Media Interview in Thailand

A key document required before your interview takes place is the “Media Q&A” document. This will list out 7-15 questions the media are likely to ask you, along with suggested clearly worded responses, as well as bridging techniques to get around difficult questions and back to your key messages.

The PR agency will write the Q&A prep document for the client, but before doing so, it is really important the PR partner understands the key messages and supporting messages. These will form the basis of preparing the Q&A document, and thusly are essential for the interview to be successful.

It’s possible to go into the interview with no prep and simply “freeball” it (casual/chat ad hoc); this is not usually recommended as it creates the possibility of: A) things you say being misreported and errors making it into print, and B) the cover of being “off the record” being misconstrued on occasion, resulting in confidential information being reported with you as the attributed source.

Therefore, it is essential that you have a carefully written, regularly updated and fully approved Q&A on file, ready for whoever asks you for interview next.

Interview types are typically broken down into one-on-one, which is exactly as the name suggests and is planned carefully in advance with an exclusive media partner who will conduct the interview.

At the other end of the scale is the group interview, or press conference. This is where the spokesperson may face a room full of journalists and take questions in turn, without knowing what you will be asked next. This latter scenario requires a lot of preparation, but you will probably have it anyway, as it is unusual to arrange and try to navigate a full press conference without the support of a skilled PR adviser. It’s also unlikely to happen in the first place, as it is difficult for unrepresented companies to attract a large number of journalists to an event by themselves.

A moderate option, which lay somewhere between the two examples described, is the “Media Roundtable”. This is where you will book a small and private space, such as a modest conference suite within a hotel, and conduct a presentation and subsequent interview with 4-6 journalists at one time, and according to your own program.

To discuss the range of options available to you, please contact Gemini PR using the contact form, and we can advise and price that for you immediately.

From the spokesperson’s side, the two key metrics of success are: A) did the event go over okay and you got through it without anything going wrong? And B) did you manage to deliver all of your key messages, and were they well understood?

From the media perspective, things that make for a great interview are A) is the spokesperson well known and likely to have any industry gravitas or star power, and B) is the resulting content likely to be of interest to the readership?

You can see from these two dual ideal outcomes that the absolute best possible scenario is that both business and media organisation achieve their aims with the interview. And that’s our job when working for you.

The answer to this depends largely on what is being asked of you. If you have been sent questions via email from a journalist, you can take some time and carefully prepare your responses based around your key messages. Journalists love to interview by email because your answers will be copied and pasted into an article, saving the writer a considerable amount of time when preparing the feature.

The journalist may be seeking an advance interview, either by phone, by video call or in person. If that is the case, you will have at least several days to prepare your key messaging (i.e.- what it is you want to say), and preferably a carefully produced Q&A prep document.

At Gemini, we produce all of the preparatory documents for you, liaise with the journalist, manage the interview while it’s taking place, and also provide you with essential coaching before the interview. We will also chase up to make sure the resulting interview article delivers our key messages, or you are happy with the video (if applicable). We will manage any changes required directly with the journalist on your behalf, before returning to work on securing more interview opportunities for you.