When dealing with the media in politics, it is important to know how to approach journalists and how to prepare for interviews. YBF will provide advice to help you achieve your media goals.
- Be Realistic: the press is not your PR machinery! It faces time and space limitations. Before you peddle news to journalists, try to think like a journalist. Does the story have a human interest angle? Is it genuinely relevant to the newspaper’s readers? Or is it parochial and irrelevant?
- Be Prepared: make sure you know who the editors and reporters are! You must also only ever give an interview when you are ready – if you need time, ask for the reporter’s deadline, tell him you need to collect information, offer to get back to him at a certain and then make sure you do so. If you upset a journalist, be prepared for the consequences…
- Be Accessible: media relations is about human relations. You should never simply say “no comment” as this suggests you are hiding something. Explain why you cannot comment, discuss general policy instead of specifics and/or switch the topic to something you can say.
- Be Honest: never lie to a journalist. Ever. If you have bad news, admit it and move on to corrective action. Lying will come back to haunt you. Just like Bill “I-did-not-have-sexual-relations-with-that-woman” Clinton.
- Be Quotable: if you are dull journalists will not come back to talk to you again. Make your quotes memorable. Put your issues into plain English in a way that connects with voters. Rather than giving an unmemorable quote because you are in a hurry, delay putting out your message so that it is properly crafted.
