Here's a big one, TJ, how do I get the questions from the reporter in advance of the interview? I hear this constantly. And I have to tell you, it's a complete waste of time for many, many reasons. Let's step back for a minute. Why would you want the questions in advance? The reporter will ask you in an interview, well, it makes perfect sense.

If you think of an interview as sort of a college or high school teacher giving you a test. Yeah, it'd be nice to know what's on the biology exam before you take the biology exam so you can study the right answers. I get that I understand that. Guess what? This isn't that kind of a test. When you're talking to a reporter.

It's not about whether you got all the questions right. It's about Did you get the exact messages you want and the exact quotes you want in the final story. I've never seen anyone show a correlation between getting the questions in advance and you getting the message you want it into the final story. So that alone, I hope is enough justification to dissuade you from wanting the questions in advance. But there are bigger problems. For major media organizations like the New York Times, major TV outlets around the world, it's actually prohibited for the reporters to give you the questions in advance.

The New York Times reporters have in their ethics clause their their employment contract, they cannot give a source to questions written down in advance. So when you go to someone who has power over your reputation, can influence ideas about you to thousands, perhaps millions. And the first thing you say is, hey, I want you to do something unethical to jeopardize your entire career to help me even though you don't know me and we're not friends. When you think about it, that's crazy. So all you're doing is Eric The reporter, you're sending a message to the reporter that you're not very savvy, you're not sophisticated, you don't really understand how this game is played. And that's a big, big problem.

Now, here's what you can do, you can always say to the reporter, Hey, your time is very valuable, I want to be as well prepared for you as possible. Are there any other subtopics you'd really like me to be prepared on? I'm assuming, of course, they've already told you the subject matter of the interview. Quite often, they'll tell you the next five, six questions that we're going to ask in the interview. But it's without you saying give me the questions in advance. So because it doesn't seem like you're overtly pressuring them, they're happy to give it to you.

Not always. But sometimes. Are there exceptions to this rule, of course, in my experience, trade publications, media outlets, with smaller circulations, media outlets and really small countries. Where they are much more deferential to political powers, big corporate powers will often give the questions in advance. So this can vary. But regardless, I want you to get to the point where you couldn't care less what the questions are not because you're going to ignore questions, but because it simply doesn't matter what the questions are, what matters are your messages on this topic.

Now, if you've done a good job, and you listen to the whole section on messaging, you've brainstormed on the most obvious questions that the reporter is going to ask you on this topic. So we're not just completely creating anything here, but we want to say we're factoring in what the most obvious questions Our reporter will have. But here's the other issue. Reporter doesn't know all the questions you How can they send you the questions in advance, you're the expert quite often. They want to have a conversation with you. So when you tell them, send the question in advance, it's putting them on the defensive.

And it just really sets off the interview on the wrong foot. biggest issue. It doesn't help you accomplish your fundamental goal, getting the message you want in the final story, so please don't ask for the questions in advance and don't browbeat your public relations person, your public affairs person into asking the reporter for you. That's even worse.