The PRs of Media Interviews

An executive of an electric utility (let's call him Miles) appearing on television to talk about a rate increase his company had just requested from the state Public Service Commission. His Communication goal: To justify the increase.

Miles: "When you go into a super market one week and you see three cans of peas for a dollar. The next week you see three cans for a dollar ten. The store has had a rate increase. The only difference is, they didn't have to go to the Public Service Commission to get it."

Reporter: "But we don't have one switch on the wall for your company and one for your competition. You do have a monopoly."

Miles: "Well, that's true, but because of the nature of the business it's been found that monopolies are the best way of providing the lowest cost electricity to the people. We are closely regulated, or course, and that regulation keeps prices down."

The television audience heard a pleasant, articulate man give a logical defense of a necessary rate increase. What they did not hear was the fact that the utility's customers had the lowest cost electricity in the country. Miles had a broad communications goal --to justify the rate increase -- but no specific agenda. He had the what, but not the how.

PR: A New Definition Before talking about how Miles should have prepared for his interview, let me give you a new definition of PR. The old one, of course, is Public Relations. The new one is Prepared Response.

Begin preparing for an interview by making a list of the questions you expect to be asked. Then, when your list is complete, think through your response to each, making notes of your most important points. Your next step is to talk your answers into a tape recorder and play them back. As you listen, ask yourself: -Did I say what I intended to say? -Would the words I used be understandable to a non-expert in my field? -Was each answer brief and to the point? If your answer to each question is "yes," you have come up with your PRs, Prepared Responses.

If our utility man -- Miles -- had a PR, his answer might have gone something like this.

Miles: "If you had a switch on the wall for Etna Power and a wall full of switches for every other electric utility in the country, you'd choose Etna Power every time. Even with the rate increase, we will still be providing our customers with some of the lowest priced electricity in the country." Both answers were responsive to the reporter's question, but the second answer avoided the word monopoly (who has a warm spot in their heart for monopolies?), and replaced passive/defensive with positive.

Miles had his prepared response, and because he had it he was ready to be flexible; to play of the reporter's question that included the idea of switches on the wall by adding some switches of his own.