Introduction to "Media Publicity and Interviews"

I was one of the obvious people to front up to the interviews because I was specialising in the area. My task was to try and explain why screaming for your team wasn’t good for your voice, what you could do to look after your voice, and how to recover quickly if you’d damaged it. As I was doing this every day for a living and it was my passion, I didn’t think much about it – I thought it would be straightforward. What I failed to take account of was that, what I knew, others didn’t know, didn’t understand and weren’t automatically interested in.

It wasn’t until I was doing the interviews that I discovered how little I knew about the media. I knew about the voice - but about the media – no. I not only didn’t know about it, I didn’t know that I didn’t know. In fact I had no idea there was so much to know. Consequently, I had to gain knowledge and understanding very quickly during the campaign. Unfortunately, there wasn't enough time and it was a painful and embarrassing way to learn.

So what did I learn? Have you ever tried to explain trout fishing to someone who has never seen a fish, or of the need to preserve seagrasses to people who don't care about them? This was similar to what I discovered I was facing. I found I needed to speak in a different language for the media audience. Regrettably, I wasn’t prepared for it. I learnt that the word "larynx" for instance, that I used everyday, needed to become "your voice box", or your "Adams apple" or "the lump that sticks out in the front of your neck."

Now I hear other people still making the same mistakes. The academic who uses jargon that makes no sense to us, the health professional who tosses in terms and phrases that we don’t use, or the financial wizard who talks figures that you and I can’t fathom. This book will show you the language to use so you don’t do this and you get your message across in words that make sense to your audience and grab their attention.

A second thing I learnt was how easy it was to fail to promote my profession as a place to go to for help. My job was, of course, to do this and I was meant to give out a contact number where people could phone for advice. Being naïve in those days I just presumed that the media would know I needed to do that and that they’d do it for me or ask me for the details. However, this isn’t what happened. I’d be left sitting at the end of an interview realising I hadn’t been asked for the contact details and I hadn’t given them.

A third thing I learnt was that I didn’t know enough about the way the radio stations selected people for interviews. I did an interview early on in the week and then a few days later was invited to attend for another interview on the same station but with a different announcer. You can imagine my dismay when I walked in and the announcer said, "I’m not going to talk to you, you’ve already been on air, I’ll only talk to the person you’ve brought with you." I was stunned. Fortunately, I had a back-up person with me, one of our Ear, Nose and Throat surgeons. He had come along simply to explain a few anatomical factors as a minor part of the interview. He ended up doing the whole interview while I sat feeling stupid in the dunce’s corner.

Although I didn't know it at the time, there is a general rule on some radio stations that, if a person is interviewed on a topic on one programme, they aren’t invited to talk on the same topic on another show on the same station. We didn’t know that so we unwittingly sent our press release to every programme. And this is what got me into trouble.

People have since said to me, "You’d think the media would check before they invited you in, wouldn’t you?" No. I now know that such a question is a sign of limited understanding of the media. The media are full of very busy people with enormous schedules to fill in very pressured time schedules. They have their roles and responsibilities and so do you and I. Save yourself the same kind of embarrassments and learn how to approach the media correctly by reading this book.

There were other bad times too. For example, there was the interviewer who had a bee in his bonnet about one particular aspect of speech therapy that I wasn’t involved in. He kept asking me about people who stuttered. I knew nothing about people who stuttered. I had never treated a stutterer or worked with one. Other speech therapists had but I hadn’t and I didn’t know what to say. I blithely believed that the media would stick to the topic, my topic, and would just ask me what I wanted to say. I laugh at this now, as it is not like that at all: it is my job to get my message across, not theirs. My ignorance got the better of me again. In those days I also didn’t know how to take control of an interview or how to lead to what I wanted to say. I just blindly followed the interviewer’s questions. I was very ignorant. Don’t be as I was; let me show you, later on, how to get your message across even when the media go off on a tangent.

