Avoiding Media Mishaps
Lessons from Intuit’s interview with The Verge.
When scheduling media interviews for your thought leaders, specifically with tier-one publications, in-depth media preparation isn’t just a “nice to have” — it is a must have. Our PR Director for North America, Raven Carpenter, is reflecting on the recent news cycle and sharing her top tips for media interview success.
As anyone who has been following recent PR conversations on LinkedIn may have seen, Intuit unfortunately learned the hard way that great interviews come down to strong preparation. In an interview with tier-one tech publication, The Verge, it became clear that the CEO went into the conversation unprepared for some of the trickier questions the reporter might ask. What followed was a challenging Q&A between The Verge’s editor-in-chief, Nilay Patel, and Sasan Goodarzi, CEO of Intuit, illustrating the dos and don’ts of interview preparation.
To make matters more complicated, the chief communications officer of Intuit reached out to Nilay after the interview to call his line of questioning “inappropriate,” “egregious,” and “disappointing,” while simultaneously demanding that the outlet delete a portion of the interview from the record. As it turns out, this demand only accelerated the bridges burning with the publication. An interview that could’ve been innocuous at best, turned sour, and ultimately resulted in negative coverage on Intuit.
Reading the transcript, it is easy to see how a conversation like this can escalate – but it is not unavoidable. There are valuable lessons for effective media engagement that comms professionals can take to ensure every interview is mutually beneficial for both the journalist and subject matter expert (SMEs).
Below are five tips to help communications leaders prepare SMEs for potentially challenging interviews:
1. Know the publication your SME is interviewing for, along with their ethics standards, practices and policies.
In the article The Verge published following the difficult Intuit interview, Nilay notes that The Verge has very strict ethical standards they adhere to in the interest of preserving reader trust. When coordinating an interview with a publication, it is crucial for communications leaders to know a publication’s ethical standards and practices ahead of time to understand what is and isn’t allowed for the journalist. This can be anything from not being able to review questions ahead of time, to the outlet’s policies on article corrections once the piece is published. Be sure to brush up on what you’re getting into and educate your SME of these standards ahead of time to make sure everyone is on the same page.
2. Prepare your SME for the questions they don’t want to answer as much as you prep them for the questions they do want to answer.
It can be easy to include questions you want the journalist to ask in your interview prep materials. However, SMEs should be equally prepared to tackle questions they want to avoid. This could be as simple as crafting blanket statements to answer sticky questions, or even preparing to have another SME who is more equipped provide a response once the initial interview has wrapped. For example, if the interview is to take place between the VP of product and a journalist, yet, the reporter is interested in speaking about financials, the VP should be prepared to let the journalist know they will need to speak to the company’s chief financial officer instead to get the most accurate and appropriate answers. Or if a CEO is not comfortable speaking about an acquisition in progress, either craft a generalized statement about the value of acquisitions for the company or share a timeline of when you can speak more freely about said acquisition.
3. Do not bank on off-the-record conversations. Ever.
There are varying schools of thought when it comes to backgrounder and off-the-record interviews. Some reporters are open to them, others are not. Regardless, communications leaders should always prepare thought leaders to never say anything — off-the-record or not — that they would not want to be published in an interview. It’s best to err on the side of caution and encourage SMEs to treat EVERY interview as on-the-record, even if it is not.
4. Train your SMEs to intentionally use bridging and hooking techniques to get their point across.
When thought leaders get into tricky conversations where they feel they are veering off message, using interview techniques like bridging and flagging can bring the interview back to the main points the SME is trying to get across. For example, using phrases like, “What’s important to remember here is…” or “That’s a concern, but what I’m hearing from customers is…” can be simple ways to seamlessly redirect the conversation to reinforce the key messages.
5. This last point should go without saying, but it bears repeating – treat journalists with respect.
What I mean by this is that it’s crucial to know that at the end of the day, despite your messaging, journalists are trying to tell an informative and well-rounded story to their readers. As a communications leader, it’s important for us to work with them rather than against them to ensure they’re getting the insights necessary to tell a good story. This also means it’s vital to treat journalists with respect – they have an important role in society, and at the end of the day, they serve the people, not brands.
There are a number of other techniques thought leaders should keep in mind when taking part in an interview, but these are a handful of the top ways communications leaders can prepare SMEs to prevent a sticky situation. While you can never anticipate every question a reporter may ask – especially if they aren’t comfortable sharing questions ahead of time – comprehensive media preparation can go a long way in making sure both the SME and the journalist are happy with the interview, without crossing any boundaries on either side.
