Ambush interviews have long been a weapon in the broadcast journalism arsenal. You know the type – the reporter waits patiently outside the building for the unsuspecting CEO or government official to emerge. While one can argue that this is shoddy journalism, the truth is that this tactic gives reporters get exactly what they were after – a juicy story.
Last week, a local investigative reporter ambushed the County Clerk’s office on a tip about slot machines in the break room to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day (no joke). Take a look at this video – it is rife with examples of what not to do:
It goes without saying that shoving a reporter is always a bad idea. But what would you do if this happened in your office? Here are some tips:
- Be prepared. Although ambush interviews are quite rare, it is important to prepare for such occasions. Be aware of potential issues that the media might want to pursue and develop potential responses should the media come calling unexpectedly.
- Develop protocol. Make sure that your company knows what to do should a reporter show up at your door. If your company doesn’t have a designated spokesperson or public relations professional, identify someone to serve in this role and instruct employees to send inquiries to this person.
- Return phone calls. Reporters sometimes resort to ambush interviews if they are unable to get information or if people don’t return calls. Ambush interviews are used to force the person’s hand. Don’t let it come to this. Even if you don’t want to do an interview, return the reporter’s call. By being responsive, you may prevent an ambush interview later.
- Don’t run. Reporters love to get footage of someone dodging a camera or putting their hand in front of the lens. Avoidance tactics only make the situation worse. It is much better to stop and address the reporter.
- Try rescheduling. Instead of answering questions right then and there, tell the reporter that you would be happy to sit down and talk at a time that would be more convenient. This accomplishes two things – you give the reporter the opportunity to ask questions and it allows you to prepare and respond in a more controlled environment.
- Answer the questions (or state why you can’t). If the reporter insists on continuing right then and there, calmly answer his or her questions if you can. It is better to say “I don’t know the answer, but I’ll be happy to look into that” than to avoid the questions or run away from the reporter.
- Remain calm. It’s easier said than done, but perhaps the most important tip for handling an ambush interview is to remain calm. Reporters create these situations to invoke your temper or take advantage of your nerves. Don’t let them.
How would you have handled this situation? What additional tips would you offer?
Laura Click is a marketing and public relations professional in Nashville, TN, who works in state government by day and in PR/marketing consultant by night. Check her out at www.lauraclick.com or follow her on Twitter @lauraclick.
So Vice President Joe Biden drops the F bomb. I’m clueless as to how this situation could possibly be considered a good thing. I was mortified when a client did the same thing in an editorial meeting; the client just gave reporters another reason to dislike him. It’s lazy language. Biden knows better. Dick Cheney knew better. I’m even more disappointed in the President’s reaction, as well as that of his press secretary. To some voters, word choice reflects character – that’s the big deal. No coffee for anyone this week..
The virtual Cup of Joe Award from EveryDayPR spotlights our pick of the week for a public relations performance – good, bad or ugly. If you’d like to make a nomination, contact shart@hartpr.com or www.Twitter.com/susanhartpr.
UPDATE: Developers react to web sites using the pay-t0-play approach for iPhone apps in exchange for publicity. Read about the fallout.
In a moment of frustration, I recently posted on Facebook how I find it annoying when people refer to the book in the Bible as Revelations. It’s Revelation, not Revelations. To my surprise, I got a slew of responses of words/phases that also bother readers. Among them:
End a sentence with a preposition? Like nails on a chalkboard.
- It’s a moot point, not a mute one
- “Close proximity” is redundant
- It’s the Book of Psalms; each chapter is a Psalm
- It’s toward, regard and afterward – not towards, regards and afterwards
- It’s Daylight Saving Time, not Savings
- Is it drapes or draperies? To avoid the issue, I use window treatments
- People graduate from college; not people graduate college
- You shop at Kroger, not Krogers
- A mason works in masonry; not in masonary
- Men can get prostate cancer; not prostrate cancer
- It’s means it is
- You’re, not your, means you are
- You insure (not ensure) things like people and property
- And the all-time worst offender to me: Ending a sentence/question with a preposition – it’s like nails on a chalkboard with a full body shudder.
What are some words/phrases that bother you?
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Kudos to Kraft for cutting an average of 10 percent salt out of its products over the next two years. Since we’re supposed to have about 1,500 mg of salt a day, this is great news. Think about it: One serving of Breakstone cottage cheese has 400 mg of sodium; one serving of Kraft mac-n-cheese has 930 mg of sodium, and I won’t even talk about Velveeta (which is a questionable food at best). Kraft says the salt reduction will eliminate more than 10 million pounds of salt. Three virtual Cups of (practically sodium free) Joe to Kraft for its decision.
The virtual Cup of Joe Award from EveryDayPR spotlights our pick of the week for a public relations performance – good, bad or ugly. If you’d like to make a nomination, contact shart@hartpr.com or www.Twitter.com/susanhartpr.
UPDATE: March 23, 2010 - Community activist group ACORN announced it is folding amid falling revenues — six months after video footage showed some of its workers giving tax tips to conservative activists posing as a pimp and prostitute. Several of its largest affiliates broke away this year and changed their names in a bid to ditch the tarnished image of their parent organization and restore revenue that ran dry in the wake of the video scandal.
ORIGINAL POST: March 15, 2010 – Local offices of the controversial ACORN group are changing their name to disassociate themselves from the brand beating the Chicago-based organization has taken in recent months. ACORN, or the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, has 1,200 offices here and abroad, which means a lot of new business cards and letterhead are hitting the presses as we speak.
