The hugely talented Mr Weatherley


Brian's B2B blog...

Welcome to my B2BMediaTraining blog – some small thoughts on life, the universe and dealing with the press from someone who crossed over from practitioner to teacher.  The following selection of short articles provides an off-beat (and unashamedly tongue-in-cheek) insight into the many different aspects of the media, along with hints and tips for better communication and an understanding into what gets journalists reaching for their pens, tablets or smartphones to cover your story...


Posts from the 'August 2022' archive...



Are you listening carefully?

It’s been said before but it’s worth saying again, good communicators are invariably good listeners too. It certainly pays to be a good listener if you’re meeting with a journalist. It’s all-too easy to misunderstand a question if you’re not listening carefully. Misunderstand and you could end up answering a question that wasn’t asked. If you listen to the news often enough it won’t be long before you hear someone doing just that. However, it could be a deliberate tactic.

By that I mean the interviewee wants to make a specific point, or get over a particular message, but the interviewer hasn’t offered them an appropriate ‘cue’. That’s about managing the conversation, and in previous blogs I’ve talked about the ways you can direct your interlocutor towards the ground in which you want to plant your own flag. I’m sure you’ve heard them used before. For example, there’s the classic ‘I’m surprised you’ve not asked me about…’ or the other ‘The question you should be asking me is…’




They’re legitimate tools for an interviewee, particularly if the journalist has misunderstood or not fully grasped the issue being discussed. But it’s a tactic that should be used sparingly. Keep trying to direct a journalist away from their line of questioning and they’ll only persist in sticking to it. If you think a journalist is barking up the wrong tree, you’d better be able to prove it. Otherwise, you’ll simply reinforce their perception of where the story really sits.

But back to hearing. Listen carefully to what a journalist asks you and from their delivery, intonation, and emphasis, there’s a good chance you can detect what’s behind their question. You can also determine whether they’re sympathetic, neutral, or antagonistic to your answers, and whether they have a particular agenda beneath their interrogation.

Some journalists ask long convoluted questions that take significantly longer to deliver than the answer! Equally, it’s not unusual for them to bundle-up two or even three questions into one big one. If you’re not listening carefully you can end up missing the most important one. If the question is hard to understand, tell them ask journalist to either repeat it, or better still put it in simple terms. It’s vital you know exactly what’s being asked rather than take a wild stab at it and completely miss the point.

Listening carefully can also pay unexpected dividends. For example, in preparing for your interview a journalist may have picked up a significant piece of information that’s of interest or benefit to you, but which you’re unaware of…and it comes out in their questioning. You’d do well to reply along the lines of ‘I’ve not heard that before. Tell me more about it.’ Their reply could expand your own understanding of an issue and thus put you in a stronger position to respond. It’s far better to admit ‘That’s news to me’, than try to bluff your way through an answer, especially if you don’t know what the journalist knows. That’s never a good position to be in.