The Media Interview

Answer: carry on as if they did and have your own people pose questions to you. That’s what FEMA did back on October 23rd. Having informed the media of a briefing on the California wildfires 15 minutes before it was to start, it’s not surprising that no one turned up. A couple of reporters listened [...]

I’ve never been a huge fan of talk shows (or any show) that has a street-level window for a backdrop. Inevitably, something distracting is happening on the street… like the other morning in Ottawa, Canada: Morning Show Mooning Revisited – Watch more free videos Thanks – I think – to Keith Olbermann on Countdown for [...]

NEW YORK, Oct. 23 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Michael D. Brown, Former FEMA Director and Current Director of Cotton Companies, one of the leading disaster preparedness and restoration organizations in the nation, is available for comment regarding the wild fires that are devastating Southern California. Offering yourself for media interviews when you have expertise on a current [...]

Wrestler Chris Jericho was on Fight Network Radio recently to talk about his new autobiography, A Lion’s Tale. I loved his response when asked if he was “sick of media interviews yet”: I’m happy to talk to anybody. I just did an interview with a fourteen-year-old kid that has his own website. And yesterday I [...]

A lot of people fall victim to this problem in their media interviews – thanks to Griselda for voicing it: The word absolutely drives me nuts! Everyone seems to be using this word for every answer instead of yes. Absolutely, Griselda! Save words like ‘absolutely’ for the moments when you strongly agree with a point [...]

One of the dangers of doing phone interviews (or IM interviews) is that you’re free to do all sorts of other things at the same time, as blogger Rene Gutteridge discovered: …I realized not too long ago that I was getting to an almost frenzied state of multi-tasking. This occurred to me one day during [...]

NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker on paying for media interviews. From MediaBistro’s transcript of an interview with FT.com managing editor Chrystia Freeland in June 2007: ZUCKER: Well look, I think the key thing is, anytime you do an interview with anybody is that you disclose what you’re doing. FREELAND: So if you say ‘we paid [...]

Advice from a media training guide produced for the Texas Department of Transportation has people talking in the blogosphere and in the mainstream media: “Keep calm. Leave wrestling to the pigs. They always end up looking like pigs.” Texas state senator Dan Patrick, who’s a radio talk show host, appeared on Glenn Beck to voice [...]

Perhaps for halloween I’ll go dressed as a “famous interviewer,” as the costume companies carefully describe him.

This is a follow up to my original posting about NBC reportedly offering $1 million dollars for Paris Hilton’s first post-jail TV interview – some information I missed at the time. According to a June 21, 2007 report in the NY Post, “NBC Universal boss Jeff Zucker personally called Hilton’s father Rick and made the [...]