The doorstep interview it seems has lost none of its ability to trip up even experienced media spokespeople.
The interview style is arguably the hardest and most intense a spokesperson can face whether it takes place outside their home address, place of work or even, on rare occasions, on holiday.
The latest person who can add their name to the long list of people who have fallen foul of this media hazard is businessman Sir Philip Green.
The former boss of BHS was somewhat less than impressed when a Sky News journalist and cameraman approached him in the Greek Islands earlier this week.
The bizarre scene started with the reporter alleging the businessman squirted him with water, while Sir Philip repeatedly tells him ‘to go away’.
More dramatically there is an attempt to push the camera away and he can be heard threatening to throw the equipment into the sea.
While he was clearly not expecting a news crew to track him down on holiday there were much better ways he could have handled the interview – an angry exchange is never going to come across favourably.
People fear the doorstep interview because they feel underprepared and are worried they are going to be caught off guard and it is obviously daunting when the media are camped outside your home, office or, in this case, yacht.
But all the media are really looking for in these circumstances is a short sound-bite, so they can show they have moved the story forward, and a promise to say more later.
Ignoring reporters – the approach regularly used by Jeremy Corbyn - telling them to leave or putting hands on cameras generally becomes a story in its own right as Sir Philip found out.
Here are some of the headlines:
Sir Philip Green threatens to throw TV news camera in ‘f***ing sea’ as he lashes out at reporter
Daily Mirror
Sir Philip Green has bust-up with Sky News reporter over BHS collapse in confrontational video
Huffington Post
Sir Philip Green clashes with reporter while on yacht holiday and threatens to throw camera ‘in the f*****g sea’
Independent
Not pretty reading.
The general rule with doorstep interviews is that if you say nothing or react angrily reporters will assume you have something to hide and the crisis media management situation can quickly escalate.
In this short video below, Siân Jones one of our expert tutors explains how to handle the initial, intense, scrutiny of a doorstep interview successfully and buy some time until you can deliver a more complete message.
Media First are media and communications training specialists with over 30 years of experience. We have a team of trainers, each with decades of experience working as journalists, presenters, communications coaches and media trainers.
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