How do you decide whether or not to do a media interview? For a lot of people, a lot of organizations, there's a tremendous amount of time, effort and cost associated with this. People want to go through and say, Well, this reporter wrote one negative thing about our industry eight years ago, so let's not do it are. This newspaper editorialized against someone else we like five years ago, so their bias against us. Here's the problem with that attitude is, it just increases the odds you don't do the interview, the reporter feels like you're hiding something. Reporter feels like you're not being cooperative.

And the reporter now is developing a bias against you. It's human nature to have a bias in favor of people who return our calls and answer our questions and help us do what our business is. It's human nature to not like people who don't help us get our job done. So if you're not going to do the interview, you're making my job. As the reporter more difficult, I'm therefore going to be more inclined to believe someone who says you're wrong or you did something bad or harmful to the environment or the body politic. So my rule of thumb is unless there's just an overwhelmingly dramatic reason as to why it would be so horrible for you to appear in this media outlet, I think just do the interview.

People try to control outcomes. I'm all in favor of that. Everything in this course is about helping you control the outcomes of immediate interview. The problem is if you just decide not to do the interview, you're not really controlling the outcome. Quite often the story is going to be even more negative about you. And it's not going to be helpful at all.

So you've made matters worse, so it's a it's too much of a ham fisted way of controlling things. Now, of course, there are exceptions. Let's say a reporter is doing a story that's really negative about people in your industry going out of business are everybody in your industry is charged with certain forms of harassment. And it's not a story about you. And it's not a story about your organization. It's just a general negative trend story.

And if you decide to not do the interview, they're not going to talk about your company at all. In that case, okay. I don't have a problem with you. turning down the interview request, I would still call the reporter. I would still thank the reporter for giving you the opportunity. I would let the reporter know I'm happy to speak to you in the future.

Here's a chance an opportunity where I would speak on background I would say to the reporter, can I speak to you on background for a moment? they're most likely going to say yes, although there are exceptions. And once the reporter has said to me, yes, you can speak on back Round, I'd say, I appreciate your call. We wish you luck with a story. We want to work with you in the future. But we've just decided we don't really want to be a part of this story.

I hope you understand. Now, I didn't say anything there that if we got into the story, anyone would be upset. But this way, I've increased the odds that I don't get in the story at all. I've made the reporter feel better about me. I respected the reporter I respected their time, I didn't just leave them hanging, I didn't return. I didn't refuse to return their call.

I treated them like a professional. And that helped preserve and protect a relationship or even build an initial relationship. So the next time the issue does affect me or my organization. There's some goodwill with the report. Please keep that tip in mind.