(Most) Journalists aren't trying to trap you

What are they up to?

Why did you hire me for media training? That's a question I ask every training delegate I come across and the most common answer is that they want to avoid the traps journalists will lay. They've done interviews before and they weren't sure of the journalist's agenda or what he or she was up to.

They are often disappointed when the answer is "nothing, mostly, just trying to write a decent story for the readers".

The most extreme example of this was when I asked one candidate to "tell me about yourself and your organisation". She panicked, said she couldn't answer that, asked to stop the exercise and said, accusingly, "Why would you want to know anything about me?"

The answer was that I didn't. A name and job title would have been fine, then move on to the company information she wanted to press.

Another time - a favourite story, this - I asked a guy the same thing during a session. "Tell me about yourself and your organisation", I said. "Ah, I think I know what you've heard," he said. "And it's a fact that if you asked my last boss whether I resigned or whether I was pushed he'd disagree with me, but let me tell you, I resigned!"

I was no longer remotely interested in anything else he had to say. I just wanted to know more about his sacking SORRY resignation.

Sometimes the agenda is in your mind

In both of these cases the difficulty was in the mind of the person answering the question. In most of my media training sessions my first question is "Tell me about yourself and your organisation" - it's me clearing my throat, trying to lower the temperature, just to make sure we have the basics covered. There's nothing more to it than that.

Most journalists, in fact, will approach businesspeople with a view simply to writing the story up (or broadcasting it, webcasting or whatever they do). They aren't looking to stitch you up, trash you or humiliate you.

One or two might, and of course a lot of the tricks they play and the strategies to deal with them are very much at the heart of my training offering. A lot of the time, though, you're going to have straightforward questions from people who aren't playing mind games, they're just doing a job, the same as you.