ACORN isn’t the first to undergo a name change. Remember Philip Morris? To distance itself from the bad image of cigarettes, the holding company is now called Altria. How about Anderson Consulting? It’s now Accenture as its initial name became synonymous with accounting scandal. Remember going to Kentucky Fried Chicken? Now we go to KFC to avoid saying the word “fried” and to give ourselves the illusion we’re eating healthier fare, a few of the same reasons the restaurant’s name was changed.
For most businesses, name changes are a last resort to stay afloat after a downward spiral in reputation. However, the company’s leadership, operations, policies, attitudes and marketing dollars are some of the things that also help a company right its wrongs. The same thing applies to ACORN chapters. If the parent organization’’s name isn’t changing, if senior management remains the same, if operations remain inconsistent and if the group continues to make the headlines, then a change on the front door sign won’t help. It’s kinda like blaming the sinking of the Titanic on an iceburg when in fact, it was the decisions that led up to that moment that resulted in disaster.
What do you think? Will these locally renamed chapters of ACORN continue to fall too close to their parental tree?
As advanced as technology is these days, it will never replace good judgment. A Nashville-based executive learned that the hard way when he was fired after sending a tasteless joke about First Lady Michelle Obama. While this isn’t the first and not likely to be the last time this type of thing happens, my real question is who creates these offensive “jokes” for Internet distribution?
In this latest e-mail debacle, Larry the Cable Guy was cited as the source. A cursory Google search also revealed several websites with countless columns of questionable material – we’re not talking “knock-knock” jokes here. What kind of people make up this stuff? More importantly, what kind of people distribute that stuff, and why? Unfortunately, this subject probably falls in the supply-and-demand category – as long as the material is used, it will continue to be created. No coffee for these offensive writers and the people who are dumb enough to repeat their work.
The virtual Cup of Joe Award from EveryDayPR spotlights our pick of the week for a public relations performance – good, bad or ugly. If you’d like to make a nomination, contact shart@hartpr.com or www.Twitter.com/susanhartpr.
Raise your hand if you haven’t failed at least once in your life. According to Steve McKee, author of When Growth Stalls and regular BusinessWeek columnist, we’re all failures, including him. Before the economic downturn, his own company initially flourished but then plateaued, which makes his experience relevant to all business owners. While I’ve posted on Steve before, here are some new nuggets of knowledge gleaned from his recent talk.
Author Steve McKee
* The absolute worst time to reduce spending on R&D and marketing is in a down-turned economy. Think of a race car driver entering a turn on the track. He (and I use that pronoun androgynously) has to put on the brakes and be attentive to the surrounding cars so that he can best position himself to gain a lead once he’s out of the turn. Organizations that apply the same principal of focusing on their task during the turn (developing new products/services, revising products/services, preparing for market launches, maintaining visibility, etc.) are much better equipped to take the lead and gain market share after the turn, in this case, the recession.
* External market tectonics can wreak havoc on an organization’s original mission. It’s not just about the economy; it’s about how changes in consumer behavior affect traditionally stable businesses. For example, people are spending less on funerals for friends and loved ones, but the sky is the limit when it comes to paying for pet burials.
* Top reason for stalled growth continues to be an internal lack of managerial consensus. In the words of Margaret Thatcher, “A lack of consensus is the absence of leadership.”
To check out the health of your company, take this free self diagnosis. While failing isn’t the worst thing that can happen, it possibly could be avoided.
This marks the first post in which I’ve promoted a client, but in this case, it’s the right thing to do. Nashville-based Fridrich & Clark Realty also is doing the right thing by asking its real estate agents to break a longtime habit: stop using cell phones or other electronic devices while driving. If you know anything about real estate, you know this is asking a lot.
When the Managing Partners presented the suggestion this week, the response was overwhelmingly positive. Not only did Realtors jump on board, they added other ideas, including changing their voice mail to reflect that calls will be returned when agents are no longer on the road. Senior executives are hoping that industry colleagues will follow their lead. More information about the dangers of driving and using electronic devices can be seen at this link. Three Virtual Cups of Joe go to Fridrich & Clark Realty management and agents for doing the right thing.
The virtual Cup of Joe Award from EveryDayPR spotlights our pick of the week for a public relations performance – good, bad or ugly. If you’d like to make a nomination, contact shart@hartpr.com or www.Twitter.com/susanhartpr.
Last week’s tragic death of SeaWorld trainer Dawn Brancheau reminds me of something I heard from my first newspaper editor: “if it bleeds, it leads“. Brancheau’s death was within days of the suicide mission of a pilot into an IRS building that also killed an innocent victim. Both stories sprouted multiple legs, ample controversy, man-on-the-street interviews and repetitious headlines that continue as of this post. In the middle of all this was a grilling of Toyota executives about car safety and a seven-hour meeting of Congressional leaders to discuss health care reform. What about the legs on those stories?
Officials start the investigation process of the Austin plane crash.
It’s both sad and simple. Once the president of Toyota cried, viewers became disinterested. Since the health care topic is dull and convoluted, mainstream media got bored (and SeaWorld happened). Yet health care impacts just about every American, unlike isolated incidences of violence, accidental or not.
What does this say about the media and our society in general? Sadly it says we haven’t changed a lot. We’re still voyeuristic; we’d rather watch blood and guts; we’d prefer to see someone else publicly fail; and we’re trained to feed on pablum more than substantive news.
What do you think?
