A short live-stream segment by TJ Walker offering practical advice about media interviews: he advises against imposing ground rules on reporters (e.g., banning topics, requiring questions in advance), arguing that such restrictions make reporters suspicious, reduce goodwill, and do not help secure desired quotes or messages. He acknowledges celebrities may set demands but recommends most professionals avoid restricting reporters.
Chapters
What are the acceptable ground rules you should set before a media interview? You hear about ground rules all the time, especially out of Hollywood. Tom Cruise, his handlers might say, well, don't talk about Scientology. There's all sorts of don't ask about a divorce. The interview can only be 20 minutes long. You have to just talk about this movie. There's all sorts of ground rules. And sure, if you are internationally renowned celebrity entertainer and there are 10,000 interview requests for everyone you have time for sure, you can put up all sorts of demands. And you can have demands for green jelly beans exclusively in your dressing room if you want. But for most people in the world, business executives, political leaders, heads of nonprofits, candidates. My advice? Don't have any ground rules for the reporters. The second you tell a reporter a certain subject matter or certain questions are off limits, you've now told the reporter, hey, the most interesting stuff is over here. Go talk to other people to dig up dirt in that area. I have a rule with reporters. The rule is I don't try to tell them how to do their job, how to ask questions, what questions to ask. And I have one rule for them. They don't get to tell me how to answer. And that has worked pretty well throughout my career. It's also worked well for my clients. Reporters, by their very nature, don't like to be told what to do. It's not a job people go into because they like being a part of a big machinery and being ordered what to do. They like intellectual freedom. They like being able to ask any question they want. So when you tell them they can't. It makes them suspicious of you. It makes them think you're hiding. It makes you highly unsympathetic to them. So I just don't find it's particularly conducive to getting better results. Step back for a minute and ask yourself what is the real goal here? Is the goal to control the reporter, to control conditions? Or is the goal to. To get the message you want into the final story and the quotes you want into the final story. I would contend if you really think about this clearly, your goal is to get the message you want in the story. I don't have any evidence that ordering reporters not to talk about something or that they have to finish the interview in 15 minutes really increases your odds of you getting what you want in the final story. It can annoy them. This is why it's a horrible practice to ask reporters to send you the questions in advance. They don't know the questions in advance or certainly all of them. Good interviewers are going to listen carefully to what you say and ask follow up questions. So when you tell them they have to send all questions in advance or they have to email the questions, all they do is end up hating you. That doesn't help you in the long run get your message across.
