The Media Interview

As I started to watch yesterday’s much talked about interview with Billy Bob Thornton and the Boxmasters on CBC Radio out of Toronto, I thought we were in for another Sigur Ros or Joaquin Phoenix stunt, when the interviewee simply clams up. Then, as host Jian Ghomeshi asked about Billy Bob’s musical influences growing up, [...]

A fascinating new trend in interviewing has emerged during the course of the US presidential primaries: the live-to-web editorial board interview. Sitting around the table with editors of a media outlet is a long-standing tradition, but the idea of streaming it live over the internet adds some interesting new dimensions. Take the editorial board meeting [...]

English football manager Avram Grant gave a bizarre press conference after his Chelsea team’s win over Everton on April 17 – so bizarre that The Independent ran an almost complete transcript. I say ‘almost’ because it doesn’t give a full sense of the pauses and silences. Anyway, here’s part of the one-word wonder at work, [...]

Heard a great story the other day while waiting in the green room at a TV station. Author Sue Johnson (Hold Me Tight) was saying how she once had a 5 minute TV appearance reduced to only 3 minutes because they couldn’t get a tiger off the set from the previous 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 [...]

The way NPR’s Bryant Park Project tells it, the Icelandic band Sigur Ros was at fault for what it calls “possibly the worst interview in the history of electronic media”. Seriously. It was that bad. We’re not sure if they were tired, or if it was a language thing, or what… but wow. Whereas most [...]

What happened in Arizona stayed in Arizona… until the internet came along. The chances of a local mistake going national or international just grow and grow. Arizona State quarterback Rudy Carpenter apologized Monday for swearing during a live radio interview after the Sun Devils’ victory over Oregon State… The interview was posted on YouTube, and [...]