How to Give Good Interview

One of my professional hats is that of a media advisor or media trainer. I used to do this all the time but now I only do it every few months or so when I get the opportunity. A few years ago Anne Weakest Link had a go at us media trainers on Room 101. But then she also had a go at Wales, and now lives in mortal fear of a posse of the Welsh rugby team, Charlotte Church, Tom Jones and the Manic Street Preachers firebombing her house.

Media trainers coach normal people, usually businesspeople, sometimes footballers (the stories I could tell- if I cared enough about football to remember any of their names) sometimes civil servants, occasionally academics and other folks to do something completely out of their comfort zone which is to be interviewed by journalists.

I enjoyed the work but noticed a few common things about my clients that might be a warning for anyone ever being interviewed on telly particularly. Here are some of the pieces of advice that you would normally pay top dollar for but are actually very common sense.

1. Before the interview empty your pockets of anything you can click or jingle. Even if you don't consider yourself a clicker or a jingler, or even a clacker or a jangler, you will instantly become one when the recording starts. This applies especially to blokes. If you're in a head and shoulders tight camera shot, you'll sound like you are jingling or clicking like a malfunctioning android. But even worse, if you are in a medium shot showing most of your torso, you'll look like you are playing with your genitalia. Either isn't good for your image, I suspect.

2. Not every journalist is Jeremy Paxman or John Humphries. Most are just asking you straightforward questions and you are probably not a politician trying to cover up the fact that you got your mistress pregnant the day you tabled a White Paper on "Family Values". So when you are asked a question like "What led up to the incident", don't answer it by saying "Unfortunately that is a matter of national security and cannot be discussed at this time, but what I can say is how we are working together to provide a better future for everyone at the company and .....etc, etc" Just answer the flipping question, will ya? And remember people hate politicians, and the reason they hate them is because they use flannelly answers in interviews and are a bunch of liars. They should not be your role models. Check out the monumental interview by Jeremy Paxman and Michael Howerd on Newsnight if you want an extreme example of not answering the question. This is one of my favourite pieces of telly ever. Short version is here for the full interview is available on You Tube as well for those of you slumming it today.

3. Don't look at the camera...fool! (Slaps forehead) Just look at the interviewer. No..keep looking at him, don't take a sneaky wee peak into the lens of the camera, no not even a wee one, just stop it. Don't think about the camera, don't speak to it, don't refer to it, don't do a wee message to the "viewers out there" and please don't talk to the cameraman afterwards about how you're a keen amateur filmmaker and how much would one of "these babies" cost. Just do your interview and get on with it.

4. Don't freak youself out by worrying about what the interviewer is going to ask you. If you've just had a fire in your building, that's what you'll be asked about. You won't be asked about matters of political policy in Paraguay. And if you are, then point out that maybe the journalist might have taken a wrong turn at the roundabout. One of the most beautiful examples of this is here, I suppose but it's an extreme example I put in just for fun. It's the man who took a wrong turning straight into a BBC News 24 studio. when he was really only applying for a job and was mistaken for the correct interviewee. I think the word you are looking for is "bless".


So there's four things for free. And the reason I mention them is a ham fisted way of introducing an interview I gave about this blog to The Pakistani Spectator yesterday. Some of you lot are even mentioned in it. Happily for me it is only in print, so you can't see whether I take my own advice or not.

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