We’ve written about the difficulties of using humour in media interviews before.
But some spokespeople simply cannot resist including a joke when they appear in front of the TV cameras or radio microphones.
When it works well humour can make spokespeople sound more human.
But more often than not it goes horribly wrong.
The latest person to learn this media training lesson the hard way is Bury councillor Alan Quinn.
Cllr Quinn had the job of appearing on Good Morning Britain earlier this week to defend the council's bin collection policy.
But what was already a slightly awkward exchange with presenter Susannah Reid ended in total embarrassment when he desperately tried to shoehorn a joke in at the very end.
As Ms Reid brought the interview to a close, Cllr Quinn interrupted her saying: “I hope you recycled all those Prosecco bottles.”
When he was asked to explain what he meant, he made reference to her attending an awards ceremony early in the week and added: “You stayed up ‘til three o’clock drinking Prosecco. I hope you recycled all those bottles.”
The uncomfortable exchange ended with Ms Reid replying: “I wasn’t drinking Prosecco, but thank you very much.”
Now, as we have already hinted, trying to include humour in an interview is fraught with danger, so making a joke at the expense of the presenter or journalist is really not a good idea.
The Prosecco joke also fell flat, if you forgive the pun, because the interview had all but ended and he had to talk over Ms Reid to try to include it in the news item. This meant she did not hear it properly at first which only added to the awkwardness of the situation.
Cllr Quinn’s interview performance had not been that great up to that point, with some questions ignored and other responded to with rambling answers.
But even if he had got his messages across effectively, the interview would only have been remembered for the unfortunate way it ended. And that’s why using humour in media interviews is so perilous.
It must have been a spur of the moment decision to go for the Prosecco line because it is hard to otherwise imagine anyone really thinking it would be a good idea to make a joke about a journalist’s drinking at about 7.30 in the morning.
One other thing which was particularly noticeable about the interview was the way Cllr Quinn constantly included the presenter’s name in his response. I counted (sad I know) and he actually said ‘Susannah’ six times which is pretty excessive in a relatively short news item.
In fact he even mentioned Susannah in response to a question which had been asked by her colleague Ranvir Singh, although in fairness it may not have been clear to him in Bury who was talking in the studio at that particular point.
But that is one of the risks of constantly using a journalist’s name in responses – if you get it wrong you look foolish. Also it makes it sound like you are only talking to the reporter rather that the wider watching public, which is the real audience.
Saying the same thing excessively can irritate the audience causing them to switch-off, meaning the opportunity a media interview present is lost.
Although in this case they would at least have missed the awkward joke at the end.
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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