Anticipating the Reporters' Questions

So the reporters called and told you the topic here.

She wants to talk to you about wants to interview you about what’s the first step in figuring out what your messages.

How do you know what to say.

I think a good first step is to just put yourself in the shoes of a reporter.

What are they likely to ask you.

Now I want to stress.

Ultimately I don’t care about the reporter.

I don’t mean to sound like I’m anti reporter and bashing the media.

I don’t want to set up an adversarial relationship.

But what I mean by that is I don’t want you to lose sight of what’s really important what’s really important is the message you ultimately decide to get across.

Did it get into the story.

Now I want the reporter to like me and think I was responsive and smart interesting and helpful but that’s a side issue.

The primary issue is did we get the message we want into the story.

But in order for that to happen it has to be a win win.

The reporter has to win and you have to win.

So I want to help you set the deck.

Set the table so that this will happen.

That’s why the first step is asking ourselves what is a reporter from this particular outlet most likely to ask you and many times it’s obvious.

So if a reporter is coming to you because there’s an explosion at your plant you know the questions are gonna be what happened.

How many people are hurt.

Should there be an investigation.

Is there still risk.

Should the rest of the city evacuate you sort of know the most obvious questions.

A good message answers the most obvious questions we know will be coming from a reporter on this topic.

So I do think you should spend some time brainstorming on questions that you’re pretty certain a reporter will ask on this topic.

Given the topic given the media outlet given the audience of that media outlet and start thinking of answers to those questions now does it mean an answer to anyone question is going to be your ultimate media message.

But you need to write it down.

You need to type it up put it on a computer screen put it on a pad paper you want to start brainstorming every possible message point so if it’s an obvious question you know a reporter is going to ask let’s go ahead write down the answer and put it on a screen or a piece of paper.

Critically important now.

One caveat.

Some people go overboard on this.

You could spend hours days weeks brainstorming an infinite number of questions reporters could ask.

Now you just want to focus on the most obvious questions because there’s a lot of other things we have to do in the process of coming up with our ultimate message.