Pryce should have done what Huhne asked: Don’t. Talk. To. A. Newspaper
As a journalist it pains me to say it, but if a hack ever says to you, ‘It would be great to hear your side of the story’, run a mile.
Marina Hyde is right – as was the horrible Huhne. Indeed, this is nothing new. Thirty years ago Freddie Mercury, having been bitten, was saying exactly the same thing. He only relented a few days before his death to confirm that he was dying from AIDS.
Newspaper journalists are not interested in “your side of the story”. They are interested in copy that will sell newspapers. If it trashes your life in the process, well, that’s just collateral damage and, besides, the carnage they leave in their wake is yesterday’s news and someone else can clear up the mess.
Journalists, like politicians, are professional liars. They will twist your words and edit in a manner that is favourable to the spin they want to put on the story – and this doesn’t just apply to newspapers, all media outlets do it. So what you really said, taken out of context will come across completely differently and you have no control over it as they feed on the negative energy, using the motes you provide them to vilify you for their own gain. The only control you can exercise is not to give them ammunition in the first instance.
Do not talk to journalists. At any time for any reason. Ever.
There’s another, more unpleasant side to this. If you find yourself part of a news story, as a friend of mine did when her husband was killed in a road accident, you will be harassed endlessly, by phone and doorstepping, pursuing her down the road every time she left the house, thrusting a microphone or camera in her face, by the media, both broadcast and print. In her case, so I imagine this is not uncommon, she was advised by the police to give an interview to one outlet in order to shut the rest up. It was the last thing she wanted to, but felt she had no choice. So even non-famous, non-publicity seeking folk get dragged into the media’s clutches because they can’t withstand the persistent intrusions and demands from ‘journalists’. All for tomorrow’s chip paper or the digital equivalentl.
That’s how people like Max Clifford make their money – by managing it for people. However, the problem doesn’t go away. If it was me, I’d be bloody-minded and see it out. No comment, no story, no interviews. Not now, not ever.
Hmm. You’ve suddenly become a widow at 28, you’re 4 months pregnant, and with a 2 year old child. The press are, a dozen times a day, phoning you, your mother, your neighbours, your late husband’s parents and siblings. They are at your door, at your mother’s door, waiting at your child’s nursery, at your work place (all on public property, no law broken). It would take more courage than I have to withstand it whilst in the midst of new grief when the police are offering to arrange an ‘easy’ way out. This kind of abusive thing makes it all too easy, sadly, for the pro-Leveson mob to get a hearing.
Oh, I’m not disputing your point, just that I wouldn’t take the advice – probably because I am stubborn, wilful and bloody minded. Not to mention that I harbour a venomous hatred of the gentlemen of the press.
Oh, and Truecall is a very useful tool for the phone calls… 😉
Long, I would differ with your advice on this, although I agree with your concerns.
I’ve done dozens of interviews on smoking and smoking bans and taxes over the years. And yes, I’ve had a few, particularly early on, where I had problems. But I learned some lessons and I’d say almost all my more recent experiences have either been neutral (I.E., pretty much just a waste of time since they didn’t seem to use anything I gave them.) or positive.
Tips:
(1) Don’t jump right in: if it’s a phone call, explain that you’re right at the start of a short project that you can’t delay and would like to call them back or be called in an hour or whatever.
(2) Ask them if it’s possible for them to send you a short email outlining a few specific questions that they’re interested in. If they DO, then you can answer them, exactly as you want to, in print, so it can’t get twisted. Plus it gives you time to think out your argument and check all your facts so you’re not just mumbling vaguely about something you’re not certain about.
(3) Google the reporter: are they with ya, or agin’ ya?
(3a) If their past articles are all a collection of antismoking claptrap, then you know it’s not worth wasting a lot of time on them, plus you’ll know that you either need to keep ALL your communication in writing OR, at the very least, be extraordinarily careful about what you say and perhaps even try to set up your computer to record the conversation (not sure about the legalities of that unless you tell them you’re recording).
