It’s time for PR people to end the charade of pre-supplied interview questions

Good points sir.

Comms folks should set up the media interview and then step out of the way.

Good comms folks should set-up the interview and provide anticipated questions/red flags based on the initial conversation with the journalist. As well as prep the client before hand to anticipate these and any other potential issues/current topics that might come up.

Just setting up the interview and leaving it to the spokesperson would be disastrous if they’re not media training/savvy enough.

Fully agree. Of course spokespeople should be prepared. But pre-supplied questions are a crutch that are all too easily kicked out from underneath them.

Agreed.

I think a Journalist should be honest and completely open about the topic, nature and reason for their interest in the piece they are writing along with the likely direction they feel the finished article, and thus interview, may take. But if anyone in a position of authority / power being asked for an interview (i.e. opinion) should have one and be ready to talk about the topic.

More specifically one of their own, to be supported when called on.

Too many people buzzword-bingo their way to positions of authority across our industry. Some hard, pre-questionless, interviews would go a long way to sifting some of them out, and keeping people that shape our industry accountable.

#mustbebetter

Exactly – the reasonableness test applies. Thanks for your thoughts.

Loved the article. It brought up very valid points from a journalist’s point of view. However I feel that the issue does not really lie with the comms team asking for the interview questions but more about a comms team understanding how interviews work.

For example an interview can’t be effective from a comms team perspective if they don’t have all the questions as their CEO or spokesperson can’t answer questions if he is not prepared with certain answers.

If both parties (journalist and comms) understand each other’s roles and agendas when it comes to news then there are less cases of people getting upset and making unnecessary demands.

Hi Wesley,

I’m a journalist and have worked with different PR people (both in-house and agency) from different Southeast Asian capitals and I must say, those who ask for questions in advance are usually from Singapore. It’s probably their way of controlling the situation, but what happens, in the end, is that the interview becomes tepid, with the spokesperson sounding as if he rehearsed his answers (if not coached to drop key messages for every question). It’s not my ideal conversation. I’m sure other journalists will agree.

Before transferring to Southeast Asia from NY, oh so many years ago, I had never heard of the practice of asking journalists for the questions they wanted to ask of my clients/executives. Sure, we’d ask for specific themes or topics, but never the actual questions. As PR Minion mentions above, we’d then work to prep our client.

Imagine the surprise when in Singapore, upon making such a request and receiving the questions from the reporter, my client decided the questions were too difficult to answer. He then stated he’d only participate if we/he had a chance to review the resulting article prior to publication. Obviously, he wasn’t ready to actually engage in an interview. I suggested he buy an advertorial instead.

Thanks for sharing the story – good call!

Journalist here, and yes, based in Singapore. I have long given up being allowed to actually do an interview without having to submit my questions. In fact, the rare times it happens, I was very surprised and couldn’t believe the comms would let me just interview the resource person!

Having said that though, I must admit that I never had a problem with interviewees not answering un-vetted questions. Most were willing enough to do so, which I guess shows how media-savvy everyone is these days.

My pet peeve though is what HK McCann mentioned in his comment — about the interviewee or the comms people wanting to see the finished piece before it sees print to “fact check” as one comms person put it to me. It’s one thing to control the message coming from their side (i.e., the resource person), another thing to control, worse, try to change my message.

Let me play Devil’s Advocate, having worked on both sides of this debate.

Regarding the “fact checking” I think it is fair for the interviewee to check her/his own quotes for accuracy, but nothing more, if only because in many cases the standard of journalism in the region do need a double check.

I was ecently interviewed for the trade press and was shocked at the quotes that were attributed to me. Quotes had been truncated to communicate a meaning different from what I had intended. Other quotes were simply not what I had originally said. In situations like this, it is surely acceptable to be able to check? Such quotes can carry a lot of weight and have implications once they are in the public domain.

I guess what I am saying is that this “trust”, which is important, needs to go both ways. Hate to say it, but the standard of many journalists in this region is just not good enough for an interviewee to pass on unconditional trust.

I always feel lucky if I ask for and get questions from journalists ahead of interviews. We prep the spokesperson with anticipated questions and say, by the way, we asked for questions but the journalist didn’t send over.

I can say I’ve never, ever reviewed questions and censored them. I have said we can’t answer this or that because it’s a forward-looking statement or given a reason.

Several times it has happened with legal clients, the interviewer has said if it’s OK to send their draft over for review. This is because it’s about a point of law and they don’t want to get it wrong. Again, I never, ever expect or ask for a review of copy and we tell clients this too.

I set up a TV interview once for a client in Malaysia. We got sent the questions a week in advance. We prepped the client. Twenty seconds before going live, the anchor said to the client, ‘I’ve reviewed the questions and changed them all’.

Journo perspective here: I’m always happy to send over the topics of discussion in advance to allow prep, but sending specific questions isn’t something I would do. I always ask for permission for the interview subject to be recorded on a dictaphone to ensure accuracy, and they know that all comments in the recording time will be considered ‘on the record’. I’m fair and transparent and expect the same from interview subjects – call me naive….

In Asia, I’ve been asked by comms people for the right to “review and edit” the story before publishing, or for the company to just write the story and I can publish their version in full (er?!) and other ridiculous things.

There is no journalism in Singapore. Just promotion and approved facts/narratives. Realise that, and everything makes sense.

Exactly.

Journalist in Singapore is surely a contradiction of terms.

I’ve done three ‘interviews’ for Mumbrella

And never once spoken to one of your “journalists”

Five questions e-mailed over, five answers e-mailed back, you’ve tortured the grammar, murdered the syntax and made it all sound more formal that was ever intended – and then posted without even telling me it was up.

Hello Erm – kettle / pot?,

That’s interesting you say since we are a very lean team – two-thirds of us being journalists – so I’m curious to know who you spoke to. Sorry you didn’t find our interviewing style up to your satisfaction, but sometimes the modern news cycle means a lengthy face-to-face over coffee isn’t always entirely practical.

Cheers,
Eleanor

Email interviews are bad form. No journalist should ever be so busy that they can’t pick up a phone.

So much nuance is lost through email.