I do a lot of community theater and improv, so I get interviewed once in a while. I also have a strong newspaper background (Mostly production, but I do some writing), so I fed the reporter interviewing our cast a lot of really good lines and, as a result, got quoted a lot in the story, more than some of the more important characters/performers. Yeah, I’m a media whore when I get the opportunity to be.
I’ve been interveiwed several times, normally on the courthouse steps after a case, when the press wants comment on what the case is about. For routine cases, their questions are usually quite good. It’s the unusual cases that sometimes cause them to flounder a bit, since if the issues are at all technical they aren’t quite sure what to ask. Even then, they have a general idea of what the case is about and ask open-ended questions that I can use to fill in as much detail as possible.
I’ve also been interviewed serveral times over the phone, normally to give technical background to ongoing legal issues.
Also been interveiwed a couple of times in French, but they didn’t use the clips on tv - guess my accent just doesn’t cut it.
I get interviewed every year or so by our local excuse for a paper, generally as part of a story on Advanced Placement or the high school debate team. Having been burned by reporters before, I generally give them stock answers phrased so that the below-average reader can vaguely understand them.I work very hard to not give answers that could be spun “elitist.”
We also get a story every year about our debaters going to Nationals, so I get to make up nice things to say about the students. 
I was interviewed just last week by the Waco Tribune for an article they are doing on an old house I’m restoring. It’s a pretty soft story so the questions were easy and mostly stuff I’ve been asked a million times before.
Many, many years ago when I was more politically active I was interviewed a few times mostly by sympathetic reporters, so the questions were pretty easy even then.
Yes, at least four or five times a year for work. I’ve been pretty fortunate in having good, responsible reporters who didn’t fling too many trick questions and did their best to quote me accurately. They’ve sometimes been a little off in the wording but nothing that really affected the substance or context of what I said.
I did get burned, badly, years ago by a non-interview. A popular columnist here (God knows why; he’s an unscrupulous hack) ran a chatty little piece mentioning me by title, though not by name. Oh, I was quite vocal. My boss was livid. Unfortunately, the asshole never talked to me, nor I to him. That’s right. He made up the whole thing, quotes and all. I was in real danger of getting fired over it. Good thing my boss listened to my vehement denials, and the hack admitted to her that he never interviewed me. That one sure left a sour taste in my mouth.
Veb
Yeah- by a reporter for the Dallas Morning News for an article she was writing about MBA graduates.
She was a friend of one of my closest friends, and I figured I’d do her the favor.
I had no idea that she’d slightly twist what I said to sound worse than it was.
The interview took place in late February/early March. She asked how many people had jobs. I told her that AS FAR AS I KNEW, nobody had a job at graduation(which was 12/2003), because no one would admit to having one. I made sure to tell her that it wasn’t official- that’s just what it looks like to me and my buddies.
It came out in the paper as “Nobody in the class has a job yet.”
Of course the school got royally pissed, and I got chewed on by various and sundry people at school for not checking my facts, etc… I told all of them to stick it where the sun doesn’t shine, because first, I’m not your puppet, and second, I didn’t say nobody had a job * ex cathedra *.
Here’s a copy of the article, with a particularly horrid picture of yours truly.
I was just interviewed this past week, for a newspaper article about the RIAA lawsuits and the one I’m involved in. The reporter who was writing the article didn’t have much of anywhere to turn to find local people who are being sued, but my father has worked at the paper for almost 30 years, first as a reporter and now as an editor, so I guess he must have mentioned something to her. She called me and asked basic questions about the background of my case and my experience and everything. I just… answered, I guess, hopefully I didn’t sound like a total moron. Then a few days later she called back to ask if she could get a picture of me for the article. I’m not sure when the article comes out, I guess we’ll see what she put in from me. All I know is that she quoted me as saying “I’ll never do the illegal-download thing again, but of course, I’m never going to buy another CD from those companies either.” It was an interesting experience overall.
Did you follow up on it with a juicy lawsuit?
Unwillingly, no. My boss was very vehement that she didn’t want the negative publicity it would bring, not to mention alienating the city’s newspaper. Since he’d referred to me by my work title, dragging my workplace into it would have been unavoidable.
I don’t hate many people but I genuinely loathe that man. I can’t see his smirking picture over his page 2 column without making involuntary growling noises in my throat.
Veb
A couple of times, first for a product I was doing technical marketing support for, by an editor of a trade rag, and then when I was nominated for an award. What helped is that my wife interviews people frequently for articles. I prepared by writing a few nice sound bites that would appeal to the editor. That worked pretty well.
