God bless PR

One of the things I have to do in my job is interview people, I’ve spoken to a wide range of people on an even wider range of subjects - from Jersey bands and politicians to CEOs of major companies and big UK bands/artists.

The Jersey bands are all cool, they come in, have a chat and enjoy the limelight - the uk unsigned bands do much the same - but the UK bands that have been signed, once they’ve reached a certain level of success have a barrier around them.

Don’t get me wrong - the band themselves are usually pretty cool, nice bunch of guys that just want to have a chat in the same way as an unsigned band would - but they often have a pitbull of a PR person who will 1) ask you what questions you intend to ask, 2) stand there staring at you to make sure you ask the right questions and 3) rush them away as quickly as possible.

Not all PR people are like this, some just want to help you out but others take the role of minder a little too seriously.

That can be seen in the latest video to come to You Tube from Channel 4 news where a reporter asks a red flag question - using the monopoly word and then has the PR minders step in.

This video clip doesn’t involve a band though - it’s Apple’s Phil Schiller who’s supposed to be asking questions about the iPhone.

As you can see he strayed off the pre-approved list of questions - as any good journalist would to be honest - and suffered the wrath of the PR team because of it.

I hate pre-approved questions but sometimes the only way you can get someone to interview is by giving your question list and sometimes you need to interview that person - I’ll try to find somebody else first, someone that can talk about it who won’t demand a list of what I’m going to ask - but failing that I’ll send them off - then throw the list in the bin and ‘wing it’ on the day.

You then start with the questions you know they won’t mind to get at least something that can be used in a story to give the basic facts - then you start by asking slightly tougher questions as the interview goes on.

So far I’ve never had an interview stopped but have had (no names) interviewees stonewall me or give me so much bollocks in the answer that its unusable. Another trick of bands in pre-recorded interviews is to swear so much when answering a tougher question they know you won’t be able to use their answer.

That didn’t happen to S Club 7 when they were interviewed on the late great Liquid News by Claudia Winkleman. She asked them a question about money (another red flag) and the PR attack dog stepped in to pull them off - this was on a live show.

It’s not uncommon and PR people are just trying to protect their brand - but it is one of the things thats led to so much duming down of the news agenda. The big companies, bands and products are at the centre of 21st Century life but their respective PR teams make asking difficult questions almost impossible - or at least getting an answer.

What will happen to Channel 4 now is that they will find it VERY difficult to get anyone from Apple to talk to them again at least for a long time anyway. But I don’t think thats a bad thing - Channel 4 news is one of the best news services in the UK and they will find other, more creative ways to deal with Apple stories in future.

What annoys me most about all this PR bollocks though is that companies that stonewall difficult questions are also the first to shout, scream and whinge when a pissed off news service reports a ‘negative’ story about them.

Still - at least we have insider blogs to give us the story PR people won’t let us have.

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