in PR) your clients need help with your media interviews? My team and I can help – drop my assistant Lindsay a line, Lindsay@Clapperton.co.uk, and she’ll set us up an initial chat.

I had a chat on LinkedIn with podcaster and speaker booker Maria Franzoni this week. She’d had something I’ve had in the past as a journalist – people calling her up to pitch clients to her podcast and saying flattering things, only to make it apparent that they really hadn’t listened to even one episode.

Nobody is suggesting it’s easy to keep up with every single journalist. I’ve had the same thing; there’s the incident I mention in this tip, and another time a PR person told me their client really, really wanted to meet me because they’d be an invaluable contact and (said the PR person) I was a major writer in their client’s market. I agreed to the meeting, they suggested coffee – and when I got to the venue it turned out the client was finishing lunch and allocated me ten minutes for a quick coffee after their main guest had gone. Which would have been fine but the first thing the client asked was who I was and which publications I worked for – the suggestion that they’d considered me an important contact came from the PR person’s head and nowhere else.

I’m not actually sure where this compulsion to tell everyone they’re really important comes from. I’m fine with someone not having heard of me, my podcast or anything else I do, and it can be very helpful that a mutual connection puts us in touch. I’d just recommend being honest about it. The PR industry has an often-undeserved reputation for over-selling – why not smash the stereotype?

Dear Rishi,

I don’t train politicians, my presentation skills are generally in more commercial areas. However if I could have changed two things about your debate last night then they would have been 1) the speed: you’re dealing with (or should be dealing with) complex economic issues and they’re not hitting home. 2) Interrupt less, no matter how strongly you feel: you might consider that Liz is out of her depth and for all I know you’re right. If that’s the case then what we saw last night was her grabbing enough rope and you whipping it away before she could hang herself.

Dear Liz,

As I was saying to Rishi I don’t train politicians on presentations but I’ve offered him two pieces of feedback so I’ll do the same for you. First, I get that the strategy was to rise above it all and make sure he looked like the rude and irritating one and to an extent that worked, but if you don’t push back more then people are going to worry about how you’ll cope on the international stage and indeed in the cabinet room. Second, and this may be more difficult, you need to get a grip on your supporters. One of them yesterday was criticising a wealthy man for wearing a bespoke suit when going through what amounted to the most important job interview of his life, leaving you visibly embarrassed when this was read out to you; later, one of your cabinet colleagues accused Rishi of “mansplaining”. For what it’s worth I think he was indeed guilty of this but if it’s left unsaid people will work it out for themselves; out loud from one of your known supporters it starts to sound like a calculated political attack (the ordinary man on the BBC News last night was a lot more powerful when he said it because he had no axe to grind and it was unexpected). So I’d brief your supporters and keep them away from criticisms that go nowhere.

Overall I’d advise both of you to be more positive in tone and let the other person’s arguments fall over by themselves. So less “This isn’t costed and the next generation will pay” and more “This is interesting, how have you costed it to avoid landing the next generation with the bill?” and less “This will crash the economy” and more “I can see there could be risks, how have you mitigated those?” – then the other person has to answer and the audience can judge whether those answers add up.

Hugs (if not votes)
Guy

What? No, I’m not talking about whether interviewers plan their interviews. Of course we do. I’m a journalist so I go into every press engagement with a clear idea of what I need to get out of it. This is based around my readers’ needs.

What surprises me is that so few interviewees do the same.

Interviews belong to you too

The fact is that journalists and other influencers are very good at making it feel as if an interview is their province exclusively. To my mind this isn’t reasonable. The idea is simple enough; someone with a commercial interest (or a political one) is going to push their view onto everyone so the journalist’s role is to cut through this. The same is true of interviews with any other influencer – podcaster, blogger, whatever.

I have some sympathy with this view. Nobody wants to read, watch or listen to a bunch of vested interests. It’s definitely the job of the journalist to make sure their copy doesn’t reflect any of this.

There are powerful counter-arguments, though. Consider a media training client I had a few weeks ago. Nice people, helpful, non-pushy and specialists in their field. Now, I’m a specialist in several things. Publishing. Podcasting. Interviewing. Training. I am not, however, an expert in the client’s field (which was insurance as it happened but you could also slot in manufacturing, technology, any of those things). This could give me a problem.

That problem is that as a non-specialist I don’t necessarily have the right insight to ask something that will get to the piece of insight the reader really wants. I might but I might not. So it’s valid for the interviewee to squeeze their message in, whether I’ve asked about it or not.

It’s also valid (and journalists don’t always have the time to consider this) for the interviewee to look for some sort of value from the transaction. They’re offering their expertise and their time. As long as they’re not nakedly promotional it’s not unreasonable for them to expect their name and company to be correctly credited and for their view and comment to be made clear.

So do you take control of your interviews and ensure both parties come out with value? And if not, why not?

Do you need help ensuring you get value from media interviews? We can help – just get in contact and we’ll set us up a time to talk.