How to steer a media interview to your key topic or point
Broadcasters, podcasters and journalists thrive on curiosity. Here are several invaluable phrases and redirections to guide the conversation fluidly to your focus—without tipping your hand.
Consider this scenario:
You are a spokesperson for a company that produces virtual reality headsets.
In a few hours, you will sit down with a radio show host to talk about the technology’s growing market. From your preliminary research, you sense the host is more interested in the virtual reality (VR) gaming market.
You, however, hope to reach medical professionals to highlight how headsets are increasingly being used to treat dementia, chronic pain, injury therapy and stroke rehabilitation.
You can’t be so blatant as to come out and say her interest is not in your best interest. (There are few things that make a host or reporter cling tighter to their angle than to have a source suggest a different way of telling the story.)
You must be a bit more subtle—but if you are, you can have much more influence over the interview than might have seemed possible.
How can you passively dictate the next question?
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