Your Public Best - Lillian Brown [91]
Find out if you will have an opportunity for rebuttal. When two people talk at the same time, no one can understand what they are saying. If a participant interrupts you, you may have to yield the floor temporarily, but return when he or she is finished and politely but firmly continue making your point.
Do not monopolize time allotted to another participant. Pay attention to everything that is said, and respond respectfully but firmly.
If you are well prepared and have kept your points short but very informative and interesting, you will develop a reputation as a sought-after panel member. You will be invited back.
THE TELECONFERENCE
Teleconferences have become a very efficient way of transmitting information to audiences anywhere in the world. By satellite transmission, video-conference networks can be set up, using uplinks, downlinks, and microwave.
The originating site may be connected to viewers or other participants meeting in any number of hotel or public meeting rooms, universities, hospitals, libraries, or television stations. It is possible to connect a hundred or more nationwide locations to an expert located in a central studio. It is possible for experts to exchange information with their counterparts in various locations around the world, with two-way communication and even interpreters, if necessary. Associations, corporations, or other entities can conduct teleconferences with various locations, using courses of study, manuals, workbooks, and a variety of teaching techniques and visuals.
CONDUCTING AN INTERVIEW
At some point in your career as a public person, you may be called upon to conduct an interview. You may be questioning a famous guest, talking to an author about a recently published book, or even interviewing a news source.
Your first step might be to watch several TV interviews by excellent interviewers such as Ted Koppel of ABC News “Nightline” and Charlie Rose of CBS News “Nightwatch.”
Mr. Koppel is admired for his astute questions, his unflappable demeanor, and the fact that he is invariably well prepared. Mr. Rose is known for his warmth, his intelligence, and his uncanny ability to bring out the very best in his guests due to his attentive listening style. His questions are based on what the guest has said and not necessarily on written notes.
People who are interviewed frequently have told me many times after being interviewed by either Mr. Koppel or Mr. Rose that “that was the best interview I’ve ever been through.” Also, when famous persons are asked to name the best interviewers in the news business, those are two names that are inevitably included on “the short list.”
To prepare for your interview, obtain background information both about the person you will be interviewing and the subject of the interview. After reading through this research material, write questions out in advance. You should not depend on these questions entirely, since what the interviewee says will trigger new questions. But it helps you to organize your thoughts to write them out in advance. And, if the interview stalls in the middle or your mind goes blank, you’ll have your prepared questions to turn to.
During the actual interview, listen carefully to the answers, framing your next question to advance the central theme of the interview. Have your questions at the tip of your tongue, while the interviewee is responding, and make a verbal bridge into the next idea, such as by saying, “If what you say is true, then it follows that....” Never ask a convoluted three- or four-part question; such questions are impossible to answer and are extremely irritating to the interviewee and listener alike.
Too many interviewers are so anxious to include their own points of view that they state their own position in the question. Needless to say, this does not add to the development of the interview.
Build the interview up to a logical conclusion, give the interviewee a hint that the time