RULE #1: KNOW THY MEDIA FOR SUCCESS

JohnLandsberg
February 16th, 2016
News

In our media training, we continuously stress rule number 1: Know Thy Media.

It may same trite, but it can make all the difference in the world during an interview if you are facing someone with an agenda.

Who is the person that will be writing the story about you or your company? Is the TV reporter interviewing your CEO noted for puff pieces or attack stories?

What race is the reporter? Religion? Married? Single? Gay? Agenda-driven? Where does the reporter live? Does the spouse work? Where?

The more information you know about the reporter and the types of stories he/she does the likelier you are to have a good outcome. One of the key benefits of working with a media relations professional is that he/she should know the reporters. What tactics do they use in an interview?

As an example, I once worked with a beat reporter whose tactic was to ask a very tough opening question to start an interview in order. It was designed to put his subject on the defensive and it often worked. Sometimes the person being interviewed was so flustered with the question he never recovered. However, once this tactic became known we would prepare our subjects to stay focused and handle the first question appropriately, and then cruise through the rest of the interview.

However, once this tactic became known we would prepare our subjects to stay focused and handle the first question appropriately. The rest of the interview would go smoothly.

Another reporter was known to show up in blue jeans and sandals looking as if she just popped out of bed. To many executives in $5,000 suits, this showed a complete lack of respect. They often had a tough time getting past the appearance of the reporter. However, we forewarned the executives aware of the situation and stressed they had to ignore the reporter’s appearance to get their message out effectively.

The issue of knowing the reporter is in the news again after a blistering attack by a reporter on quarterback Peyton Manning. It involved an incident that may or may not have occurred decades earlier when Manning was in college.

The story seemed damning for Manning, but when veteran journalist Jason Whitlock exposed the reporter’s agenda on the Dan Patrick radio show for doing the hit piece it seems to be much ado about nothing:

“The guy that wrote this story for the New York Daily News, he’s not a journalist,” Whitlock said. “He’s a race hustler from Twitter, from the Black Lives Matter movement who stirs racial controversy to elevate himself. Listen, the guy’s been busted. First of all, he’s white and presenting himself as black. He said that as a child in high school he was allegedly attacked by a group of white people because he was black. Well, he wasn’t black and there were people saying that wasn’t why he was attacked and there’s no proof of it. He said that it was the first hate crime in Kentucky or whatever.

“I looked into this all at the time because I interviewed this guy for a job at The Undefeated months ago,” Whitlock said, referring to the microsite he was hired to develop at ESPN. “And after interviewing him, I was like, ‘Holy cow.’ There’s so much suspicious, skeptical stuff to this guy that we walked away from this guy and looked into the stories he told us, and we couldn’t find proof of them.”

Since this reporter never actually interviewed Manning there was no way for Manning to deal with his agenda. But folks in the future agreeing to an interview with this reporter should know his background ahead of time and prepare accordingly.

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  • MIZZOU NEEDS CRISIS PLAN TO RESTORE IMAGE

    In Journalism circles, having a degree from the University of Missouri was often a ticket for success. It is not only the nation’s oldest Journalism school, it is also one of the most prestigious.

    When rankings for the best “J” schools in the nation are posted the University of Missouri is almost guaranteed to be in the Top 10 or Top 5. However, that may have all changed due to the actions of a single media professor during the recent student uprising at the school.

    A Mass Media Professor, Melissa Click, is shown in a video asking for “muscle” to remove a student photojournalist, Tim Tai, who was working for ESPN and in a public place. It is a horrible act by a college professor and shows a total disregard for the Journalist’s First Amendment rights, which is against what the school has taught for decades.

    “Who wants to help me get this reporter out of here? I need some muscle over here,” says Click.

    A video of Click’s actions against Tai has gone viral and has well over 500,000 views (LINK) on a single site. The New York Times has written an extensive story about her actions.

    What was once a sympathetic media for the protesters has now changed with the actions of students and faculty against them.

    Technically some have pointed out Click works in the Mass Media Division of the Department of Communications in College of Arts & Sciences, which is separate from the J-school. However, she is listed on the School of Journalism’s site (LINK), which tars the entire Journalism program whether it deserves it or not.

    Click had earlier Tweeted out that she she was looking for coverage of the event by Journalists. Later on she is clearly leading the charge against other Journalists with total disregard for their rights to cover the event.

    With the resignation of the school’s President and Chancellor the University of Missouri is clearly being painted as a college where the inmates are running the asylum. Rather than act like a Professor, Click and other faculty members have clearly shown they were behind the student protests against the administration.

    If the University of Missouri doesn’t hire a crisis communications team immediately its entire image for producing quality Journalism graduates could likely be tarnished forever. If the school was wise it already had a crisis communications plan in place for such an incident, but that is unlikely.

    The first move would be to remove Click. But that would be a stop-gap measure since a faculty member helping foment the disturbance was an indictment on all the faculty. The school hired her, and whether tacitly or not, approved of her actions.

    A statement issued today by the Dean of the Journalism School denied she was part of the faculty and sounded as if her days as a professor at Missouri were numbered. Click has also been forced to apologize in an attempt to save her job and resigned her “courtesy” appointment to the J-School.

    However, a Kansas City reporter told BLC that the protesters are refusing to speak with local reporters and will only do interviews with national media outlets. That is the kind of move that will turn sympathetic local media against them now and in the future.

    It’s a bad move.

     

     

    Published November 10, 2015 at 10:23 am - 5 Comments In Journalism circles, having a degree from the University of Missouri was often a ticket for success. It is not only the nation’s oldest Journalism school, it is also one of the most prestigious. When rankings for the best ...