Sometimes a reporter will bombard you with three, four, even five questions in a row. This may be a strategy to rattle you and make you crumble. More often, the multiple questions in a row is simply a reflection of the reporter's disorganized thought process regarding that topic at that moment.

As the interviewee, it is in your best interest to think like a strategic communicator when this happens, and not just like an interesting conversationalist. An interesting conversationalist will pick the most interesting question to answer, preferably one that will allow him or her to show a width and breadth of knowledge. Next, the interesting conversationalist tries to be helpful, well-organized, all-encompassing, and a bit professorial by saying something like "let me take your fourth question first, your third question second, etc."

This is how a lot of normal, intelligent, rational people speak; however, it is an extraordinarily counterproductive strategy if your goal is to get your message out through the media.

The skilled communicator never loses sight of the primary objective of the interview - getting the message out of his or her mouth and into the final story. This colors every decision and thought process throughout the interview. In the case of multiple questions tossed out at one time by a reporter, the skilled communicator is thinking only the following thought:

"What is the ONE question of all those just asked that leads me in the quickest, easiest way back to one of my three message points?"

That is the only thought going on in our media master's head. The skilled communicator is NOT thinking any of the following questions:

• "Which question is easiest to answer?"
• "Which question allows me to showcase my knowledge base the best?"
• "Which question is intellectually challenging?"
• "In which order should answer the questions?"

The skilled media communicator doesn't worry about what order to answer the questions because he or she is only going to answer one question: the one that leads most easily back to their central message points.

That doesn't mean the media master is afraid to answer the other questions or trying to dodge them. If the reporter wants to re-ask the questions, that's OK. But half of the time the reporter won't re-ask the questions because he or she will now be focused on asking follow up questions based on the messages put forth in the previous answer. Therefore the media master has successfully gained control of the interview.

~ TJ Walker

 

 

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Media Training Workshop

"MAKE THE MOST OF THE MEDIA"

February 11 &12
Media Training Workshop
New York, NY

(more dates available)