Media interviews can be tricky if you are not properly prepared. Here are our top tips for making the most of the opportunity to appear on TV or radio – even if the circumstances are difficult. Many points are also relevant to press interviews.
Know Your Ground
- What is the show in which you will appear?
- News/features/discussion?
- What subjects do they cover?
- How much time do they give?
- What type of interview?
- Crisis interviews
- Ideas selling interview
- Social interview
- Who will be interviewing you?
- Know your interviewer
- Understand their technique
- Listen to replays of their interviews online
- What is their approach?
- Combative – proving/disproving a specific point(s)
- Researched and guided
- Blank canvas
Know Your Message
- Consider your subject from a listener’s point of view
- Develop the points they will need/expect you to get across
- Know your success criteria (different for everyone)
- Message clear
- Sales enquiries (or at least website hits)
- No stupid remarks or embarrassing silences
- Feeling proud on watching/listening back
- Make bullet points of key issues – don’t script it
- How long have you got?
- What MUST you get over –
- Prioritise – Don’t try to put 10 minutes of content into a 5 minute interview
- Better to have 2 minutes properly explored
- Rehearse! Have someone ask you difficult (for you) questions and develop clear, authentic answers
Be In Good Shape on the Day
- Arrive in good time
- Be calm – use relaxation techniques
- Deep breathing
- Meditation
- Yoga
- Warm up your voice and face
- Eating beforehand – avoid anything that affects your voice
- Know your key points and be ready to express them freshly
- Don’t learn (or worse, try to read from) a script
- Be positive and control nerves
Aceing The Interview
- This is a performance –
- Entertain/engage as well as getting your point across
- TV/Radio interviewing is a conversation – be present not distracted
- Where appropriate, be upbeat and positive
- Avoid using negative sentence constructions
- Be a good interviewee – help the interviewer
- Have something to say
- Nothing worse than one word/one sentence answers
- Listen to the question
- Link your key points to the question
- Sometimes that may require a bridge from the question into your point
- Interviewer should say much less than interviewee
- Stick to the point –
- One answer, one point
- Don’t explore the byways
- Don’t ramble or tell questionable stories
- Keep an eye on time
- Build rapport with interviewer
- Don’t antagonise the interviewer
- Better on side than against you
- e.g. Paxman and Chloe Smith after the fuel duty rise was cancelled – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZ31jMsKOXg
- Compare with Paxman and Boris Johnson (don’t try this at home!)- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgThJK8xfKw
- Respect for interviewer – especially true for pre-recording where they control the edit!
Getting Asked Back
- Take an interest in the presenter, the station and the audience
- Give value
- Entertain and inform the audience
- Be engaging – to the presenter and the audience
- Help the presenter by being available and easy to talk to
- Be memorable – in the right way!
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