This week's strategy: Leave reporting to the reporters. You can
organize and media train all you want. But once a press conference
or important interview begins, PR pros should take a backseat to
interaction between the journalists and the executive.
We've heard complaints recently from fellow journalists who have
attended press conferences where PR pros and other "shills" have
been placed in the audience along with journalists to pose
questions. "It gives the subject the chance to avoid answering real
questions," complains one disgruntled reporter. Others just object
to the fact that it eats away at the limited time of a press
conference when they would like to pose their own questions.
We've noticed the same problem during interviews lately. One
senior PR executive we interviewed was continually interrupted by a
low-ranking agency executive who had arranged the interview and
chose to sit in on the call. Our first question: What did this
experienced practitioner have to hide, or why was she so insecure
that she needed a "handler" 20 years her junior during a seemingly
innocuous interview? She may have had nothing to hide, and she
likely is not insecure. But the presence of the agency professional
and her many questions gave the appearance of both.
Our second question: Why the many interruptions? We had valuable
questions we wanted answered and a limited time - 30 minutes - in
which to ask them. After the source had spent 20 minutes answering
queries posed by her own representative, we had little time in
which to get the answers we needed for our story. We understand
jumping in to provide a piece of valuable information or "plant a
seed" with a source if you sense that a reporter is growing
frustrated by non-answers or a rambling interviewee. Otherwise,
most journalists would prefer you keep quiet during the interview -
or better yet, arrange the interview, and then stay off the call
altogether.