I also got interviewed by Alex Trebek on Jeopardy, and blew that one big time. Than the IPU for editing!
Interview and photo-op with Dan Rather in wonderful, scenic Somalia.
Interview was never aired, but I still have some still-shots of me standing next to Dan in the “cheesy, pose with a celeb” motif…
The coolest part of the deal was his crew let me use their Sat-Com (Satellite Communications) to call my wife. Very surreal experience- Standing on the roof of a walled compound in Africa, amidst the smell of death and smoke, talking to my wife (now ex-wife) on a connection so clear she thought I was back in the world and cried when she found out I was still in country.
Somalia- yet another place we had no business being in…
Yeah, a would-be second newspaper in a city once interviewed me as one of the cities’ premier…junior bowlers :dubious:
Scraping the bottom of the barrel now, are we?
I’ve been interviewed on TV three times- but only for local television, so I never achieved stardom! Heck, I only saw two of the interviews on TV, myself.
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The first time was on the Sunday after Thanksgiving. My wife and I were flying home from New York, and were accosted by a local news crew in the Dallas-Fort Worth airport. They asked us for comments about the difficulties of holiday travel, and we gave a soundbite or two. We never saw the telecast, of course, but some relatives in Dallas said they saw us.
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When the local ABC affiliate found out I was going to be on “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,” they did a 5 minute feature on me, complete with a fairly in-depth interview. The subject wasn’t all that serious or important, of course, but they asked some fun and interesting questions. Of course, since I never made it to the hot seat and never won a cent, the whole interview was really for nought.
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A few months ago, a local morning news show was doing a piece about adoption, and since my wife and I had recently adopted a baby, they asked to interview us. They asked us a lot of good, interesting questions, and we gave a lot of long, thoughtful answers… but in the end, practically none of those questions or answers made it on the air. There were a few quick shots of us holding and cuddling our son, a quick shot of us feeding him, one soundbite from me (“He’s a miracle”)… and that was it.
I was interviewed by a reporter from a TV station in Phoenix back in the early '90’s, on the day Clinton announced the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy regarding homosexuals in the military. I’d been working all day, and hadn’t heard about it. After work I stopped at the gas station right outside the base and was jumped by the reporter and her cameraman.
She asked me what I thought about having gays in the military, and I told her I didn’t care one way or another, since we’d gone through the same nonsense when we opened most careers to women, and earlier when we’d done the same with blacks and other minorities.
Then I told her I kind of wished we had more gays in the military. That got her all sorts of interested so she asked why. I told her that if we had more gay guys in the military, there’d be less competition for the straight girls in the NCO club on Friday and Saturday nights. She laughed at that, but it didn’t make it on the air.
I was interviewed once for a regional newspaper when I shaved my hair off to raise money for charity; it was about the same time as the Band Aid/Live Aid events, but I had decided to dedicate my head shave to a small, local charity. The reporter seemed convinced that this was because I somehow didn’t approve of foreign aid, or specifically didn’t want to support Live Aid (which would have been completely untrue) and tried very hard to put words into my mouth to this effect.
Yes, and it was because of StraightDope.com
Someone posted here about ABC News trying to interview atheists. I contacted ABC News via the writer’s info given in the thread. He contacted me and interviewed me for about 30 minutes.
The article is posted here now, at ABCNews. I am the (then) 35 year old bank credit manager…
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/atheists021031.html
Not 10 minutes ago, as a matter of fact.
I’ve DONE literally hundreds of interviews. But it’s only the second or third time I’ve been on the other end. I had a blast.
Numerous times. I’ve worked for various state government agencies and have often been in charge of media relations. Lots of newpaper interviews related to various crises. A couple of TV appearances related to tornado cleanup. I was interviewed on the day the OJ verdict was announced because I was a legal seminar and the reporter wanted Attornies’ opinions. Interviewed by a couple of local papers regarding my recent Jeopardy appearance.
In general I don’t have any complaints about the TV interviews. These are general so superficial that they can’t screw them up much.
I’m a lot more wary of the print media. They have the time and space to really misunderstand and misinterpret what you say, so you have to be very careful that you present your position with utmost clarity. I don’t think I’ve ever been deliberately misquoted, but I’ve often felt that my statement has been subtly distorted through the lens of the reporter. I have generally attributed this to confusion or laziness on the reporter’s part.