Why do so many spokespersons get into trouble with media interviews?

Many media spokespersons get into trouble during media interviews because they treat them like introductions.

What they forget is that reporters will only use small snippets of what they say in the later story. In addition to live-streamed interviews, this means that anything you say has to stand on its own. For example, if you were asked, “Could more workers be injured after this freak accident?”

Your natural instinct may be to say, “We can’t rule out more injuries, but we have world-class safety precautions that are well above the industry standard.”

If you’re giving a presentation, this would be a perfectly reasonable response because your audience would hear your entire response. But if you said this to a reporter, they may only use the first part of your response in the story. So the angle of the story could be that more injuries are possible.

Instead, it could have said this: “The safety of our workers is our top priority. That’s why we have safety precautions that are well above the required industry standard.”

You can see from that answer that you would be comfortable with the reporter using any part of it.

How many times have you heard spokespersons complain that they were quoted out of context? This happens all the time. The problem is that there’s never room for the entire interview to be used in the later story, unless it’s live. That’s why a reporter will only use what he or she considers to be the most interesting answers you give.

What this means is that you have to make sure that everything you say stands on its own. If you can’t, you risk being quoted out of context and the angle of the story being something completely different than what you intended.

The risk of this happening has increased in recent years, as the media come under pressure to entertain and inform. This means you’re more likely to be quoted out of context if readers are more likely to click on those stories when they visit online news sites.

The key here is to embellish the points you want to present in interesting ways that meet the needs of the reporter. This should be your goal because it allows you to get your points across while helping the reporter produce an interesting story.