How Journalists Can Interview Better

By George

Journalists often have a difficult time understanding the impact of a news article on the people they have interviewed for it.  As a former newspaper reporter and now a PR executive, I have written hundreds of articles and have also been quoted in a few – most notably in my role as an occasional spokesperson for One Laptop Per Child.

So I feel like I can offer some insight that might help journalists do a better job of communicating with business executives.

The sensation of seeing your name in print is a disconcerting one for most people.  It’s a thrill, but there’s also a sense of helplessness – a loss of control, especially when an executive feels like the journalist didn’t capture the essence of what they said.  Unfortunately, this happens much more often than journalists would care to admit.

The problem lies in part on the inadequate job journalists do in preparing the people they are interviewing for the actual interview.  Reporters often assume that people understand the process of researching, interviewing, and finally writing news articles when, in fact, most people have no idea how it works (which is why they hire public relations firms like Racepoint Group).

Here are a few mistakes I think journalists often make and ways I believe they can correct them.

• Vacuum Interviewing: Reporters hate sharing the list of people they plan to interview for a particular story – which is ridiculous, but often guarded like a state secret.  Interviews shouldn’t occur in a vacuum and sharing that information can put the story in context for interviewees.  Since it will public information as soon as the story is published – why the hesitancy to share?  If a source is speaking on the on-the-record then reporters should provide that information if asked for it. 

• The Undiscovered Blog: Many journalists now double as bloggers.  If they blog they should be up front about that with the interview subject.  It’s unfair for a reporter to interview an executive about topic A and then blog freely about topic B, which may have been a discussion during a side conversation after the main interview concluded.  Many executives see this behavior as underhanded and a betrayal of trust.  A simple statement of: “I’m interviewing you for topic A, but I also have a blog and any other information we discuss today might be published there.”

• Fear of Ignorance: Reporters – especially young ones – can be intimidated when interviewing a seasoned executive.  They’re afraid of appearing unprepared or ignorant of a particular topic.  As a result, they pretend to understand a complicated technology or partnership relationship, when, in fact, they don’t.  Stopping an interview to have something explained in detail is smart reporting.  “Getting it” matters.  That way when the story is published, the information is accurate.

• Playing Gotcha: Younger executives tend to babble during an interview with a reporter.  They’re nervous after all.  As a result, they sometimes share information that they aren’t supposed to.  If an interview subject asks for a data point to be retracted – and it’s not a crucial piece of information necessary for the story – why not let them do so?  I don’t know how many times, I’ve heard a reporter say: “But he said it” as an excuse to use information like this.  It’s one reason why executives dislike talking to reporters.

A good rule of thumb for reporters is simply to be reasonable.  Interview subjects aren’t the enemy.  And, yes, they have an agenda – promoting their company and their products – but it’s that agenda that keeps them talking with journalists in the first place.

 

“Build a tent and say the world is dry”

By Carla

Whether good or bad, YouTube allows virtually anyone to become a star overnight. Point and case: Tay Zonday’s ever so popular “Chocolate Rain” has garnered 10.5 million views to date and references on Carson Daly’s Last Call and The Daily Show not to mention a live performance on Jimmy Kimmel Live.

Photo is courtesy of Wikipedia

With the ease of communication and technological advances however, comes a whole new set of legal issues including the ever so controversial IP infringement. And at the moment it is a blurry line that publishers, the music industry and law makers are navigating to find appropriate ways to enforce current IP laws. I attended a recent conference hosted by Boston University’s School of Law and College of Communication where one of the principle speakers, Gigi Sohn, co-founder of Public Knowledge and an internationally known communications attorney, posed several changes to the current copyright law. She noted, “copyright law has become out of touch with our technological reality to the detriment of creators and the public.”

One of the examples of this disconnect that Gigi provided was the current debate of Google’s Book Search program, which allows anybody to search for passages in books that are part of Google’s system. Book publishers argue that by making a digital copy of the book Google is violating their copyrights. On the flip side, if a library is paying for the book in the first place and users aren’t able to see the entire book, then it shouldn’t be a violation. If the court sides with the authors, I agree that this would hinder future technological advancements, as Gigi rightly projects; “imagine if Google, Yahoo, Ask and MSN had to get prior permission from every single webpage owner whose works they link to!”

