“Media Interviews”

Even if you’re not a sports fan you probably heard this week about the NFL’s New York Jets (and coaches, apparently) being sexually suggestive and rude to the lady sports reporter pictured to the left, Ms. Ines Sainz.

According to reports, things got rowdy with coaches intentionally throwing passes to help players bump into her. And once she entered the locker room, the story goes that Nose Tackle Kris Jenkins essentially said it’s the Jets lockeroom and they can catcall if they want to.

Lots of the conversation surrounding this story has been on whether or not Sainz was dressed appropriately and whether or not her dress justified the Jets’ crass behavior.

Let me help you.

No she wasn’t dressed appropriately and no that doesn’t justify their awful and grossly unprofessional behavior.

But here’s the greater question that comes up any time there is a minority person whose rights may have been violated: Is this the person you want to make an example of how unfair things are? I mean, looking at that picture is this the woman we want to say “Hey, look at how hard woman reporters have it?”

Not because she’s done anything wrong, but for the same reason Rosa Parks was chosen to be the face of the civil rights movement. Sadly, some arguments just go over better when they have the “right face.” I think it’s called “PR strategy.” Saying this woman is a victim of sexism isn’t gonna go over well with the menfolk or many womenfolk.

Here’s a gem on Sainz from USA Today.

TV Azteca promotes Sainz both as a journalist and as a model. The network’s website includes photo collections of Sainz and has an article in its “Bad Girls” section headlined, “Inez Sainz, the perfect woman.” The article describes her as intelligent and having a good sense of humor, and is accompanied by a photo of her in a bikini.

She has covered the NFL before, including several Super Bowls. At a media event before the Super Bowl in 2009, she measured the bicep of Arizona Cardinals wide receiver Steve Breaston. The year before, she asked Patriots quarterback Tom Brady what it would take for New England to beat the Jets. The Pats actually were playing the Giants.

Professional athletes and coaches constantly come into contact with women who have some serious assets. Sainz is probably not the most beautiful or most well endowed woman those players and coaches had seen that day, and certainly not that week or month.

I find it hard to believe they were genuinely THAT ethralled with her looks. And obviously, this type of behavior isn’t happening on a daily basis. I think they saw her clothing, knew her history, and took her about as seriously as she appears to take her job.

Basically, they bullied her because they perceived her as powerless and meaningless and underserving of respect. Certainly their perception and the way they dealt with it is rooted in sexism and machismo and immaturity. If a reporter is dressed unprofessionally, she should be reported as a distraction concern–not harassed.

My question: Is it sexist and unfeminist and blaming the victim to say the Jets are morons but Jesus Christ dress more professionally and learn football? Can we ask her to dress professionally while simultaneously to the Jets being fined and learning the error of their ways? Or, is the only sensitive and evolved way to approach to say “The Jets are morons,” </sentence> since her clothing and professionalism shouldn’t be related to the players’ treatment of her?

Boy, if ever there was a time to use the phrase “Women like you make it hard for women like me…”

So what do y’all think? Am I guilty of blaming the victim?

In case you haven’t noticed, I haven’t posted in a while. I was sick and bogged down with crap for the past two weeks. But even in the midst of that haze, I simply could not avoid all the stories about the one guy who wanted to burn some korans on September 11th, and the people who are all upset over a recreational facility, called Park 51, complete with mosque, being built at Ground Zero.

The greatest thing about these two stories is that ignorance knows no region. The book burners are in Florida, but the mosque protestors are all over the country with many in New York.

The second greatest thing about these controversies is that many in the media, belatedly, acknowledged that it bears some responsibility for fanning the flames of the story about the book burner–and, by proxy, endangering the troops. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen any in the media talk about how they should have covered these stories. Sure, saying that perhaps the shouldn’t have covered the stories at all, or given them as much attention, is great. But in this world of 24 hour news where we are constantly aiming to scoop a scoop, not covering something becomes more difficult each second another network gains viewers by feeding the mob. And giving a story that is growing in popularity “moderate coverage” is way too much to expect.

Rather than talk about whether or the the media should have covered the stories, I’d rather focus on HOW they should have covered them. Or, shall I say, how they shouldn’t have covered them. And that is, with legitimacy.

Sure there are some who’d say that treating a Preacher, like Rev. Terry Jones, who has a congregation of less than 100 like an influential figure as he plans to do something clearly bigoted is warranted. But there’s really not much to back that up. I can only assume that this story was covered for ratings purposes–but there’s a way to do that fairly responsibly as well. All you have to remember is this:

Just because there are two ways of thinking about something, doesn’t mean you have to treat both opinions with legitimacy.

This is the mistake the media made.

In conversation after conversation, pundits, talk show hosts, etc. asked their guests “What do you think of Rev. Jones’ plan to burn korans on September 11?”

Huh? Is there more than ONE way to intelligently think about this? No? Then why pose the question as though there is?

Of course most people opposed Rev. Jones plan–almost no one could be found to defend it — that alone should tell you how silly the whole thing is.

The best thing to do in a situation like this is to assume that there’s only one reasonable opinion to have and proceed to elevate the conversation.  A better question to ask a guest would be “How can we begin to help everyone in America understand that we are in a war with terrorists, not Islam?” with the Jones story as the umbrella.

Same thing with the people who want to move Park 51. The question is not “Should the mosque be moved?” rather, “If we focus our anger and resentment on a “religion” how does that jeopardize our efforts to combat terrorism?” This is a method by which the media could actually elevate a conversation rather than leaving it in the slums where it began.

