Basic Public Affairs Specialist Course The on-camera interview and pre-interview How many times in your public affairs career do you think you will be conducting on-camera interviews? If you said many times you would be right. Every public affairs specialist in DOD must be confident in his or her ability to conduct an on-camera interview. TV stations and the Internet have made public affairs more visible, meaning a picture is good but a talking head is better. The media prefer you saying the facts than them repeating the facts. It also improves our relationship with the public. The general public wants to see someone tell them the details. Remember, seeing is believing. Pre-interview Conducting an Interview Post-interview The Defense Information School, Fort George G. Meade, Maryland 1
Pre-interview Preparation Before the interview is a critical time, because proper preparation prevents poor performance. Below is a list of tasks you must accomplish before the interview to ensure it goes well. Develop responses When the reporter requested the on-camera interview, you asked him what information he was looking for or what type of questions he would be asking. Now you have to find out those answers and pair them with command messages. In public affairs we say a complete response is an answer plus a command message. A command message is the point, policy or statement your command wants to get across to the audience during the interview. Command messages change depending upon the facts. See Annex F of your Public Affairs Handbook - pg. 105-6. Can you think of an example of a common command message after a plane crash? How about, The cause of the crash is under investigation. The injured person is receiving the best possible medical care. and We would like to express our heartfelt condolences to the family and friends of the dead and injured. Along with the reporter s questions from the query, put yourself in the reporter s shoes. What would you ask? Think of both positive and negative lines of questioning. Remember something you say might lead him to ask a follow-up question you weren t expecting. So when you develop your responses, read them carefully to ensure your answers don t raise other questions. Using all releasable information, prepare a statement to give to the reporter once the camera is recording but before the reporter asks questions. A brief overview of what happened and a command message is enough. Remember, brief 10- to 15-second sound bites of information are the goal. Practice responses/wording You never want to go on camera if you didn t practice. Saying the words out loud will help you smooth out your delivery and hear any mistakes. Double and triplecheck the pronunciation of people s last names. Mispronouncing a foreign national s name when you are overseas is considered highly disrespectful in some countries. Making your mistakes off-camera is better than during the interview. Keeping your statements to 10 to 15 seconds will help get the reporter the short sound bite he is looking for. Arrange the logistics You will have to arrange the place for the interview beforehand. Will it be inside or out? Will there be distracting noise because of work going on in the area? Does the reporter need somewhere to plug in equipment? Also, be thinking of what will make it into the frame of the camera lens. Everything in the frame should be there for a reason. Example: If you are doing an interview about the newest vessel in the Navy, have one behind you. But if you are at the scene of an accident or incident for the interview, don t have the scene in the background. Accident/incident scenes behind you make you look insensitive to the family and friends, who may be grieving for their loved ones. Plus, it 2 The Center of Excellence for Visual Information and Public Affairs
will distract the viewers you are trying to reach with an important command message. Determine the ground rules You want to state the ground rules and the consequences for breaking them after you introduce yourself. So, you will want to work out what they are well in advance - seek guidance from your public affairs officer. Provide a press kit A press kit is a folder, binder, bag, etc. that you hand to the media full of material about the case. Things such as a copy of the most updated release, a video, photos, fact sheets, stats, etc. Anything you think might help them get their story. Plus, gathering these things will also make you more knowledgeable about the issue at hand. The Defense Information School, Fort George G. Meade, Maryland 3
Conducting the interview Conducting the interview is the hardest part. You hope you did a great job preparing and if you had the time, practicing responses. But now it is not only your words the reporter and the audience will be paying attention to. You must control your body language as well. Let s take a look step by step at how an on-camera interview should be conducted. Greetings Greet the reporter at the front gate and introduce yourself while shaking hands. This is when the interview starts; from this point on you are on the record. State the ground rules before you get in front of the camera. Try to be conversational but authoritative. Try to control your verbal and nonverbal communication. Verbal - As stated before, you need to say the words with few to no flaws. This is extremely hard and why practice is so important. You want a minimum amount of mistakes. Remember not to use military time, jargon or acronyms. Do not start every sentence with ah or um. This is a habit that some people don t even know they do! Nonverbal - Every move your face or upper body makes is being recorded. While you will be nervous, you must project calm confidence. Here are a few do s and don ts. Do y Make natural eye contact with the reporter and maintain it through out the interview. y Stand firmly but comfortably still. y Keep your hands relaxed in front of you, behind you or at your sides. y Keep your facial expressions in line with the tone of what you are saying. Your goal is to look sensitive but in control, such as sadness when expressing condolences or neutral when talking about consequences. y Relax and try to breathe normally. Breathing will naturally keep you relaxed and will help you with projecting your voice when responding to questions. Don t y Lock your knees keep them slightly bent so you don t pass out half way through the interview. y Look at the camera, roll your eyes, or move your eyes excessively. y Rock side-to-side or forward and backward. You may be moving out of the camera frame or out of focus and that is distracting to the viewer. Keep your feet at least shoulder width apart this will prevent the rocking from side-toside. y Stand too rigid. Relax, but don t slouch. y Talk with your hands. If you are holding notes, don t rattle or make noise with them. y Make inappropriate facial expressions such as smiling when talking about death or making a face when you make a mistake. 4 The Center of Excellence for Visual Information and Public Affairs
After the interview -- what now? After the interview you can t just walk away. As a good pa specialist, you need to ensure the reporter has everything he needs before he leaves. Ask the reporter if he got all the information he needed and how well he thought the interview went. Ask when the piece will air. Your office will want to record it for documentation and briefing purposes. Your public affairs officer will want to tell the commander when and what channel to watch. Escort him back to his vehicle and follow him to ensure he exits the installation. Never take his word if he says, No need to follow me to the gate, I know the way out. Return to your office. Once you are back at your desk, you still aren t done. Look up any information you didn t have or told the reporter you would find out and get it to him. Give your chain of command a brief on the interview. They will want to know things such as: What did he ask you? What did you say? What was the angle he was going for? When will it air? Do you think he was satisfied with your answers? Double check that you have the reporter s contact information correct. The Defense Information School, Fort George G. Meade, Maryland 5
Basic Public Affairs Specialist Course Conclusion As you might have noticed, there are a lot of things to do for an on-camera interview. Before, during and after the interview you have a list of tasks to complete. But it can be done. It is done daily in the field and fleet. You will be faced with real reporters and situations that can be complicated. Just remember to relax, prepare and never stop improving your skills. Time permitting, practice, practice, practice! 6 The Center of Excellence for Visual Information and Public Affairs
References Public Affairs Handbook The Defense Information School, Fort George G. Meade, Maryland 7