(3b) If they’re with ya, then you can send them other good background material for your position, documenting and expanding it (very helpful if your statements are likely to be going against popular misconceptions), plus you’ll know that they’re worth spending time with and perhaps even worth hooking up with other supportive folks who might give them even more quotes and materials.
(3c) If there’s no background on them, chances are that it’s all a waste of time and nothing you say will get printed even if they’re real reporters: they obviously aren’t that successful! LOL! Still, it’s worth giving them at least a minimum.
(4) The minimum, something to remember EVEN IF the reporter is someone fully on your side: Be sure to have two or three or four short, solid, quotable statements on the topic they’re writing on. Say them near the beginning, in the middle, at the end, and in a followup email. Offer them specifically as quotes if it seems proper to do so. The Antis have their sound bites: use sound bites of your own.
(5) Know your strengths and weaknesses: if you know medical stats, use ’em. If you know how your customers have all disappeared, use that instead. Try not to get pulled into areas where you’re not certain of things: you can either make embarrassing mistakes/errors that the Antis will use against you in followup interviews/letters, or, at almost as bad, you’ll come off as sounding like you don’t know what you’re talking about. A decent reporter will accept a “Sorry, I don’t really know enough about that area to talk about it well. You should probably try talking to Madame Whoever for that.”
(6) Be aware, particularly if your Google turned nothing up, that they might be fakes: either just a-holes wanting to harass you or waste your time, or activists or would-be-activists trying to dig out the guilty secrets that you’re really living in a mansion, all paid for by Big Tobacco and staffed by the cigar-chompin’ Swedish Bikini Olympic Swim Team. Of course that just translates back into “waste of time” but it’s something we have to deal with sometimes.
If you keep those things in mind Long, I would DEFINITELY disagree with you: We need our voices and our information out there for people, and we do NOT have any funding to get it out there. Friendly or even neutral interviews are almost ALWAYS going to be in our plus column. And if you ever have an offer and you’re not comfy with it, there are lots of people in FORCES, TICAP, the Smokers Club, and other groups who’d love to have their say: just get them connected up to the reporter!
🙂
Michael J. McFadden
Author of “Dissecting Antismokers’ Brains” (Just in case any of your readers are wondering, “Who the heck is this guy?”
Fair points if you have a product to advertise – however, the caveats regarding misrepresentation still apply. When I was trained as a Rail Incident Officer, I was advised that I might have to speak to reporters. The rule was simple – make a brief written statement that was factual without giving too much away. Read it and take no questions.
As I have no product to sell and no longer am likely to be managing a rail incident, keeping mum should I ever become the focus of journalists will remain my rule.
Long, true enough in your “incident” situations, but imagine if you were dealing with a public atmosphere where “Big Auto” dominated and controlled the media while the po’ li’l rail folks were largely ignored and vilified every day in the media as creators of slums, polluters of air, and promoters of “random hobo crime.”
Picture a situation like that in which the government was largely dominated by General Motors and British Petroleum, where about a third of the nation’s trackage had been ripped up to be replaced by “more scenic and quieter” superhighways, where train ticket/freight taxes had been quadrupled in order to subsidize discounts for cheap gasoline and thousands of hours of advertising to malign rail transportation, and where rail lines were being deliberately shut down by the government in areas where they provided “too convenient” access to job and housing population centers.
In a case like that, you might well have been encouraged to make sure your voice was at least heard, to whatever extent was possible, after every incident in which you knew the media would be flooded with statements and lies by the anti-rail crowd seeking further restrictions and destructions of rail transportation.
And finally, picture further that you were not actually a part of “Big Rail,” but were instead just everyday train passengers, people who loved and wanted their trains for transportation and enjoyment and who were horrified that they and their vehicles were constantly being so one-sidedly and unfairly vilified in the media.
That’s more or less the situation in which Free Choice supporters have found themselves in the last 20 years or so with regard to the antismoking movement. And I think in a case like that you might well agree that the passengers would be well-advised to speak to the media, although also warned to do so carefully and with the knowledge that the media would often be hostile and seek to twist their words around.
Different sort of situation than what you were actually dealing with and referring to I guess.