Lawmakers aren’t faced with an easy task. Laws need to be written that better suit today’s current digital world while still protecting the content creator. From NBC Universal alone, YouTube receives about 1,000 takedown notices a month! Recently, several of the larger media companies including Viacom, Walt Disney and Microsoft agreed to use technology to eliminate copyright-infringing content—however I question the effectiveness of the technology. One court outcome that inevitably will affect the industry is Viacom’s $1 billion suite against YouTube. If content creators aren’t rightfully compensated for their work, the quality and amount of creativity is likely to decrease. In the end, it is the consumer’s dollars that are going to have the largest impact. iTunes massive digital sales have already shown the consumer’s distaste for a $17 CD.

Continuous engagement… the death of market research

ESPN pulled the plug on their cell-phone product after investing $150m including $40m in advertising. This is precisely the failure market research is intended to prevent. How can business harness customers and prospective customers to improve their hit rate and time to market?

The following simple figures demonstrate the difference between traditional market research and continuous engagement.

There are dozens of differences between the two approaches. Research is ad-hoc or at regular intervals whereas continuous engagement is, well, continuous. Research is one-way, and engagement is two-way. Research is devoid of any direct brand benefit (and research purists will claim this is beneficial) whereas continuous engagement inculcates brand loyalty. Here’s a list of the primary differences:

• Research is ad hoc or regular interval; engagement is continuous
• Research is one-way (+ prize or payment!); engagement is two-way (mutually rewarding)
• Research is unemotional; engagement is emotional
• Research is independent of loyalty; engagement inculcates brand loyalty
• Research has a tight focus; engagement has a wide focus
• Research deals with sequential parameters; engagement is multi-parametric
• Research is designed to achieve statistical confidence; engagement is designed to detect weak signals.

The disadvantages of traditional market research

Ad hoc or regular intervals

• Your last data set getting on a bit?
• Trying to read between the lines because the last survey didn’t ask exactly the question you now need answering?
• Is your market speeding up relative to your research frequency?
• Do you need to ask new questions, but want to continue trending previous survey data?

One-way

• What’s in it for your respondents?
• Ever wondered if they’re answering your questions conscientiously?
• Are they likely to benefit or suffer as a consequence of the information they share with you?

Unemotional

• Quite simply, do they care?

Independent of loyalty

• Ad hoc, one-way, unemotional interaction does not drive brand loyalty.

Tight focus

• How long can you keep them interested for the remote chance of winning an iPod?
• Once you’ve collected the demographics, how long remains to get to the crux?
• By what degree can you change the subject?
• How many times can you change the subject before their brain starts hurting?

Confidence

After all that, it’s no wonder you need some mathematics to determine the statistical confidence.

Social media

The best way to understand your customers, is to have a relationship with them. Online. On the mobile. In store.

Social media is defined on Wikipedia as:

“the democratization of content and the understanding of the role people play in the process of not only reading and disseminating information, but also how they share and create content for others to participate. It is the shift from a broadcast mechanism to a many-to-many model, rooted in a conversational format between authors and people”.

More simply, we define social media in the context here as:

“all integrated channels through which you can get people discussing you and your market, with each other and with you”.

Wide focus

Anything and everything is discussed by your customers in social forums. For each topic, you can choose to interact or just listen.

You can also seed the forums with topics relevant to your business tomorrow, not just today. Test their reaction. Harvest value-added feedback; qualitative and quantitative.

Multi-parametric

Traditional research addresses a limited sequence of parameters, whereas social media can embrace multiple parameters.

Nevertheless, your product roadmap may encompass hundreds of parametric permutations. In this instance, you could chose to present ideas based on “runs” (parameter groupings based on Taguchi orthogonal arrays) to your most loyal and valued social media participants.

Detect weak signals

Weak signals are easily overlooked in traditional research. But understanding how to identify the most authoritative members in your social media, and learning to listen to them, can place you weeks if not months ahead of your competition in timely new product launches.

