TV news interviewers rarely ask the tough follow-up questions to the VIP’s (very important people) they interview because if they did they may not get an interview with that VIP ever again if tough lines of inquiry were followed. If TV news interview shows do not book important guests to be interviewed the show will lose audience ratings and advertisers will not buy ads on their TV interview show.
Solutions to problems talked about on TV news interview shows is NOT what TV news people really care about. They really only care about TV audience ratings, or the paid circulation of their newspapers, which draws the advertisers which pays the salaries. Everything else is secondary in America. Making money takes precedence over all else.
Never forget this despite the “do-gooder” public service image the news media wants you, the audience, to feel like it is performing first and foremost. Concerning on-camera interviews the news media always comes across as being “nice guys” to the person being interviewed but beware of their disarming tricks.
If a TV news person ever shows up alone at your door, a camera person may be shooting (recording) you that you are totally unaware of outside your home or place of business or even recording you through your window or a window nearby while the reporter may be wearing a hidden microphone recording your voice while the reporter acts like he or she is not really interested in getting you on-camera but only wants a statement.
Then on the six o’clock news you see yourself talking on-camera when you thought you were NOT on-camera at all. If TV news reporters come to you in what sounds like an unofficial, “off the record” capacity and all they want is to ask you a few questions, do not believe it. In the news gathering business everything you say and do is “on the record” and can be used against you so never let your guard down, or risk getting taken advantage of.
On the other hand, if you know you are being interviewed on TV watch out that they do not cover the air conditioning vents just to make you sweat and come across on-camera as looking uncomfortable, agitated or guilty during the interviewer’s intense line of questioning. Another trick is when they interview you with two cameras. One camera operator says they have to stop recording or taping the interview to fix something which tricks the person being interviewed into thinking “both” cameras have stopped recording so the person being interviewed lets down their guard and hopefully says something they wish they had not said while the second camera continues recording.
Moreover, when the editing process begins after your interview this is when they can just about make you say anything they want which is not what you really said when you did the interview. Just ask anyone who has ever been the subject of a TV news interview. You can easily be victimized in the editing process. Oftentimes, it is what they “edit out” of the interview that takes what you said totally out of context and you end up looking like you meant something else entirely. Is this fair? You agreed to do the interview so everything is fair game.
The unsuspecting viewers of the interview at home may in all likelihood believe they are getting a fair and impartial interview when maybe they are or maybe they are not. If you refuse to do the interview the interviewer may put a “spin” on the story with little or no regard for your point of view. Generally, there are only two safe ways to deal with the news media.
First, stay out of the news. Second, if you do get “picked on” by the “gotcha” news media put whatever you have to say “in writing” and do so in a short, friendly, mannerly way, and do not deliver this message on-camera whenever possible.