Re: Miguel's quotes

[jg pa dec com (Jim Gettys)]

> Sender: miguel@nuclecu.unam.mx
> From: Miguel de Icaza <miguel@nuclecu.unam.mx>
> Resent-From: gnome-list@gnome.org
> Date: 25 May 1999 10:49:46 -0500
> To: Sri Ramkrishna <sri@aracnet.com>
> Cc: Daniel Lyddy <daniell@cs.berkeley.edu>, GNOME Users <gnome-list@gnome.org>
> Subject: Re: Miguel's quotes
> -----
> > Second, the press loves controversy and the GNOME vs KDE is great press.
> > That should be prevented.
> 
> very good point.
> 
> I am making a mental note to be more careful on these controversial
> issues in any future interviews.
> 

The unfortunate issue is that handing the press is difficult.

The number of good reporters are dwarfed by those who are less good.

And the press does like controversy: it helps sell their publications.

And in a complex field such as ours, it is easy to misunderstand: do not 
attribute to deliberate malice that which can be easily explained by 
incompetance.

Having said that, it is also the case there are some reporters who DO
have malice as motivation.

So one of the tricks in dealing with the press is understanding which is
which, and figuring out if the reporter is a good one or not.  There are
several techniques I can recommend:

	1) If your organization has a press relations organization or P.R. firm
representing them, it is worth a call to them to find out what you can
about the reporter before talking to them (or better yet, agreeing to be
interviewed).  It is a P.R. organization's function to know the good
publications from the bad, and ideally, the good reporters from the bad.
When you don't know anything about the reporter, the publication itself
tells you something about likely quality: e.g. in the U.S., Time, Newsweek
are first tier weekly publications.  Top quality newspapers include
such papers as the NY Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, San Jose Mercury
News, and the like.  But if a reporter is from the Boston Herald, for
example, the best technique is often to decline an interview.
	Often large organizations have press training available: M.I.T. and
Compaq both do, for example.  These are worth going to (once).  You might
look into whether yours does.
	2) The web is your friend; you can go look up the reporter's previous
stories from their bylines.  Reading previous output is a good guide on
future output...
	3) is what you've already realized: having carefully thought out
answers (and answers to likely followup questions) can help deflect bad
reporters/interviews...

And sometimes nothing you do helps: even good reporters sometimes get it
wrong.

				- Jim