Additionally, in my research of the Park 51 story, I didn’t see any one articulate any reason NOT to put a mosque near Ground Zero that wasn’t bigoted or rooted in emotion. Asking people “Do you believe there should be a mosque near ground zero?” is something very different from asking “Should it be illegal to build a mosque near ground zero? If not, how should building owners decide when its tasteful to build and when not? How do we reconcile such opinions within the idea of capitalism?”

The latter form of questioning forces the responder to think about how you would structure such language that would prohibit the mosque from being built or in what circumstances would you ask a builder not to build something based on matters of taste. There’s really no way to answer that question in favor of prohibiting a building containing a mosque without sounding bigoted or uninformed e.g. not realizing or acknowledging that all Muslims aren’t terrorists.

One last note, in terms of responding to questions about the mosque, I felt influential Americans should have responded by dismissing Rev. Jones as the rare small scale bigot, pointing out that his following is near nil and in no way reflects the feelings of most Americans nor the values we hold dear in this country. Unfortunately, many of the statements I read droned on and on and elevated Rev. Jones’ status rather than briefly putting his existence into perspective and moving on to more important matters.

Perspective on these stories was grossly lacking on all sides.

I think that if the media concerned itself a little more with talent, it could probably elevate conversations and still make them interesting enough to get ratings. Either way, to cover two very low brow stories with such vigor and to then critique your coverage of it with no serious analysis of or attention toward better ways to cover such stories in the future is disingenuous.

Kristin Van Ogtrop Interviews Jillian Harris

So you’ve been asked by your local newspaper to give an interview. The reporter says they want to ask you about whether or not you’re considering a run for local office. You’re an entrepreneur, active city hall meetings, and a graduate of a nearby university. You figure the next step is to run for city council, you feel like you can do a better job than those schmucks who are running things now.

But you’re nervous. The media is always out to get people. Journalists twist your words and make it seem as though you’ve said things you didn’t say. Things get taken out of context and you believe it’s imperative that you make a list of things NOT to say. That way, the journalist can’t screw you over…because you didn’t say anything wrong.

During the phone interview, the journalist asks you a bunch of questions.

You tell the reporter that you love participating in city meeting, you want to make your community better, and although you haven’t officially decided to run for the council, you’d be honored if you had the chance.

The reporter asks you why you wanted to run. You want to mention the fact that your kids are school age and you’re concerned about budget cuts in the local school system; however, you are not prepared to discuss statistics and you’re not sure if you should mention in the paper where your kids go to school. Why identify them if you’re not sure you will run.

25 minutes later, you hang up the phone proud of yourself because there were no awkward silences or tense moments during the conversation. You answered all the reporter’s questions and navigated around any pitfalls. You aced the interview.

Or so you think.

A week passes by and your story still hasn’t run. You call the journalist who interviewed you and you ask them what happened with your story? When will it run? The journalist said that the paper’s editor is going to run the story the next day; however, you probably won’t be quoted.  You question the reporter as to why your quotes won’t be used. After all, you took time out of your day to make yourself available. He says “Listen, you’re a nice enough guy but there was nothing we could ‘use.’”

Photo courtesy of Nick Dilulio Files

You’re confused. “So what’s the story about?” you ask. The reporter tells you that another local business owner has announced that he has formed a planning committee to explore a run for city council. And that his desire to run is based on the current housing crisis and the fact that the city is in dire need of affordable housing and solid urban planning.

Your name is a mere footnote in the article after 25 minutes on the phone and days of stressing and worrying and practicing what you would say.

What did you do wrong?

I’ve seen many interviewees make the mistake of planning what NOT say but failing to plan what to say. Before an interview you should always have 3-6 messages (depending on the subject matter and length of the interview) you want to emphasize.

Not only will this make the interview more interesting, it also ensures that when you are asked questions that could potentially be a trap, you always have a subject matter to fall back on.

For example, the business owner who was profiled in the article in which you were a mere footnote had at least 2 messages. He introduced the reader to why he wants to run and also the fact that he was serious about running a fact he conveyed by mentioning the formation of a planning committee.

Instead of choosing NOT to mention at all why you’re considering a run, you should have prepared for the questions surrounding your reason for considering running. If the reporter asked you what’s wrong with the education system, you could have given a general answer. For example, you could have said, you believe students in the city would benefit from some curriculum changes. Perhaps, they could be better prepared. Regardless of the specific issues within your local school system, these are general points that would be both noncontroversial and also establish you as the education candidate should you choose to run. If pressed, you could have told the reporter that if you run, you will explain what you mean more fully while reiterating your point that based on what you’ve read and researched thus far, you believe educational improvements would be beneficial.

If asked about your children, you could have given a very honest answer such as “I’ve not yet made a decision about running so I don’t want to single out my children or their school; however I do have school age children and I monitor the quality of their education very closely and would be interested in doing so for all of our city’s children.

Other messages you could have had prepared could have had to do with how entrepreneurship would prepare you for such a run, a touching anecdote about growing up in the city, or stressing your support for the local university. Any number of positive things could have been emphasized.

Messages are not lies. Messages are not talking points. Messages are not bad. Having messages ready to emphasize ensures that you are prepared with sincere and articulate answers that will reach the reporter and the journalist. It also helps increase the likelihood that you will not spend a half an hour of your time providing information that will not be used.

More on messages and message development to come!

http://www.mediastrut.com