Talking to the Press

John e-mailed me a couple of weeks ago, on the day he did an interview with a reporter from his local paper.

Here's what John said:

I met with the member of the paper today. He was not a day over 23 years of age.

He was totally unprepared. He used a cell phone for a tape recorder. I ran that out twice. I really had to highlight this. He had NOT seen my blog. I told him to go there. This would really explain a lot that he was missing. I kept wanting to stress education and early detection, he kept wanting to know if I was going to die or not.

How did that make me feel? Why did I feel that way? MMMMMMMMM Not sure, we shall see how this goes I guess. I had to tell him to remove the cap off the lens of the camera in order for him to take my picture.

I know, he is green and we all have to start somewhere. And I am grateful to have been offered this opportunity, BUT, I just am not sure the story will pan out in the way I wanted it to. We shall see.

I was a mainstream journalist (reporter and editor) for something like 15 years before I started writing about cancer, and I think John is being generous in his reaction to this young reporter. There is no excuse for being unprepared for an interview.

Here's my reply to John's e-mail:

John--I think you should post this e-mail on your blog, just as is.

I'm also going to forward it to the young writers I mentor--good for them to see. Not that any of them would go to an interview unprepared. There's no excuse for that.

It's not uncommon for the writer to have a different agenda for the story than the subject has--but "When are you going to die?" is getting pretty crude. Although I've gotten that too.

John did write a post about the story after it came out and was full of errors.

See: Setting the Story Straight

I've done a lot of interviews with the press, and so far I guess I've been lucky. Most of the stories have come out OK. A few little errors here and there, but generally the point of view of the stories has been OK with me.

Go to the About page on this blog and scroll down to read interviews that I've done with the media and also stories I've written about cancer for a mainstream audience--in some cases rather different from the way I write on my blog.

I've been getting a fair number of requests for interviews, especially in the past year, and I try to accommodate them all, especially from journalism students--because I was a J School student once, and I remember how hard it was to get folks to agree to interviews for stories that probably would not be published (because they were class assignments).

A week or so ago, a student from Columbia U.'s journalism graduate school contacted me and asked if she could interview me. I told her my week was really jammed--that was the week that my friend was here from San Francisco, plus Debutaunt and her daughter (and the debu__sweetie and HIS daughters) were coming to dinner, and I had two stories due, other than my blog.

So she gave me the "I only need 15 minutes of your time" line (which I've used myself), and I agreed-- 9 a.m. on the Saturday that Debs and Co. were coming to dinner. My S.F. friend and I were going out for brunch with another friend at 10, so I had literally 15 minutes I could give this graduate student.

What happens? She doesn't call. I waited till 9:15, and then I turned off the phone. She called after that and she e-mailed, and said that she had had problems with her recording equipment. She asked if we could set up another time.

I was annoyed and not inclined to accommodate her a second time, so I e-mailed her back and said that. I also pointed out that she could have called me as scheduled at 9 to tell me she was having a problem with her recorder. I hate waiting by the phone.

Full disclosure: I have a master's degree in journalism from UC Berkeley, a school that has a fierce rivalry with the school at Columbia.

Do you have a story about talking to the press? Please add a comment below--we want to hear about it. And add a link to the interview, if possible. Thanks.

@ Jeanne Sather 2008.

Comments

[Dee]

Hi Jeanne,
One of our local reporters, Theresa Hogue, contacted me around the same time I found out that the cancer was still in my skin - that they hadn't got all the cancer after surgery. At the time, I told her that I was feeling pretty fragile and that once I was feeling stronger again, I'd consent to an interview. She honored that request. Then, when I felt stronger, I contacted her and it went fairly well. However, I was worried about being so public and sharing my blog with readers - I especially worried that people would come up to my son and say things like, "I heard your mom was going to die". Luckily, she respected my wishes and did not actually mention that I had a son in order to protect him from those inconsiderate comments. She also allowed me to read the draft - since I was worried somewhat about security issues - and then published the article. I've also been interviewed a couple of times by our university student newspaper - the last one (which came out last week) had an error and I had to clarify one or two things, but she overall did a good job. So, I have mostly had good experiences with the press.

[Veronica]

A journalism student recently contacted me about doing a career-centric interview. I had worked with her mother, who knew I had majored in journalism. The young woman sent me a list of questions and I replied, including a comment about how in-person or even phone interviews were so much better than e-mail interviews. She never replied to say, "no time for that," or even "thank you." When you look at how the industry is floundering, it's hard to see how smart and talented people would choose journalism as a career. Plus, corporations like Gannett are driving out all the experienced people (they make too much money) and bringing in young people they can pay less. It's sad.