🙂
MJM
Organisations and campaign groups use press officers to talk to the press as a unified voice. These people know what they are doing and are unlikely to be trapped into indiscretions as they are usually journalists themselves. So, yeah, different to what I’m on about here, which is the individual caught up in a news story.
Very sound, practical and helpful advice for managing the press. I have copied and kept for future reference. many thanks Michael.
Two points.
One is that, even if not giving an interview to the “press” they will STILL deliberately lie & misinterpret what you say & do.
This has happened over the award-winning novelist Hilary Mantel, in the past month. She gave a short speech & the tabloids quite deliberately, lied about what she had actually said, & how she’d said it, & what she meant …
Fortunately, she has now gone public (Beeb & elsewhere) & stated flat-out that they are lying – & because she IS a “prize-winning novelist” she has had some success.
Mind you, there’s worse.
Priests
Not only deliberate liars, but professional blackmailers, with it!
Actually, I knew I had it somewhere, but it took me a bit to find it! A good compliment to “Don’t Talk To The Press” : “Don’t Talk To The Cops”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8z7NC5sgik
Very interesting video. I don’t totally agree with it, but I can see where it makes some sense.
🙂
MJM
Some years ago, I was friendly with a lass who was a photo editor at one of the major evening newspapers – can’t remember now whether it was the Evening News or the Evening Standard – but it was back in the day when they were the only two evening rags around, so it was some years ago. Her advice to me was very clear – never, ever, under any circumstances, be tempted to speak to any journalist of any national newspaper. They were all, and I quote her: “Human sharks who would sell their elderly granny into slavery if it meant their story would get a better position in the paper. They are awful, awful people, no matter how nice they might try to be.” Local reporters, she said, were generally a different kettle of fish and were usually much safer to talk to, particularly the slightly older ones (young and ambitious ones who were clearly keen to move into the murky waters of national journalism were also to be treated with caution).
She advised being careful even if chatting in a casual personal conversation with one. And sure enough, not long after I found myself chatting in a pub with a young man who was a journalist in the then-new national newspaper, the Independent. On finding out what I did for a living (it can sometimes bring me into contact with some relatively prominent people) his immediate question was “do you get to meet anyone famous?” Remembering my friend’s wise advice I told him, no, not really – just business people mostly who he wouldn’t have probably ever heard of. No-one worth getting at all excited about.
On informing my friend about this conversation, she said: “He’ll probably be back. You won’t have got rid of him that easily. He’ll have to make sure he’s not missing anything.” And bingo – a couple of days later one of my neighbours said that “a young man that you met in the pub last weekend came round to see you earlier.” (I’d been out, luckily). I don’t know how he got to know where I lived, but it wasn’t far from the pub and, being a hack, he’d probably just asked around a bit and done some of the usual hack-type digging and found out. Anyway, he presumably decided that I’d probably been telling the truth and didn’t have any seedy stories to tell, because he never appeared again, thankfully.
So, for most people, apart from those experienced in dealing with the media like MJM or specifically-employed Press Officers and the like, I’d be with you all the way, LR.
Did get contacted a couple of times for interviews during my ‘Walking the streets’ blogging days. A good friend advised me to refuse; never give out your address, location, or real name, and always use an anonymous prepay cell phone number to take any press related calls.
After seeing what happened to several other ‘work bloggers’ because they talked direct to mainstream journalists, I don’t regret taking that advice.
Bill, I stayed anonymous during the 80s and 90s, but as I began getting into the smoking issue more and more and my arguments became more professional I had to give up the anonymity or lose all credibility as I’d get painted as a Big Tobacco sockpuppet. Heh, one good thing about the activist lifestyle: it can’t be easily mistaken for a corporate paycheck!
But I *did* have to give up the protection of anonymity in a contentious battle area where there are a lot of angry nuts running around.
:/
MJM
Have always said, “Journalists” are the scum of the earth. Total twats, imbiciles and lying bastards.
Only one answer for “Journalists”, A Gas beginning with “Z” and ending in “B”.
What about journalists like Heather Brooke?