New skills

Supplanting or supplementing market research with continuous engagement requires:

• A new strategy
• An implementation framework
• New analyses methods
• Sound corporate performance measurement to close the loop

For and against

Unsurprisingly, there are advocates and detractors from this point of view. Take an interview with Bill Neal of SDR Consulting for example:

“..But I have some real problems with consumer generated media as a source of credible and reliable information. In many ways it combines the worst elements of non-scientific research – self selection and advocacy – both positive and negative.

The information they generate may be true, or not true – there is no way to discern which. Therefore, the information generated by those folks is neither credible nor reliable.”

However, this perspective could not be more strongly countered by the assertions made in the Cluetrain manifesto:

“A powerful global conversation has begun. Through the Internet, people are discovering and inventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed. As a direct result, markets are getting smarter – and getting smarter faster than most companies.

These markets are conversations. Their members communicate in language that is natural, open, honest, direct, funny and often shocking. Whether explaining or complaining, joking or serious, the human voice is unmistakably genuine. It can’t be faked.”

OK, continuous engagement may not signal the death of traditional market research, but it marks a distinct and influential turning point; a turning point leading companies are adopting today for competitive advantage.

Political Advertising

By Ben

This week CNN reported that political television advertising is expected to exceed $3 billion for this year’s presidential election. Not only could this be considered a tremendous waste of money (imagine what else could be done with this money), but there is an important question of whether or not this method of advertising is as effective as it used to be.

Stuart Rothenberg, editor of the non-partisan Rothenberg Political Report told CNN, “Chances are, just as what happened in 2006, voters will be numb after watching hundred and hundreds of ads. The sheer number of ads probably dilutes their importance. After a while, the ads just become lots of chatter and an ad will have to be really good to cut through the noise.”

First, as so many television viewers (like I do) record their favorite programs, less and less people are actually watching commercials and are instead fast-forwarding through them. The only time I actually do watch commercials is during a Red Sox or Patriots game – but they are usually the same ten commercials run over and over again. So in essence, many of these political commercials will be TiVo’d and skipped over – flushing a portion of that $3 billion down the toilet.

Second, is this the best way to win an election? Over the past four years there have been a lot of advances online (Facebook, YouTube, etc). Having a strong online presence seems to be just as important as having a commercial every thirty seconds that criticizes the opponent. I think this method proved to be unsuccessful during the Massachusetts gubernatorial race last year.

Although spending $3 billion that doesn’t belong to you could be considered fun, it seems that today’s candidates need to adapt better to the way people are using media. In 2004 when Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube were not as influential and mainstream as they are today, the presidential candidates spent $1.7 billion on television advertising. So why would they almost double this amount when less people are watching commercials and more people are online?

Perhaps a more effective example of how candidates can adapt to recent technology are the YouTube debates that recently took place. This allowed voters to submit questions for the debate through YouTube, and the actual videos were used during the debate – which created a much more interesting and unique way for voters to connect with the candidates – and cost a lot less then $3 billion.

I know that 98% of these advertisements will be recorded and skipped over on my TV. Will these commercials influence who you are voting for?

Press 2.0

By George

The debate about whether or not a journalist should blog is moot at this point. They blog – and will continue to blog in the foreseeable future.

But blogging can be a slippery slope for traditional journalists because blogging is about opinion and point of view while traditional journalism (at least in the United States) is about being impartial and balanced.

So when a reporter writes a balanced news story about a company and then blogs his opinions on the company – is she undermining her creditability?

That’s the big question.

Two recent episodes at Racepoint haven given us greater insight into the challenges journalists, PR consultants, and business executives face in the world of Press 2.0.

One of our technology executives was recently interviewed by a Boston Globe columnist. After the interview, the client and columnist engaged in small talk and the name of my boss, Larry Weber, came up. Our client and the columnist made a bet that Larry had his own blog.

He does not (and believes CEOs shouldn’t blog). The next day the columnist wrote a blog posting about Larry’s Phantom Blog. The executive was mentioned in the blog post, but not by name. Regardless, he sent an email explanation to Larry and said that he had no idea that the columnist planned on blogging about that part of the conversation.

