Lately (and entirely due to this blog), I’ve been getting a few requests from reporters to talk to them (I’ve had them in the past but they seem more frequent now). For example, one lady from the Wall Street Journal wanted to talk to me about the poker bill. I told her I blogged about it but was probably not the best and referred her to some poker players I know. Now, I have one from a New York paper that wants to talk about the Mayors Alliance Against Guns. My inclination generally is to decline for the following reasons:
I like to maintain my anonymity (even at the cost of maybe scoring a Wall Street Journal-lanche) and the press folks generally want your name, which I am not willing to give.
What I view as the important points of my interview won’t be mentioned in the story (for example, I would state in the Bloomberg interview that his private investigators appear to have broken federal law by lying on ATF Form 4473. The press won’t print that – no one in the mainstream press has yet, that I know of).
They’ll likely find the one slip of the tongue or out of context remark and print that, thereby making me look like I’m crazy, stupid, or generally weird.
Dealing with the press involves a great deal of babysitting, I’m told. And I lack the patience to handhold them through things.
I don’t trust them to fully represent the real reasons they’re interested in hearing from me (ask Ronnie Barrett)
The press is, generally, anti-gun rights.
So, it is with reservation that I even consider talking to the press. Am I paranoid? A bit. The downside, of course, is that I am missing the opportunity to speak truth to power. So, what are your thoughts?
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Posted in Poker on October 24th, 2006
by SayUncle | RSS 2.0 |
October 24th, 2006 at 1:04 pm
Having dealt with the Meejia before, I think you’re very wise.
Most reporters have the story they want to run already written beforehand, especially when it comes to guns. They’re just out looking for stuff to support their storyline, meaning you’d definitely be cast as the “crazy gun owner”.
October 24th, 2006 at 1:05 pm
Except for the losing the anonymity part I’d do it.
1.) Tape record the interview
2.) Type up a trancript
3.) Wait for the article to appear.
4.) Righteous outrage ensues.
October 24th, 2006 at 2:27 pm
Since you want to maintain anonymity, I’d say your paranoia isn’t. It’s healthy distrust.
Send ’em to me. I’m not anonymous! 😉
October 24th, 2006 at 2:29 pm
Kev, check your email.
October 24th, 2006 at 2:49 pm
I would explore an interview with conditions. Press probably won’t go for it but they might.
October 24th, 2006 at 4:14 pm
They’ll likely find the one slip of the tongue or out of context remark and print that, thereby making me look like I’m crazy, stupid, or generally weird.
I’m frankly surprised that you’d deny any of these allegations. 🙂 (Well, two of the three, anyway…)
October 24th, 2006 at 4:17 pm
It almost certainly won’t be, if you don’t do the interview. If you do, and make a big enough deal out of it, there’s an outside chance.
October 24th, 2006 at 4:38 pm
tgirsch beat me to my comment. Damn.
October 24th, 2006 at 4:44 pm
In the past when I or anyone in the family have been in the press, they got a basic part of the whole conversation wrong.
The most accurate part of the local newspaper is the classified section. That or the page the comics and tv listings are on.
October 24th, 2006 at 5:27 pm
I’ve had the same experince Gunstar1 has had. Of course, each time it was a local paper’s sports writer covering high school sports, so being sent to cover a high school football game or trackmeet was probably punishment for something… 🙂
October 24th, 2006 at 6:08 pm
I might need to do a post one day on press relations.
To get your story out – and to get a random reporter to trust you – requires building trust on your part. The reporter is (for us gunnies at least) often time biased the other way – not out of contempt but rather because of a 1) lack of familiarity and 2) an unending stream of materials coming from the other side (and perhaps a heightened familiarity with the other side).
I actualy dealt with this issue today in my real job – a story was run that didn’t directly attack us, but attacked a government agency with oversight of us. The story was basically a reprint of the press release and the author called the agency (and got no response) but didn’t call anyone else.
