Sound familiar? Well, to many executives, spokespersons, media trainers and public relations practitioners, these are the tenets that guide their interview strategy. And they are a recipe for disaster.

It may feel great to outwit the media - to deprive a hapless scribe of a useful quote or sound bite - to frustrate a reporter's quest for a direct answer - to make a deal that precludes an interviewer from asking questions about your most embarrassing moments.

Pyhrric victory

Well, if that's the way you operate, enjoy the illusion of triumph while it lasts. For it surely is an illusion.

The reality is, if you regard the media as an enemy and treat reporters like adversaries, you will find yourself in a war that you cannot, and perhaps should not, win. And any victories you may have along the way, will be Pyhrric. You will always lose more than you gain.

Here's why: Your efforts to hijack interviews, will make you appear evasive, manipulative and untrustworthy, if not downright dishonest, and that is what the media will convey to the people who read, watch and listen to the news. As McLuhan said, The Medium Is The Message - and you are the medium.

There isn't a communicator alive who hasn't tasted the inevitably bitter fruit of mishandled interviews. Occasionally, the experience can even prove fatal to the organization.

Fighting for its life

Not many years ago, one of Canada's leading trust companies was fighting for its life after misguided real estate ventures deteriorated its capital and eroded confidence among depositors, regulators and other key publics.

But instead of meeting the issue head on, the senior executives chose to lay low. They became defensive when asked about earlier misjudgements and gave vague replies to questions about the company's current status and future prospects. This ignited a growing skepticism among reporters about the trust company's viability and integrity.

Smarting from this self-generat-ed media siege, the executive team vetoed a proposed communications program aimed at restoring public confidence as a means of sustaining what was once a great financial institution. Communications, the executives argued, was not a priority that should be addressed within the next 100 days.

Unfortunately, before those 100 days had lapsed, the trust company was petitioned into bankruptcy.

Communicate truthfully

So forget about negotiating, deflecting, zooming and steering. Instead welcome every media interview as an opportunity to communicate truthfully and openly - with customers, investors, employees, members, governments and other publics upon whom the well being of your organization depends.

Why? Because everything your organization does, ought to be done for a laudable reason: To improve the quality of products and services, to enhance its financial position, to protect the environment (or at least limit as much as possible any environmental hazards), to create new jobs or preserve existing ones, to weather the storms of a pernicious economy, etc., etc., etc.

The challenge of giving media interviews, therefore, is not to run from sensitive topics or give evasive answers to sticky questions. It is to identify truthful statements about your organization and then package those truths into concise, accurate phrases that meet the media's criteria for a good quote or sound bite.

If you undertake this exercise for the various newsworthy activities in which your organization is involved, then you shouldn't care what issues the reporter raises, since you will have a direct and relevant answer to any question you might be asked, with the payoff of more extensive, more accurate and more beneficial media coverage.

Of course, all of this is based on the assumption that your organization is, indeed, honourable. If it isn't, then negotiating, deflecting, steering and zooming - that is, evading the truth - might be your only hope, slim and indefensible as it would be, of escaping public wrath.

But if your organization is honourable, it would be foolish to act as though it weren't.