This is broadly what happens when spokespeople in Asia are invited to take part in a media interview:
1. The reporter calls the corporate communications department and asks to interview someone on a particular topic.
2. The comms manager asks the reporter to send in their questions.
3. The reporter emails three-to-six questions.
4. If the comms manager approves of the questions, they arrange an interview with the relevant spokesperson.
5. During the interview, the reporter asks maybe one-to-two questions, but then goes completely off script and asks the questions s/he wanted to ask all along. #freedom
6. The spokesperson is surprised by the line of questioning and comes away feeling a tad shaky about future media interviews. #feelingconned
7. If things go badly, the comms manager is instructed to call the reporter to ask (not to say beg) him/her to not quote the answers the spokesperson was unprepared for. #awkward

Laudi: ‘Comms people set the wrong expectations if they prepare their spokesperson to just answer submitted questions.’
This charade has gone on far too long and we – everyone involved, from the journalist, to the comms person, to the spokesperson – really need to be better than this.
Let’s call a spade a spade:
No journalist worth their salt sends questions in advance. At least, not the ones they really want to ask. They only send questions to score the interview. Knowing that they have to convince the comms person, they send general, positive-sounding questions in the hope the comms person will say yes. So, the questions aren’t really there to help the spokesperson prepare – they’re aimed at the comms person.
Any journalist who sticks exactly to the submitted questions will be writing up a very boring interview indeed, bereft of follow-up questions and a deeper dive into the topic (this lies at the heart of why consumers have lost faith in media). In fact, journalists might as well request for the answers to be emailed back. What is the point of conducting a face-to-face or telephone interview if not to ask questions that weren’t flagged?!
This brings me to my next point:
Spokespeople are setting themselves up for failure if they really think the submitted questions are going to be asked. Some of my clients report that journalists will ask at most half of the questions submitted, but usually just one. If any at all. Plus, think about it: a print interview usually lasts anywhere from 15-45 minutes. During that time, the reporter can easily ask, say, 8-20 questions. Even if the reporter sends eight questions, what about the other 12?
Sometimes I have media training guests who are completely surprised by this.
“What about the rules of journalism? What about journalistic ethics?” they ask.
“What rules of journalism?” I ask back. Who wrote these, and what do they look like? In fact, are there any? Especially in an era of bloggers, who aren’t accountable to a formalised editorial structure.
Comms people set the wrong expectations if they prepare their spokesperson to just answer submitted questions. When the inevitable off-track question comes (loved asking those on radio and TV) they stumble, or they give embarrassingly candid answers which the comms person has to backtrack on afterwards. I have been on the receiving end of such calls, and let me tell you, it’s not fun for anybody. Usually I am compelled to include the unprepared answers precisely because I was asked to remove them, lest the comms person thinks they can get away with it again next time.
The increasingly media savvy reader and viewer is fed up to the teeth with canned responses. We might not like Donald Trump and his labelling of every criticism as #fakenews. But the reason why his plans to “drain the swamp” resonates with so many voters is because trust in the establishment –traditional political parties, organisations and institutions, and the media – is at a low ebb. So, more glib corporate messaging isn’t going to win them back (it’s not helping that viewers and readers are much quicker to take offence at even the slightest provocation, but that’s a topic for another column).
The only way spokespeople and comms managers can rebuild trust with their audiences is through the right type of interview preparation, substantive answers that are neither meaningless corporate pap nor ‘deer in headlights’ responses, and greater media savvy.
And not a single submitted question in sight.
Mark Laudi runs the media training consultancy Hong Bao Media. This article was first published on LinkedIn and reprinted with permission.
Good points sir.
Comms folks should set up the media interview and then step out of the way.
ReplyGood 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.
ReplyFully agree. Of course spokespeople should be prepared. But pre-supplied questions are a crutch that are all too easily kicked out from underneath them.
ReplyAgreed.
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
ReplyExactly – the reasonableness test applies. Thanks for your thoughts.
ReplyLoved 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.
ReplyHi 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.
ReplyBefore 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.
ReplyThanks for sharing the story – good call!
ReplyJournalist 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.
ReplyLet 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.
ReplyI 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’.
ReplyJourno 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.
ReplyThere is no journalism in Singapore. Just promotion and approved facts/narratives. Realise that, and everything makes sense.
ReplyExactly.
Journalist in Singapore is surely a contradiction of terms.
ReplyI’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.
ReplyHello 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,
ReplyEleanor
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.
ReplyHave your say