Earlier this week I received an email from a faculty colleague in another field. He was seeking my advice dealing with public relations people.
He hosts a podcast on issues in his field, and had recently reached out directly to an expert researcher on a specific topic who worked at another university. He was inviting her to be on his podcast as an expert guest to discuss that topic.
He was put off that he got a response not from the professor, but a public relations person. That person asked for a more refined description of the topic of discussion, a list of questions, and the names of anyone else who would be on the segment.
So my colleague complied with all he had been asked for. More than a month transpired with not a word. That’s when he reached out to me.
Coincidentally, the next day I randomly encountered a thread on Twitter in which a journalist complained about the difficulties of setting up an interview with a public official. Her series of tweets laid out her frustrations:
“Hello twitter, I want to talk today about the state of the press relations in the United States. You may or may not know, but it is increasingly rare for your local journalist to be able to simply call an official to ask questions.
Instead, we are made to go through a spokesperson who often will not answer the phone when called. This person often asks for written questions and provides written responses. These responses, as you can imagine, often inspire further follow up questions.
This back and forth, which often takes weeks (and leaves both parties exasperated), could alternately be handled by a one hour or so interview with an actual official, which would be so much easier and produce way better results for everyone.“
These similar complaints from a professor with a podcast and a professional journalist illustrate one point I told my friend. He is acting as a de facto journalist. The media landscape has changed with professional journalists now supplemented by “citizen journalists” or content providers who have their own blogs, podcasts, newsletters and more.
At first PR or public affairs people ignored them, but in the past 10 years the conventional wisdom has been to treat bloggers and podcasters as journalists. That’s because, whether professional or not, such people have an audience. It may be a large audience, or a small one with a niche demographic or topical interest.
So let me say a few things from the perspective of a public relations professional today when it comes to interview requests.
First, any given journalist may not be the only interview request a person has received. I remember in my previous career doing media relations for the university where I now teach being overwhelmed with the number of requests for interviews from journalists. I often would encourage a journalist to contact directly the source for a story if I had pitched it or sent a news release. But otherwise I had to try to find and convince someone to respond to the request if a journalist was doing an enterprise story.
There are now more than 2 million podcasts in the United States, according to EarthWeb. Meanwhile, Oberlo reports there are more than 600 million blogs today. Granted, not every blogger or podcaster interviews people. But there is a greater potential to receive requests for interviews and information.
Most likely interview subjects have a high level of responsibility and/or expertise, and are therefore busy. True, an interview could be an opportunity to reach people with an important message. But they also can be seen as interruptions or less urgent than other tasks at hand. They have public relations people to help determine if opportunities are good in terms of the topic and the potential audience. Yes publicity is important but it is only one consideration in public relations.
I’ve been burned myself as an expert when media interviews were not what I was told by a reporter or producer they would be. I have found out in a TV station green room that I was one of several subjects and they really wanted us to argue on the air (because it would be good for ratings). I’ve also been asked questions that were considerably uninformed such that they were off topic entirely.
By the way, public relations people are also busy. Media relations is only one aspect of their work. Public relations people are producing their own tactics—ads, internal publications, websites, social media and more. They also spend much of their day counseling CEOs and other managers on not just communications but management.
That being said, public relations people spend considerable time and effort training executives and others to do quality interviews for print, broadcast or online. This helps journalists tremendously to get good, honest, meaningful commentary and avoid awkward “deer-in-the-headlights” moments. I know I personally had to spend lots of time persuading someone to do an interview when they otherwise would have ignored a journalist.
But the journalists—both professional and otherwise—also have some valid perspective. And I worked as a journalist before I was in public relations practice and education, so I know this well.
First, some journalists are open to sending questions or at least specifying the topic. I think it can be a win-win because subjects do come more prepared. I also have received questions in an email and arranged for a client to respond. They have time to think and craft answers this way. Plus, with email being asynchronous, there is no need to arrange a common time for an interview to happen. On the other hand, some journalists want a conversation and not canned answers that people merely read. Also, the expectation is that if someone is an expert they should be able to discuss off the cuff.
There is a difference between long-lead publications and outlets on general interest topics and watchdog journalism on a tight deadline covering city hall or corrupt corporations. In the former, providing more context may be reasonable. But in the latter, dropping everything to avoid the dreaded “unavailable for comment” would be the public relations professional’s best strategy in terms of ongoing reputation and in fact an obligation to be responsive to stakeholders through the media.
In the end, as in any relationship, there are two perspectives. In this case, the perspectives are both professional. Sometimes they align in terms of a desire to address the same topic and audience. And sometimes, alas, they do not.
Just recently, a client of mine was in the news. The story was not something we had pitched, it was just some journalistic enterprise stemming from a public meeting.
Students and professionals often ask me for advice when they are interviewing for a job in public relations. One thing I tell them is that THEY should ask some questions too. Employers often talk about wanting a new employee to be a good “fit,” which often means someone who fits the culture in terms of work ethic, philosophy etc.