Steve Rubel on Media Interviews

Some very interesting thoughts on media interviews from Steve Rubel.  I love the idea of increased transparency between the interview and the final article.  It would be incredible to measure the differences over time.  One of his propositions (?) is a Technorati tag to track those items that are in response to an interview.  Very interesting, however, could be gamed quite quickly and easily.

Micro Persuasion: Reinventing the Media Interview

Exhibit A: Mark Cuban. Mark doesn't do media interviews by phone anymore (if he ever did). He only does them by email so he has a complete record of the conversation and can correct misgivings on his blog. In this situation, Mark (the source) publishes the full text of a specific media interview to give everyone a panoramic view of the reporter and source's perspectives.

Exhibit B: Dave Winer. Dave, who invented blogging and RSS, takes a more subtle approach. He describes today how he answers interview questions on his blog without saying who the reporter is and exactly what questions were asked. He "create(s) a public record, something that can be useful to anyone." Part of his rationale, like Cuban's, is to avoid being quoted selectively and out of context.