Among some corporations, there remains a persistent tendency — perhaps even a bias — for working with print media while avoiding broadcast news. Whatever the reasons behind the decision, these corporations miss excellent opportunities to reach and influence critical audiences. Kennesaw, Ga., -based CryoLife, a company struggling to stay afloat amid an ongoing product liability crisis, made such a choice when its spokespersons said “no” to CBS Evening News, but “yes” to The Atlanta Journal Constitution.
The intricacies of CryoLife’s crisis are fully available through news media, the Internet and, particularly the company’s web site (www.cryolife.com). What’s interesting in the company’s handling of the crisis, however, is CryoLife’s tendency to grant interviews to print media, but to avoid broadcast news outlets.
CryoLife spokesperson D. Ashley Lee, the company’s chief financial officer, is quoted liberally in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Sept. 1 business section front-page article. Ashley’s quotes also show up in other AJC stories, along with Associated Press and Reuters’ wire service stories. Steven G. Anderson, the company’s president and CEO, is quoted only in stories reporting on a press release about the company hiring a major Atlanta law firm to defend against a class action lawsuit.
But things are considerably different on the broadcast side. “The company turned down a request for an interview,” according to the article “CryoLife Heart Valve Patients Cry Foul,” published Aug. 29 on CBSNews.com (www.cbsnews.com). The article is the repurposed Internet version of a report broadcast earlier by CBS Evening News. Also, “CryoLife would not talk to 60 Minutes II on camera. But company officials did comment on the telephone, and in several published statements said...,” according to “What Killed Brian Lykins,” an article published May 15 on the CBS News web site’s 60 Minutes II page.
While it is impossible to base conclusions on analysis of two articles alone, The AJC article stands in sharp contrast to the CBS Evening News article. Not surprisingly, the Sept. 1 AJC business article (with comment from the company) is a balanced piece of news coverage, including some negative third-party comments from industry analysts, but also providing CryoLife’s spokesperson an opportunity to explain the company’s position and shed some light on the mistakes the company made in several earlier announcements. On the other hand, the CBS Evening News story (without comment from the company) is structured almost entirely as a sympathy piece about the severe medical complications developed by a recipient of a CryoLife-processed heart valve.
Broadcast news does indeed pose considerations that don’t exist in print news stories. Spokespersons have to deal with cameras, lights, sound equipment, etc. The interviews tend to be shorter than print interviews. But beyond the equipment involved and the length of the interviews, there are no significant differences. From the spokespersons point of view, in terms of news interview agenda development and message delivery during the interview, there are no differences at all.
To some the previous paragraph is heresy. Because of the electronic gadgets involved, some corporate spokespersons often view broadcast media as inherently more difficult and fear inducing. Many media training professionals feed the fear by teaching that techniques used in each are fundamentally different. Baloney! The spokesperson ill prepared to face a broadcast news interview is just as likely to perform poorly in a print interview.
Thinking that a print interview will be easier because you have more time to state and develop your case is simply flawed judgment. Reporters, regardless of the technology behind them, are all looking for one simple thing: your comments. Print reporters call them quotes. TV reporters call them sound bites. Radio reporters call them cuts or actualities. The term used is nothing more than the jargon unique to a particular media form.
The reporter for your local weekly newspaper with a notepad and a pen and the investigative journalist from a national network with a digital Betamax camera, two light kits and satellite truck, both are after your comments. To gather those comments they both use the same basic tool: questions. Both rely on the statements you make to illustrate the story from your point of view. But they also rely on your statements to understand the essential elements of the story, to put it in context and to clarify the story when your statements don’t match up with any preconceived notion the reporter started out with.
If you fail to do all of these things with your statements in an interview, you may as well be talking to the editor of the Encyclopedia Britannica. You stand just as much chance of being misquoted, taken out of context and misunderstood.
Similarly, thinking that a print reporter will have more time to produce a story and will therefore be more thoughtful and more accurate, is equally flawed. Print reporters all have deadlines too. And the often-overlooked fact of print journalism is that the number of stories a reporter is expected to produce goes up in direct relationship to the time between deadlines. Longer deadlines. More stories. Less time per each. You’d better be clear, concise, on point and on message.
The form of media you face in any given news interview is a second- or even third-tier consideration. Like it or not, when you know for a fact that there will be news reporting about your organization, you have only one tool available to influence the outcome of that story in your favor. That tool is your participation in the reporting. When you choose not to participate, in effect you have chosen to allow comments about you to come from those least able to portray you accurately. Not only that, but you will have missed the chance to reach clients, customers, shareholders, regulators, lawmakers and every other audience who needs to hear your story, your way, from you.
