Why email interviews are better
The website “Tricks of the Trade” was set up by writer Matthew Baldwin after he wrote an article for The Morning News about the various inside tips that experts in various fields know. In one of the entries, Matt himself divulges some of the reasons why doing interviews with reporters by email is better than doing them by phone:
1. It is more likely that longer excerpts, or more excerpts, will be used in the story, because (a) the reporter will have to think longer about the questions he will ask and where he is trying to get, because the questions will have to be written down, and in a reasonably logical order; (b) it is easier to copy and paste whole intelligible sentences than listen to a tape and type the conversation and then turn confusing and long-winded arguments into intelligible short sentences;
2. It is less likely that your words will be distorted intentionally or unintentionally by the reporter (for the reasons mentioned in 1b). And if they are intentionally distorted you have proof of what you said and of the context in which you said it (the reporter knows this, so this will also make him/her more careful when writing the story);
3. You will sound more intelligent (unless you are a really bad writer) because you will “speak” in intelligent sentences and will have more time to think about the answers. You will also be able to understand where the reporter is trying to get, so you will waste less of your time saying things that will not make it to the story;
4. For all the above reasons (and especially for the time-saving factor), the reporter will be grateful to you and treat what you said with more sympathy and interview you more often and just maybe have time for dinner once!
Of course, there is a downside: If you are unlucky, someone like billionaire sports-team owner Mark Cuban might just post all of your emails and his responses on his blog, which he has done more than once.
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