The Media Interview

My neighbour is running for city councillor and his wife was telling me about the first all-candidates meeting he attended. She was shocked at how little things get magnified when you’re in the public eye. For instance, while her husband was listening to other candidates, he was grimacing and frowning, and she realized how that [...]

In the final hours of the 2008 presidential election, third-party candidate Ralph Nader held a press conference at which he would only reply to questions with single-word answers. MSNBC.com’s Bob Sullivan reported the encounter at Washington’s National Press Club this way: The stilted question-and-answer session felt at times like a bad game of “Jeopardy.” Reporters [...]

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, [...]

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 [...]