I put in a friendly call, have since sent her some info, and we are going out to lunch on Thursday to discuss our side of the story and coverage of my client generally. I don’t expect her to adopt all my positions, but my hope is she will at least come calling when she has stories in the future (and perhaps run a story or two based on our press releases).
Now, your just a blogger and you probably don’t have a budget for these things. What you can do, however, is to reach out to the reporters in a professional manner (its even easier if they contact you) and take the time to educate them – tell it to them like they are a 5 year old – and then continue to follow up when ever something noteworthy happens. Build trust over time – and be willing to call BS on either side when you see it (maybe even copy them by email with your best posts) and eventually, they just may start coming back to you.
Now, this is what the NRA should be doing – and often times does do – but for a host of reasons (politics, etc) they are simply not going to be trusted by a journalist as someone dealing with a “non-profit” touchy feely group (even though NRA is in fact a non profit civil rights group). Your doing this for free (as all bloggers are) and hence, you may have a better chance over time to build that trust.
just my $0.02. Others do this professionally (some of whom have commented already). WOuld be intersting to see how much they agree with this and what else they would add.
October 24th, 2006 at 6:14 pm
If it’s the New York Sun, I’d say they’ll do a pretty good job. If it’s any of the other NY papers, I’ve been less than impressed with what they’ve had to say about the Bloomberg story.
October 24th, 2006 at 8:46 pm
You are NOT paranoid.
Employers HATE employees with opinions, ( and hate gun owning emplyees even more) and are very prone to draw a whole bunch of false conclusions from your writings. Additionally, you may not understand this, but you have created and will create a squad of uncle haters that will, and I mean WILL attempt to smear you with an employer at the first possible chance.
Unless you can afford it, or are protected by position, tenure, or contract, STAY anonymous.
Reference: Personal experience.
October 25th, 2006 at 1:07 am
Boomershoot has gotten nothing but good media coverage. But we have someone dedicated to making that happen and we have numerous other people trained and ready to talk to and be photographed by the media.
However what I believe the biggest key to our success is that we have always approached them. I have had other main stream media interactions in the Seattle area where they had contact with me, wrote down numerous “sound bites” I had ready for them and then it was as if I didn’t exist when they wrote the article. They found paranoid sounding “sound bites” to quote from “our side”. The difference, in my mind, is that if you approach them you will get a fair shake. If they approach you–WATCH OUT!!!!
Another thing you can do to help with your decision is to ask who will be writing the article and then research their publications. Have they been fair in the past? Or has it been obvious who’s side they are on?
October 25th, 2006 at 1:19 am
You can always just agree to do email interviews. Then when you respond, you can respond only with the soundbite that you want printed. They might pass on you because you aren’t saying what they want to hear, but its better than getting quoted out-of-context.
October 25th, 2006 at 9:26 am
You can always just agree to do email interviews. Then when you respond, you can respond only with the soundbite that you want printed. They might pass on you because you aren’t saying what they want to hear, but its better than getting quoted out-of-context.
Best suggestion here. I have done only one press interview and I did it by email. Very little of the interview was used.
October 25th, 2006 at 11:26 am
I do a lot of press stuff on issues that can get contentious. We have a full time publicist, media firm on board, all that. So I field press inquiries pretty often. Unless I have a good reason, I try to inform and guide reporters without being interesting enough to make any news of my own (fortunately I’m not important, so as long as I don’t get pithy, I don’t get quoted).
It’s a process, takes a bit of experience, and requires a lot of handholding. You need to know the reporter and trust them based on their trackrecord.
In the end, it can be worth it because you communicate your point of view to a large audience, some of whom might be influenced by your views. It’s a risk, but not much of one. Even if the WSJ makes you look crazy, you haven’t lost much. After all, if anybody wants to see the crazy uncle show, all they need to do is read this site!
December 8th, 2006 at 11:46 am
[…] And this is why I said before that I generally do not entertain inquiries from the press. […]