Why walking off a media interview is rarely (but not always) a bad idea.

I’ve spent a big chunk of my working life helping people deal with the media. Training them to stay put and stay calm in interviews – even when the questions are tough and the style is adversarial.

Getting up and walking out is never a good look, I’ve always argued. You’ll be remembered for the contretemps not the content. But there’s always an exception to the rule as the death of Sir John Nott, the former Conservative Defence Secretary, aged 92 reminds us.

Here he is in 1982 walking out of a live television interview with Sir Robin Day. A part of me wishes more politicans would do the same. But I guess the fact we’re still showing this clip more than 40 years later proves my point. That leaving the stage risks upstaging whatever it was you were trying to say.

Saying you’re being respectful to an interviewer or co-contributor in a media interview can come across as the exact opposite – disrespectful – as the UK’s Minister of State for Illegal Migration, Michael Tomlinson, demonstrated in an excruciating interview on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

He was being interviewed by Mishal Husain the day after the British government’s Rwanda bill under which illegal migrants could be sent to the African country passed in the House of Commons. The full exchange is at the bottom of this post. But first ACM Training’s head media trainer, Richard Uridge, deconstructs the interview for the benefit of anyone who finds it difficult to deal with interruptions in this the latest episode in the Z to A of Media Training.

With thanks to the Conservative MP for providing an object lesson. Or should that be an abject lesson?

Here you can listen to the full interview. Copyright, of course, resides with the BBC. It’s nearly 11 minutes long but both educational and, if you’re into politics, entertaining.

Why it’s important to keep an eye on the bigger picture

Being aware of what’s going on elsewhere in your sector is a vital part of preparing for media interviews.

Here’s an example from the world of politics. The UK Defence Secretary, Grant Shapps, had been asked on to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme to talk about Israel’s response to Iran’s attack and the involvement of British forces in that. But no interview is an island, so to speak. And Mr Shapps is asked first (more usually it’s last) about a much less important but more immediatey topical issue from the narrower – and in this case murkier – world of party politics.

The lesson? Make sure you know what’s hot in your world and know how you’d respond to questions on these tangential but topical issues always striving, of course, to steer the interview towards what you were initially invited to talk about.

What happens when journalists focus all of their attention on one aspect of a story? Their readers, viewers and listeners – your audience as an interviewee – can lose sight of the bigger picture.

So Richard Uridge has recruited a very famous pair of hands to help him explain how you can avoid being driven solely by the questions you might be asked during a #mediainterview

He’s used the controversy over #ULEZ and an interview given by the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, as a case study.

Look out for the enigmatic smile in this the latest episode in the Z to A of #mediatraining which, we should add, is equally applicable to the Q and A element of a #presentation

Here’s the full interview with Sadiq Khan that I refer to in this video. It was first transmitted on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme and the copyright remains with the BBC. Khan does successfully steer the first question towards the bigger picture. But his opening response, timed at just over a minute, represents only 11% of the interview. He did try to return to the bigger picture towards the end but he was talking about the compelling health case for ULEZ only 18% of the whole interview – too little time for what is literally a life and death issue.

The interviewer is Mishal Husain and in her opening question she’s referring to Irene Bacon, one of those who drives an older, non-compliant car, is in a lower paid job and is struggling to pay the ULEZ charge or switch to a less polluting vehicle – even with the incentive scheme.

There’s often tension between academics and journalists when it comes to communicating science and technology to a lay audience. “You’re dumbing me down,” cry the scientists. “Your’e making it all too tricky,” counter the hacks. There is a middle way as media trainer and broadcaster, Richard Uridge, suggests in this e the latest episode of the Z to A of Media Training: W is for Wising Up.