During media training, someone said he once invested a lot of time providing a reporter information to prepare for an interview. But when the reporter later arrived for the interview, the journalist explained how unprepared he was for the story. Yes, we also shook our heads in disbelief.
But that experience pales in comparison to a recent interaction between one of our clients and a writer for an organization’s website. We don’t know the writer, but she sought an expert that matched our client’s services. In an email, the client provided the writer information, her thoughts on the topic and an anecdote. After reading this, the writer called to conduct an interview. But during the interview, the writer decided our client did not provide value to her story.
According to the client, the writer talked on and on about her own viewpoints. Our client thought it would be helpful if the writer reviewed her website, but the writer told her that would be a waste of time. Despite this, she kept asking our client again and again, “What do you do?” Our client believes the writer talked herself out of the whole idea behind the story and then spent time discussing the decline of her own profession.
Now that’s just ridiculous! We’ll make sure we never communicate with that organization again. My goodness! I’m not sure if I’ve ever heard of such ridiculousness before about someone conducting an interview.
People in public relations work so hard trying to craft the perfect pitches to journalists, writers and bloggers, we sometimes forget every industry includes amateurs and bozos. This reinforces our belief of working with people we know. This time, we saw an unexpected opportunity with an unknown. It backfired. We didn’t get an interview. We got a babbling bonehead.