Recently, I was exchanging emails with the media email account at a government agency, hoping to reach a source for a feature story about how agriculture lobbyists can frame the sector’s needs when meeting with politicians and bureaucrats and be heard.
That interview fell through for a reason I’ve become all too familiar with as a reporter.
After being told my request was under consideration, I was then asked to provide a written list of questions for the interview.
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This is a response I’ve seen far too many times in my short career, and it’s something I’m worried has become standard practice among many public relations and media representatives.
As a journalist, the interview is the main tool of my profession. It’s how I connect with the people, such as farmers, commodity group representatives, politicians and researchers, who matter to the stories I tell.
To prepare, I look up the source and read their work to understand how it relates to the topic we’ll be discussing.
The best answers, without fail, come from candid, real-time discussions.
But this trend of media managers demanding a blueprint ahead of any conversation has become increasingly common, leaving me to wonder if the person on the other end has either little experience with journalists, or little regard for our process.
This is, of course, if they even agree to a spoken interview instead of just sending a set of written answers, which I can’t guarantee are not AI-generated.
It’s hard to explain that providing questions ahead of time kills the possibility of diversions, follow-up questions and any sense of an organic conversation.
This isn’t just irritating to me; it also makes it harder to tell the stories that most matter to our audience.
My response to these requests is usually to meet halfway: I’ll give an overview of the topic I hope to discuss, but clarify I don’t usually provide my questions.
Sometimes this is enough to satisfy the source, but sometimes it kills their involvement completely, as was the case with this government agency.
Abiding by standard, accepted journalistic practices shouldn’t mean reporters get left in the cold on stories with real value to their readers.
If I’d been able to speak with that government official, we could have had a meaningful conversation about how farmers can make their voices heard and perhaps work to create real change in Ottawa.
Instead, I failed the bureaucratic initiation and now I’m back at the drawing board, empty-handed.
