Talking to the Press

Via Rachel, I came across the unfortunate story of Natalie who has been misrepresented by the Daily Mail. Natalie is, unsurprisingly, angry and upset by this. The journalist engaged in a ten minute phone interview and then went to press.

On April 30th just after 3.30pm, I snatched up my phone and bit the bullet. I called up the journalist that had ‘interviewed’ me (I say this loosely) and expressed my upset at her not actually stating that she was interviewing me and my concern that I would be included in a feature about revenge, which is not what I, or this blog are about. I told her quite shrilly (I was stressed for fecks sake) that I did NOT want to open the paper and see something like “Blogger gets revenge on ex with her blog!” or some other pathetic headline.

Unfortunately, that is exactly what happened. Why am I not surprised by this? Newspapers want to sell copy and, frankly, bad news or news about people behaving badly tends to sell rather better than “blogger writes about self help for women”. E-venge is sooo much more sexy. So, e-venge it was. Natalie also tells us that there were 26 inaccuracies in the article. Again, I am not surprised. If my railway career taught me anything it is that journalists are incapable of accurate, factual reporting. They either get it wrong through sheer ignorance or twist it to make the story appear more salacious than it really is. I lose count of the times following the Paddington crash when a journalist would spout utter bollocks about signal sighting like they knew anything about the subject.

I also recall a colleague who fell victim to having her words “twisted by knaves to make traps for fools”; in her case, it was the Sun. She was angry and devastated to find herself splashed across its wretched pages. It took a long time for her to get over the sense of anger and betrayal.

As a signalling manager, it was my responsibility to attend incidents. Journalists have a habit of turning up at incidents looking for a juicy story, and an unguarded comment could lead to a damaging headline. Therefore, we were under strict instructions not to talk to the press unless we were media trained. More recently, I was contacted by Channel 4 following one of my articles about the legality of dress codes in the workplace; in particular, about men with long hair. She wanted me to appear on a reality TV show; The Salon as they were planning a feature on men with long hair. She was disappointed and bemused when I flatly refused. I did so for exactly the same reason that my Railtrack employers insisted that I did not speak to the press when attending incidents; an unguarded comment can be taken out of context and twisted out of its original meaning and used against the utterer. I would have no editorial control, therefore, I would have no control over how I would appear on the finished piece. It would have been easy to make me look foolish with subtle editing. No, thankyou, very much.

For much of his life, Freddie Mercury refused to talk to newspapers. His line was simple enough; they are going to make it up anyway, so they don’t need help from me. It was a stance he maintained until a day or so before his death. It is a wise stance and one worth emulating.

It’s a bit late for Natalie, but for any other bloggers out there, I have one important piece of advice; take a deep breath and pause if you are asked for an interview. Ask yourself if you really want to do this. I know it is flattering and you are looking at your fifteen minutes of fame, but they are not thinking of you, they are thinking of their copy, of selling newspapers. You are just a means to that end; a pawn in their game. Is that fifteen minutes of fame worth a damaged reputation and the heartache that goes with it? If you take one piece of advice away from this site, then take this; never, ever, talk to the press. Oh, and don’t buy the Daily Mail, but that’s a given, isn’t it?

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Footnote: Natalie has complained to the Press Complaints Commission, but she is also trying to get this story on as many blogs as possible to set the story straight. This is my contribution.

15 Comments

  1. I keep hearing the line about not talking to the press. I have recently had to come into contact with a few journalists. When dealing with the media it is best to talk not at all, or, if you have to talk, do so as little as possible. They aren’t to be trusted.

  2. Paul, in the instances that we didn’t have a press spokesperson available and we absolutely had to give a statement, the rule was; keep it simple, stick to basic facts and don’t answer questions.

  3. Thanks for taking the time to write a blogpost. The Daily Mail are not interested in reporting facts or even positive stuff – It’s doom, gloom, sensationalism, and scaring the crap out of people. I am unsurprised by your experience – they would pounce on any little thing you said and throw some flames on it.
    I really thought that I had made my position clear by repeatedly stating about not wanting to be in a revenge article, and clarifying which blog was being included. It’s interesting because I specifically told Laura that I don’t blog very often on Tired of Men. As I put together even more info for the PCC, what’s even more interesting than that is that it wasn’t even the blog that she contacted me about and the original blog is not a personal blog – In fact, the lack of research in this post, suggests that the story was written before there was a person in it…
    I will be updating about my campaign against them and I will also point out that last Wednesday, Laura told me that what she had written was “tongue in cheek”.
    Anyway, thank you for your support and enjoy the rest of the weekend!

  4. Please note that I have just had to delete a comment because it contained unsubstantiated allegations.

    Before I get any more unsubstantiated and potentially libellous allegations posted on this thread – please be aware that I will not tolerate them. If anyone comes here making allegations, then I expect them to be backed up with hard evidence. If not, they will be summarily deleted.

    Okay, carry on all…

  5. Talk to the press only if you are happy giving a commercial organisation free raw materials for them to profit from at your expense.

  6. NML, indeed so. You get these people every so often. I have a zero tolerance policy. If he had something to say, then he can back it up with hard, verifiable evidence. Otherwise, he can bugger off. 😉

  7. Yep, don’t talk to the press unless they have their cheque book open. Then you can afford not be offended when they inevitably get it horribly and damagingly wrong.

  8. Wise advice but as no one’s going to interview me, it hardly applies.

    Happy Birthday on your Jubilee. Life will most likely begin now.

  9. It appears your website is riddled with trojans and other nasty stuff. Google are on the ball it seems.

  10. As regards ‘talking to the press’ via the online MSM, the comment sections seem to be controlled in varying degrees too. Timesonline is fairly straight, CiF moderation is weird and apt to ‘tidy up’ post event. Telegraph is fairly open and has a light hand. The Mail’s comment section SEEMS to be the most rigorously censored in what they choose to publish, so how representative it is, is difficult to determine. You might see one or two contrary comments, possibly in some form of token balance. Of course, it’s impossible to prove whether comments do get read, even if you get past the bot killer and are told it will be considered – so you might even kill this comment as being unverifiable by fact rather than experience!

    Why even bother commenting on the Mail? Just for the fun of seeing if you can! They didn’t buy

    ‘Jolessa might be a good choice’

    as a response to

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=565153&in_page_id=1811

    so they’re not completely dense

  11. [Comment ID #3331 Will Be Quoted Here]

    No, it isn’t. We’ve been through all this before. Google are far from on the ball – it’s a false alarm

  12. Jules – many thanks for your email. As a consequence, I was able to find the culprit. It was not in the blog scripts at all, but on a blank holding page that is never used. I’ve deleted that page completely from the servers and changed my password. I have also asked my host to check into their security. It seems I wasted hours looking through php scripts in vain. I also discovered SpyBye which finally helped me track this beast down. Looks like I was taking Google’s name in vain. It would have helped, though, if they could provide a little more information…

    Anyway, thanks again for giving me the one piece of information that was eluding me.

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