No news is not good news: interview tips to connect with a weary audience

Anne Murray’s song A little good news: “Just once how I’d like to see the headline say; ‘Not much to print today, can’t find nothin’ bad to say.”

Written by Natalia Smalyuk

When I start my media training sessions, I ask participants what news they remember from the week. We get an interesting crop of stories. War. Earthquake. Stabbing. The first of something or the worst. A story with a glimmer of light. A helpful nugget. Something funny.

Then we look at what makes these stories newsworthy: proximity, scale, impact, relevance, currency, novelty, human interest, sensationalism. I put these words in circles. It doesn’t take long for someone in the group to point out that the most newsworthy stories are crises. They hit the largest number of circles.

Crises have always been newsworthy, but it’s not media as usual. Today’s audiences have had enough, and many are giving up on news. According to the Reuters Institute Digital News Report, a growing number of people are avoiding important stories, such as the war in Ukraine, the Covid-19 virus or the world’s economic woes.

Being a spokesperson in this environment is not business as usual, either.

I once hosted a Globe and Mail interview with a U.S. executive with a lot of political experience. Before the reporter asked his first question, my client plunged into his messages. “You know, Jeff, I am glad to speak with you about [X] because…” I admired his skill. Leading the interview doesn’t come easy to many clients.

I also cringed inside. That “message delivery” strategy felt too aggressive for Canadian media even ten years ago. Today, it would just be off. If you don’t first listen and tune into audience questions, worries and hopes, you get off on the wrong foot.

Don’t get me wrong. You still need to have your messages ready, laser-focusing on what you want the audience to take away from the interview. What do you want them to think? Feel? Do? If you make them guess, chances are, they won’t get it right.

But key messages are only a jumping pad to connect with a weary audience while advancing your agenda and addressing journalist questions. When Kye Prigg, Rogers’ Access Networks and Operations SVP, kept repeating the same approved line on air during a massive 2021 outage – that Rogers was looking into the "root cause" – it stripped trust. 

Building it comes down to addressing the real questions of the audience. So what? Who cares? What’s in it for them?

Of course, there’s a lot of leeway in how these questions can be addressed.

Best-case, you do lead the interview. This is not the same as “message delivery,” where success (or, rather, control) may look like grabbing the mic and holding it for as long as possible. In the “audience connection” mindset, it’s not the end of the world if you don’t say everything in your messaging brief. If your perspective adds value, your job is done. If, for a brief human moment, you take off that corporate mask, you and your audience truly connect. This is gold because you build trust, which is at a premium these days.

Worst-case, someone throws you a curveball. You need to make sure addressing it does not get you in trouble. If a journalist asks why someone is fired, an honest answer may lead to a lawsuit. If you repeat their negative language (for example, is the royal family racist?), it becomes quotable (“We’re very much not a racist family”).

Journalists won’t necessarily ambush you (unless you are a high-profile politician in a crisis), but deviating from the topic agreed on or blindsiding with something unexpected (for example, asking about an acquisition deal in an interview about a system outage) is fair game.

In a recent media training, we watched a news clip where a host grilled a government leader with dramatic language describing a situation as a “disaster on an unimaginable level” and “a catastrophic failure of policy.” No matter what the spokesperson said, the journalist was just pressing her case – that the province should have acted sooner (reporters may have their agenda, too!).

Media trainers even have names for the antics of their journalist colleagues. Loaded, leading, negative-premise, hypothetical, speculation, false-choice, multipart, guarantee, absent-party ploy, implied dilemma questions…

Challenging scenarios is a topic for a separate blog. For now, let me just say that you don’t have to agree to an aggressive interrogation. An email statement might do the job.

If you do agree to an interview, not responding is not an option. That said, you don’t have to answer every question with all you know. This may sound confusing so let me explain.

“Answer” and “respond” are not the same. The difference is crucial. In school, a teacher asks a question, and you answer. A simple, linear process. In a media interview, a journalist asks a question, and you choose how to respond. First and foremost, you listen. Pause. Think. Where’s the reporter coming from? Where is the audience on this? Can you get from the question of the reporter to your messages? You may choose to “comment without commenting.”

Lets say, there’s a question about a lawsuit. When you share a credible explanation of why you are not in a position to discuss the case (it’s under investigation), it’s not an exhaustive swear-on-a-stack-of-bibles answer, but you are still responding.

You can also provide a perspective on something you can say. Here’s how Berit Reiss-Andersen, chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, responded when a reporter asked the committee about its decision to award a peace prize to Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed who became entangled in a domestic conflict: “Today, I will not comment on other Nobel laureates and other issues than we have on the table today, but I can mention that the situation for freedom of press in Ethiopia is very far from ideal and is facing severe restrictions.”

Interview mastery boils down to finding the right balance between what you want to say, what the reporter wants to ask, and what the audience wants to know.

This is tough. Unsurprisingly, many of my clients confide that interviews make them anxious. Some spokespeople crave the spotlight. Others dread it. Interestingly, it’s often not because they had a bad interview experience.

 If you are in an executive role, chances are, you may have had a presentation coach counting your umms, your legal and PR colleagues gagging you with final-final approved messages, or a media trainer drilling into you that there’s only one right way to interview. Gesture. Smile. Nod.

What I find unfortunate is when all that heavy conditioning discourages diverse spokespeople from participating in the conversation. Part of the reason why Canadians avoid the news might be because they can’t see themselves in it. Many look at the world through a bi-focal lens of their experience here and elsewhere. Reconciling the values, conflicts and notions from these diverse backgrounds is what makes Canada great. Yet, the playbooks to write stories, media-train, and even select media trainers are … same old, same old.

If you want to build your career, break whatever ceilings are in your way and make a difference, no news is not good news. Not everyone should be on CBC’s Power & Politics, but anyone can shine on the right stage. Often, the only thing between you and your greatness is your fear. Thinking on your feet is a lot easier when you know what to say, what not to say, and how to deal with everything in between. All it takes is practice. A lot of practice.  

Now, take a deep breath. You’ve got this.

NBAU media training programs are designed to give participants the tools and confidence to tell their story in different news scenarios. This is a safe space where learners reflect on their experience, experiment with different messaging and interviewing techniques, challenge themselves and elevate their impact. The program includes practical and theoretical training, interactive exercises, interview simulations, feedback and playback. Please email nsmalyuk@nbau.ca to get started.