DEALING WITH THE PRESS

No Matter What I Say They Get It Wrong

In most businesses, the frequently onerous role of dealing with the press is usually left to the guys down the hall who do PR. Not so in professional services. The phone call can come to anybody, and frequently does.

The shock is when that nice, rational remark you made -- you know, the witty one -- shows up in print, looking irrational and outrageous. The usual battle cry is, "I was misquoted."

Maybe, but probably not. This is the point at which you learn that how it sounds isn't necessarily how it reads. Gone from the printed words are the inflections, the half-smile, the arched eyebrow that gave the nuances to the words. What's left, in cold type, can be harsh, possibly out of context, and a distortion of what you really meant to say.

And this assumes both the good will and the skill of the reporter, which can sometimes be more a presumption than an assumption.

There are two general areas in which you might find yourself talking to a reporter. In one context, you may be dealing with a technical matter, in which the contact has been generated by you, your public relations staff, or as an inquiry from a journalist who knows and respects your expertise. Here, it's presumed that you're on solid footing. You've been briefed, or at least had time to think out what you're going to say, and you've had time to anticipate questions and to frame answers. In the other, there is a fast-breaking and controversial news situation, and you're unprepared for the call or the questions. It can be a naked feeling. While there's no way that every possibility in a press contact can be anticipated, there are some basic elements that can be prepared.

You should know, first, that being interviewed by the press, even with a single question, makes you – sometimes unwillingly -- part of the journalistic process. While normally all you see of it is the polished result, you rarely get to understand the process itself. Some basics:

• Except on small weekly papers, the reporter you talk to is only one link in a chain. He usually reports to an editor, who may himself be responsible to a managing editor. This means that the story the reporter writes passes through a number of hands, and may not be the story that gets printed. And it's presumed that you know by now that the person who writes the headline may not even know the reporter. He works from final text.

• The crucial fact here is that not only is the reporter not likely (with exceptions) to be expert in the subject you're talking about, he also lacks your emotional concern with it. Tomorrow he'll be covering something very different. And the farther up the editorial chain his copy gets, the less the knowledge or concern about the subject. It's just not as important to him as it is to you.

• The reporter has time constraints that may conflict with yours. He's usually on a deadline. This can make him more curt than you would like him to be.

What this all boils down to is that these are facts to be kept in mind during an interview. How to handle it, then?

• Be well briefed. This may mean rereading a few memos, or, in the case of a major interview, building a briefing book with the help of others in other departments, and learning its contents.

• Anticipate questions. Not just the easy ones, but the tough ones, too. In an in-depth interview, you're not likely to anticipate all the questions, but the more the better. Try to avoid curves.

• Get the answers down very carefully. This is where that "I was misquoted" syndrome is avoided. The less you have to say on the wing, the better you're going to like the way the story comes out.

• Rehearse. Unless you're a former Secretary of State, with experience in being interviewed almost daily, the more you rehearse the fewer mistakes you're going to make.

• List the key points you want to make, in order of importance. You may not get to make them all, nor will you be assured that they all get printed, but that list of points is the spine of the successful interview.

For a successful interview, everything depends upon this list of points, because if you're careful, and skillful, you can lead the interview. How? By crafting your answers so that those points are made, even if they are not always directly responsive to the question.

How does it work?

Question: Do you plan to open other offices?

Answer: Yes. (Responsive to the question. Then add…) We'll use two criteria to select sites -- economic and market needs for our specialized services.

Keep it up, and you'll be very subtly running the interview. And if you're calm and friendly and cooperative, and the reporter brings no inherent hostility, and his editor doesn't cut it or rewrite the story will come out the way you want it to.

And then there is the press inquiry. "We hear one of your clients is going to jail. Do you have any comment?"

While it's difficult to make hard and fast rules about dealing with the press beyond the normal professional considerations and bounds of confidentiality of client matters, there are a few guidelines you may find helpful in dealing with press inquiries of this kind.

The real problem is with those inquiries from the press that are client-related (or may relate to the client of another firm), or involve your firm. They may be controversial, and are potentially hostile. In those cases, a reporter is merely doing his job when he tries to solicit a controversial statement on a matter, or to badger you into saying more than is appropriate.

The objective should be to remain politely aloof and uninvolved, without fostering animosity with a member of the press with whom you might want to deal in your own behalf sometime in the future. The following hints may be useful…

• If it's a matter in which you might anticipate a press inquiry, your position should be drawn beforehand. It should be written and distributed to key people in your office who might get a call from the press. Preferably, in such matters, specific spokesman should be designated, and appropriate personnel should be advised that all calls on that matter should be given to the designated spokesman.

• Because people not used to dealing with the press are frequently surprised when they see that statements made in all innocence look very different in print than they did when they were spoken, there is an advantage in writing out a position beforehand. If a call is not anticipated, always think of how you can minimize your comments, and how your words will look out of context in hard type.

• Usually, it's not advisable to give the press a statement "off the record." While a journalist may respect your request, he's not going to like you for it unless it serves as legitimate background for him to understand something that you can say on the record. Journalists, remember, make their living on what they can print--not what they can't print.

• There is nothing more challenging to a reporter than to hear someone say "no comment." It's a red flag. On the other hand, if you were to smile, and say in a friendly way, "I'd like to help you, but you know it would be a violation of professional ethics (or client confidentiality) for me to discuss that with you," you're asking him to understand that you'd really like to help him, but you can't for reasons beyond your control.

• It helps to keep people informed -- and to have them keep you informed -- of potential situations where the press may be involved. If everyone is alert to potential danger and there's preparation beforehand, then the likelihood of being misquoted -- or worse, being quoted accurately in a misstatement -- diminishes substantially.

It's all very well to try to reduce press relations to rules, but press relations is life, and life doesn't work that way. Being calm helps, and so does being rational and thoughtful.

Sometimes, in press relations, being able to walk on water helps, too. But we can't have everything. We can only try.