Media madness...

A last minute tag-in by a colleague yesterday saw me overseeing my first media (television) interview.

Aside from a little nervousness, on my part, the whole process was fairly painless.

The interviewer was professional, our pres was straight to the point, on message, and since we’ve been dealing with the issues in question for a couple weeks now, didn’t need the slightest bit of coaching from me on what to say.

So my nervousness was completely unnecessary.

There were a couple of things I could have done better, offered to take her coat sooner and remembered to have a business card with me, but that’s nit picky stuff. Actually I’m still getting used to having business cards in the first place. I have yet to hand one out in a professional capacity.

(Although, when my cards first came in I did mail a whole bunch out to my friends and family)

What really interested me about the interview was the co-dependent nature of the whole thing. The news organization needs us to help fill a time slot and provide expert advice about what’s happening in our industry and we’re taking advantage of the publicity and the air time to help get our story and our message out to people who wouldn’t normally be exposed to it.

Now in this instance it was fairly harmless, each of us is doing the other a favour. As such my role is minimal. But I’m intensely curious about what I would have been expected to do if I’d been overseeing an interview where the reporter was hostile or where we were the subject of the news story instead of just providing expert advice on it.

Where do my job responsibilities\authority to begin and end and what exactly do they consist of? I’ve asked to shadow the next couple media requests we have because I’d like to soak up the job requirements in case I get asked to do it again.