The Media Interview

The LPGA has created quite a stir by announcing that starting in 2009 all golfers on the tour must demonstrate proficiency in English within two years of joining or face suspension. Part of the impetus behind the rule is to improve media interviews for non-English speaking players, according to Golf Week magazine: Betsy Clark, LPGA [...]

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, [...]

Part of a posting by Alex Zuffoletti, a graduate student in journalism, about her class’s trip to the IMG/Bollettieri Academy, which trains high-level athletes: one talk that I did enjoy was with these two former actors. They led the “game on” aspect of the program, which basically teaches sports stars, or wannabe sports stars, to [...]

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 [...]

Detroit Lions wide receiver Roy Williams was out delivering pizzas for an afternoon recently – all because of a media interview. Back on September 24th, during his weekly chat on WDFN radio, Williams said he never tips the people who deliver pizza. Doh! Despite trying to clarify himself on a later broadcast, the outrage poured [...]

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 [...]

Found this on the WNDU sports blog, from South Bend, Indiana: It was already past 8pm when Evan Sharpley [Notre Dame quarterback] walked into the media room on Tuesday evening. Practice ran about 25 minutes longer than usual. Sharpley was jokingly asked, “Is this the best part of your day—when practice is finished?” Sharpley answered [...]

Can’t take credit for the title of this piece – it’s a phrase I found on Ike Pigott’s old blog Accentuate the Positive (the new and improved Ike is at Occam’s Razr) and I think it’s a perfect name for those situations where a loose cannon needs media coaching to get reigned in. Here’s the [...]

The days of hiding behind the microphone in a radio studio are long gone, at least for anyone in the public eye. Either the video media is covering the interview, or the station itself is making a video, or it’s even being simulcast over the web or some TV channel. Just look at the number [...]

I have no idea if there’s anything to this post on NASCAR North, but it raises an interesting point about how organizations could use the timing of media interviews to try and influence how their spokespeople will respond. NASCAR has gone hollywood or perhaps more accurately it’s gone WWE. So much of the spectacle that [...]