TAKING
A BYTE OUT OF THE MEDIA DIYREPORTER: Why a book? GM: Well, I can't tell you how many times I've actually sat down with someone to do an interview so that I could tell their story and I became immediately aware that the person that I was talking to was completely in the dark, without a net. Had absolutely no idea (A) What they were supposed to do; (B) What I wanted from them; and (C) what the entire process was about. And the kind of person I am, it made me sad, because I realized, "What am I supposed to do? Tell their story and mine? Do their job and mine?" It's not going to happen and what probably will happen is their story is never going to get out there. DIYREPORTER: Through radio, television, print and the Internet, most people are exposed to well over a million interviews by the time they hit adulthood. How can people still be so unsavvy about the process? GM: Well, as you know, try and tell a big name star that they're boring. And where do you go to learn this? Who teaches it to you? A publicist? Not appropriate. And we know that there are teams and agencies that give "media training." I don't give media training. I give interview tactics. The deal is that those kinds of trainings are valuable in the sense that they're usually about the camera. They tell you where to look. They tell you where to stand. They tell you where to put your hands. And that's really valuable. But none of those people have ever had to file. That's the key. DIYREPORTER: When in their career do most people need this information? GM: The name of the book is called "Interview Tactics: How To Survive The Media Without Getting Clobbered." And as I reached the end of the book, I realized that it's much bigger than the media. It's really about anybody that has a message that they want to put out there, whether it's a person sitting next to you on the plane, or you want to sell your car, or whatever, where you have to step up, say what you have to say, tweak your listeners' interest and wrap it up in 30 seconds or less. In other words, give the person you're talking to a place to go next. I use a lot of sports metaphors in this book, because it's really teamwork. You can't go onto the football field or the baseball field and not know the rules of the other team. You work in tandem with each other. Sometimes you work against each other. If you're being interviewed and you don't want to tell me something, you're not going to tell it to me. But you're going to do it in a way that will make it interesting and you're not going to go storming out. DIYREPORTER: You devote a whole section of the book to sound bytes. Tell me why that's particularly important. GM: Because as I say in the book, sound bytes are the media morsels that the media survives on. And with the consolidation of media that we have now, especially with the dissemination of news -- I mean, that's my background and I've seen newsrooms fall, one right after another. We're looking at the merger of CNN and ABC News. That's strange bedfellows. In 1969, the average presidential sound byte was 48 seconds. And in 2002, it's seven seconds. Where are you going to fit in there? How are you going to get your message out? When half the time, they cut to a story with George Bush and it's done in voice-over? So sound bytes are important because what that does is because there are becoming less and less good journalists and we're getting stretched out, and the demands become greater and greater to fill those slots with contents, it enables us to plug in a lot of stories. It used to be when you did an interview, you would go to their house in Malibu or go to the studio, spend an hour minimum, and get a sense of the person, and have the time and the physical space on a page to be able to convey that feeling. When I left ABC News, my average report was 38 seconds, include a lock-out. And I had to have two pieces of sound bytes in that 38 seconds. DIYREPORTER: How can someone prepare for an interview without actually being interviewed? GM: Well, the single most important thing, and I say this in the book, is you've got to tell it to sell it. If you can't tell your own stories, who can? What is your story? ... For the rest of this article, please visit their web site! www.DIYReporter.com # # # 
GAYL
MURPHY PRODUCTIONS, INC. | GAYL MURPHY, HOLLYWOOD CORRESPONDENT
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