"She said, He said"; Preparing for a T.V interview

Hi,

Today was my first experience of preparing for an interview with the media. I did not have much to do but it was a 'watch and learn' lesson for me from my supervisor. The Seychelles Broadcasting Corporation (SBC)  came to the press conference room this morning to have a short interview with the Chairperson of Seychelles Fishing Authority (SFA) and also the acting Principal Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The interview was in regards with the negotiation meeting which I attended last week (which I will later post) on the Seychelles-Mauritius Fishing Agreement. First and foremost, I learned that it was not only important to brief the interviewee but also the interviewer, once the journalist stepped in the room and saw my face she asked me to brief her about the situation. The brief contained questions on why the Ministry of Foreign Affairs called for the interview and what would they like to clarify. I panicked for a second as even though I attended the meeting and some of the discussions, I did not know the real issue to it. Luckily, my experienced colleague stepped without haste and explained the situation. What is the situation? it is the cat and mouse game "She said, He said". The issue was this there were some wrong interpretations of the agreement by the media and they published it the local news. So what do we do? We call in The Seychelles Broadcasting Corporation (SBC) and have a small interview for the national news explaining the agreement and clarifying the terms of the agreement. It was interesting as in a small period of time the interest for working with the media 'sparked' but back to PR, I learned that as PR practitioner you need to be on top of your game. At the end of the interview, the Interviewee turned to my supervisor and asked if  there was anything that he wanted to add. I asked myself this question, if he had asked me that question will I have been able to answer.

Lesson of the day: Know our stuff, I mean really know your stuff even fishing.

Stephanie.V