(On a side note: the post playfully questioned Larry’s social media credentials because he doesn’t blog. From my perspective that’s like questioning the expertise of a football commentator because he’s never played in the NFL, refuting the creditability of an English professor to analyze a novel without having published one. It would also be like questioning whether business journalists should be allowed to write about business if they’ve never worked for one).

The second incident occurred in the spring when a journalist for the BBC wrote a story about another client. The BBC reporter talked to the client who had relayed some misinformation, which was dutifully written about. I called the reporter and asked for the information to be corrected.

I had a 30 minute conversation with the reporter. He insisted the team member “had said it” during the interview and that he was within his rights to report it. I agreed. But I told him the information was still wrong. Was it his job to parrot what he’d been told or to pass on accurate news to his readers? He finally agreed to issue a correction.

But in a box inside the body of the corrected news story he provided a link to his blog. In his blog, he discusses, in detail, my conversation with him and why, ultimately, he decided to correct the story. I wasn’t mentioned by name, but I had considered our telephone conversation private.

I still talk to this reporter and when I’m passing on information via email or telephone, I’ll humorlessly add a disclaimer about the conversation being private and not be used in blogging. I know it annoys him (which is part of the fun) – but I also believe that journalists need to inform people if they plan on blogging about a conversation.

We’ve also had cases at Racepoint where overeager bloggers have posted email pitches verbatim online. As I tell my colleagues – pitches aren’t news stories, but some bloggers apparently don’t understand that.

Blogs are a wonderful tool, but it’s still a new medium and the rules of engagement are still being hammered out. We’ll explore some of our ideas and recommendations for the new rules of engagement in future posts.

Music Revolution

By Sydne

Last week the British rock band, Radiohead announced that they would let fans determine the price of their seventh studio album, “In Rainbows,” which was released yesterday. What’s even more interesting is that the band went completely against the grain and chose not to sell the album to iTunes, in order to sell the album in its entirety rather than song by song.

(Checkout screen)

 

This unusual yet bold move seems to challenge the typical music industry business model and it’s already catching on. Oasis and Jamiraquai are said to be considering whether to offer their music online for free, according to The Telegraph. Monday, Trent Reznor front man for Nine Inch Nails announced the band’s emancipation from Interscope Records – this after last month’s Sydney concert where Reznor advised fans on how to “steal” music to protest the high CD prices.

So what does this mean for the music industry? It has yet to be seen, however, this trend is not going away any time soon. Some say that the days of big record labels are numbered, others say that without big label’s help musicians will go back to singing for their supper. We’ll see.

Is this a music revolution? “It’s up to you.

Finally…Digital Life at 30,000 Feet

By Amisha

Virgin America recently launched with limited routes and it’s the first airline to “get” the digital lifestyle. I flew on Virgin America for the first time last week and was blown away by Red, its in-flight entertainment system. It makes every other airline’s entertainment offerings look downright archaic.

Computers are embedded in the back of each seat and networked to servers in the cargo hold of the plane. Each passenger gets a 9-inch touchscreen LCD and miniature keyboard/remote combo, both of which can be used to watch TV and movies, listen to music, chat with other passengers, play video games  and even order a snack from the flight attendants. Each seat is equipped with a USB port to charge mobile devices and a 110V adapter to charge laptops. An Ethernet port is also available, but it’s not of much use until Virgin flips the switch on its in-air Internet service.

There are more features in Red than any single passenger will probably use on a single flight, but there’s something for everyone. I enjoyed browsing through Virgin’s music, creating a custom playlist and dozing off to some relaxing tunes. When I woke up I used Red to order a snack and some hot tea. I drained my laptop’s battery before boarding my return flight from Washington D.C. to San Francisco, but was able to plug in and finish up a document before I landed.

The system isn’t perfect by any means. Several of the television channels weren’t working and it’s disappointing that in-air Internet access was down. There are 3,000 songs in the library, but this is actually quite limited compared to what many of us are used to on iTunes and other music services.

Other airlines are going to have to play some serious catch up. It’s going to be really tough to fly cross country on another airline that offers up ‘Wild Hogs’ as its only entertainment option.

