The Guardian's coverage of Easyjet's environmental plans is an interesting example of how not to deal with difficulty media questions. The cringe-worthiness of watching George Monboit challenge Andy Harrison's views on Easyjet's environmental plans makes you wonder if the PR people at Easyjet best prepared Easyjet's CEO got beforehand. After all the environment is a sensitive subject at the best of times and is bound to throw up difficult questions!
Media training is always a good exercise for spokespeople and most come away enthused and prepared. It teaches them the skills of how to deal with an interview - from dealing with the usual questions to, more importantly, handling the difficult, out-of-left-field questions. But once this exercise is over and a few months have gone by most spokespeople can forget the skills learnt. This becomes apparent during George Monboit's interview.
This is why preparation for interviews should involve reminders of these skills. It is no good preparing answers for the questions you want to hear and then not being able to answer the more difficult questions that you don;t want to hear! After all, the journalist is only doing his job by getting to the truth.
A spokesperson not answering questions and being abrasive is the interview equivalent of sticking your head in the sand and not wanting to play the game.
I think the thing to remember in these situations is to expect the unexpected and don't get annoyed that the journalist asks a difficult question - he is only doing his job!
Posts