I also imagined that the interviewers would have done their homework and would know about my topic, on the basis of their research. Therefore, I had not imagined that interviewers would not know the difference between people who had a hoarse, rough or squeaky voice and people who stuttered or stammered and couldn’t get their words out. But now, I smile and think, why would they? Why would anyone except for those working in the area? I learnt that sometimes the media might not know anything about my topic, at all. There is only so much research they can do. They may interview you about your book and only have read the cover. They may have read an article in another paper about the exhibition, conference or community event you are hosting and use that to interview you, and it may not be accurate. Or they may only have read your press release. However, in contrast, they may know a lot about your topic. They may have a degree in environmental science when you are talking about the algal blooms in the river ... or they may have followed every race at the speedway when you go in to promote your final track event of the year. The important thing is to be ready for both scenarios and all shades in-between. This book will show you how.

When I look back on this time, I wonder how I could have been so uninformed. Well it was easy. There are many people who mount media campaigns or get invited to do an interview who don’t know enough. And there are those who are very successful at getting an interview but who then throw away the opportunity they have been given. How? By being irrelevant, boring, hard to understand, not talkative enough, flat, or too pedantic. There is a long list of things not to do in an interview that you will discover in this book, so that you can be good media talent. The good news is that once you know what to do it really is quite easy.

I've come a long way from those early days, fortunately. I have now done well over 150 media interviews, successfully mounted several of my own media campaigns, had my own monthly talk-back segment on ABC radio for two years, been a magazine columnist and been engaged to train the media. So now I know far more about what to expect, say and do. By sharing with you what I now know about the media, and by your reading this book before you get involved with them, I hope that your journey with them will be more straightforward than mine. And that you can avoid the mistakes that I made, and which many people make when they begin to want media publicity or are being interviewed on the radio or in the press for the first time or two.

Most of my experiences, but not all, have been with the Australian media. Consequently, many of my examples, but not all, are drawn from there. Others are based on USA, NZ and UK experiences and data. However, whilst predominantly Australian based, the ideas and concepts are still helpful in other English speaking countries such as Great Britain, New Zealand, Canada and the USA. Once you read the examples your awareness of what to do and what not to do will increase. Then when you read articles in your own press or listen to radio interviews on your favourite stations, you'll be able to apply the information, wherever you are.

I have deliberately not included television interviews in this book – they are a whole book all on their own. Instead, I have concentrated on radio and print interviews, as these are the ones you are most likely to get as a beginner.

This book doesn’t tell you everything about the media. It would be one huge tome if it did. However, it does give you, as a beginner, many insights into how you can get the best out of it.

If you want to be in the media, and you are relatively new to it, and you don’t know a lot about it, then this book is for you. It is also for you if you are nervous of the media and wish to feel more confident in handling it.

It is particularly aimed at people such as academics, authors, community organisations and charities, entertainers, health professionals, small business owners, junior sporting clubs, religious groups, event organisers, environmental groups, artists, professional speakers, ... and similar groups and people. I have deliberately not aimed it at seasoned performers such as politicians or corporate businesses as these people have access to sophisticated media training, public relations machines and media minders; and they are already usually skilled and requiring advanced input. However, it will do them no harm to read it!

Please let me suggest a way to use this E-book. It is not intended that you print it all off in one go. Rather, the detailed table of contents allows you to choose the exact pages that you need to read at any one time. Each section stands alone, so that you can read on screen the most pertinent section for you. Then at the back of the book is a comprehensive set of checklists. These can be used over and over again, and it is these that I anticipate that you will print. The other pages explain everything on the checklists.

As an example, if you are not mounting a media campaign but simply are attending a radio interview, go straight to section four and read what you need to do to sound brilliant on-air. Then print off the following checklists as your reminders:

	Am I good media talent?
	Have I prepared well for a radio interview?
	Can I make my interviews interesting?
	How good was I?

Use these to check that you have done everything you need.

If, in contrast, you only want to write a media release, then read the relevant pages in section three, and print off the checklists:

	Do I have a good story?
	Is my media release good enough?

The E-book is a very practical guide and very clearly set out so everything is easy to find, quickly. You should be able to pinpoint the exact pages you need at any time.

I wish you great success in gaining the media publicity you dream of and hope that you will be more talented and informed than I used to be. May you get your message across with confidence. Enjoy being interviewed.