Now, about adding that in-flight manicure?

A Night of Firsts

By Jordan 

While most people online Sunday night were checking the day’s baseball and football scores (Go Sox! Go Pats!), MSNBC.com quietly unveiled their first acquirement in its 11 year history –and its first foray into social media. Late Sunday night, everyone’s favorite homepage announced the acquisition of Newsvine, a news site continuously updated by “citizen journalism.”

Newsvine has gained recognition since its launch in March 2006 through its merging of mainstream reporting from the AP and ESPN, the crowdsourcing of individual contributors, as well as its user-driven ranking system of top stories as seen on competitors’ sites like Digg.com.

 

More interesting however, is the trend of major brands purchasing smaller, independently run news aggregators and social media sites. In Newsvine’s case, uber-corporations Microsoft and General Electric (by way of NBC) have followed in the footsteps of Ebay’s acquisition of StumbleUpon.com, Wired.com’s purchase of Reddit and Yahoo! of De.lic.ious.

What remains to be seen is whether the influence of a bureaucratic Microsoft or the editors at NBC negatively effect what is essentially built as an open source news model. Newsvine CEO Mike Davidson has publicly promised for the site to continue to operate independently of its new owners. 

On the plus side, Newsvine will soon feature original MSNBC.com content on its site – a first among its competitors.

A Lesson Learned

By George

We believe in digital media at Racepoint (in fact, one of our founders Larry Weber has written a great book about it).

But like everyone else, we sometimes make mistakes.  Hey, even the mighty David Ortiz strikes out on occasion.

This week, on his own accord, one of our team members posted a comment on a blog using a pseudonym (and no he’s not a soon to be fired employee, Valley Wag).  In fact, he’s a promising young PR professional with a bright future.

I want to be clear that our employee was not posting on behalf of a client or Racepoint.  He was posting as himself – or himself behind an alias.  You can read the original postings here and here.

His mistake from our perspective was two-fold.  He posted a personal comment from Racepoint Group and he posted about a client that he is not authorized to blog about.  He regrets his mistake and has apologized to the blogger who has graciously accepted and even invited him to participate as a formal writer for the site.

We have a golden rule on blogging at Racepoint Group: transparency.  Our policy is to identify ourselves, who we work for, and which client we are representing while posting and commenting. As Larry says about this episode: “Social media is an uncontrollable atmosphere – and that’s the beauty of it.  And like in real life negative things can happen.  We apologize and move on.”

We obviously regret the commotion we’ve caused and hope that others can learn from our misstep here.  I know we have – it’s been the topic of conversation around the office for the last few days.  In the end, it’ll make us better at what we do.

We’d love to keep this conversation going about the dos and don’ts of digital media relations.  It’s a fantastic communication tool, but it’s still evolving, which leads to mistakes.  I’m sure we’ll be making a few more stumbles as we go along.  This won’t stop us. 

So how about those Red Sox?

East Coast v. West Coast

By Carla

In case you all missed it, New England Web 2.0 companies are raising big bucks and overshadowing our West Coast friends. Comparatively, New England raised $11.5 million more than San Francisco in the first half of 2007, which in the grand scheme of things isn’t going to turn Boston into the technology hub overnight. 

Silicon Valley has earned its reputation for a reason. Surviving the dot-com bubble, the area hosts thousands of tech companies including household names Google, Apple, eBay, Yahoo! and AMD. What is promising for the New England area is the amount of growth it has experienced year over year. In 2006, the region brought in $62 million, while it had already amassed more than $102 million by mid-2007.

Not that Bostonians should become overly giddy—we’ve missed a chance or two to make Boston the home of some of the biggest technology companies. When Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin first looked to Battery Ventures in Waltham for financing for their social networking site with 1,000 or so users, they were turned down. And now the Palo Alto-based company is worth as much as $6 billion.

But not to worry, Boston has plenty of start-ups developing technologies to keep those Googlers on its toes. With the energy and nanotechnology sectors heating up, Boston definitely has a fair shot at rising above the Valley and it’s clear that the venture capital exists to fund innovative new companies.