(Een interview is geen bestelling)
Great, there’s an interview coming up. A journalist is taking their time to craft what will no doubt be an interesting story.
Years of coaching interviews for my clients have also brought moments that ended in small and large controversies, threats from lawyers, and even demands to rewrite or pull an article altogether.
To avoid that, read this:
(At the end of this article, I’ll also tell you how you can have full control over your publication.)
Everything you say can and will be used to write about you.
With that warning, I definitely don’t mean to suggest that a journalist is against you - quite the opposite. But it can be confronting to see your own words printed in black and white.
It’s like hearing your own recorded voice: suddenly you want to soften what you said, or remove those bold power quotes - even though that’s exactly what makes them interesting.
(Tip: leave it to your PR person to judge which sharp quotes might be risky, and which reveal your most interesting and unique traits.)
We Provide the Ingredients, the Journalist Does The Cooking
It’s confronting when you’re not the one doing the cooking, but in an interview, that’s exactly what happens: you hand over the ingredients. The journalist listens and decides what’s interesting, and what will appeal to their readers.
That’s why it’s crucial to agree beforehand on the plan for the interview and which part of your story it will focus on.
Example: if you’re going through a tough divorce and you’re a public figure, but the interview is about your new book: make clear whether or not you’re open to discussing your divorce, and ask if the journalist plans to go there.
Assumptions are the mother of all fuck-ups.
If any part of your story could be clickbait, make sure you walk into the interview with your eyes open.
The article will almost never be written exactly as you told it. That’s where many people misunderstand the process: the text will often highlight one specific part of your story.
You can’t just step in and ask (or demand) for the text to be changed. You said what you said, and the journalist gets to work with that.
Don’t say things that distract from the story you actually want to tell, or that might become the story.
The Interview Is Never Over
That final “just one more question” after the interview seems to be over is sometimes the most dangerous one. You’re relieved, you’ve said everything clearly, and then the journalist casually drops one last question while packing up. That might be the key quote of the entire piece, so don’t say anything you wouldn’t want published.
You Said What You Said
Prepare well and don’t blurt things out. One client, in her very first interview, mentioned being jealous of a competitor who was getting much more press at the time - and of course, that line ended up in the first draft of the article. I had to beg the journalist, “Can you please do me a favor and remove that quote?” Luckily he did but ideally, you avoid that situation altogether.
The journalist could just as easily say, “You said it, so I’m publishing it,” and they’d be within their rights.
Bring on the Power Quotes!
That said: better a few bold quotes you feel strongly about than safe, diplomatic answers nobody wants to read. Step out of that comfort zone, please. Looking at you, Mattijs Hermans.
Translation: ‘No Hawaiian poke bowls at Tomorrowland: ‘I asked them for the price of a booth at the festival, not for a villa’
-Mattijs Hermans, CEO of Hawaiian, in GVA
Talking Points
The journalist has an agenda. You have one too. To tell your story clearly, it’s best to prepare a short list of talking points: what do you want to say, and why are those points important?
Keep them close so you’re sure to cover your key messages instead of just following the journalist’s lead.
This doesn’t mean your interview will become a checklist, but the more interesting each part of your story is, the higher the chance it gets written about.
Example:
WOLF Sharing Food Market
Primary message: You’re opening a food market in Antwerp with 10 restaurants, after the success of the Brussels location.
Secondary message: It’s in a historic building, the furniture is made from upcycled materials, designed by Lionel Jadot, there’s a lineup of top events each month, it’s family-friendly, and so on.
Sometimes a journalist will simply say: “That’s super interesting, but for this piece the focus is on…”
I usually help my clients prepare good statements and anecdotes in advance, so you don’t end up thinking afterwards, “Nooo, that’s what I should’ve said!”
Also make a quick list of what you’d rather not mention.
The Editor and the Clickbait
Once the journalist submits the final piece, it goes through the editorial desk. They fix spelling and grammar, and they invent headlines and pull quotes.
That means something mentioned briefly in the text can suddenly become the giant headline. Juicy titles attract readers.
After years of sitting through interviews, I can already spot them as they happen: sometimes I think “Yes, this will be the quote.” And sometimes: “Noooo, why did you have to say that, this will be the quote.”
Again: good preparation does wonders.
Running It Through ChatGPT to Improve It?
When I'm working on an interview, I always ask the journalist if my client can read it before publication, but only to check factual accuracy or clarify nuance. It’s never meant to be rewritten.
For example, here’s what you can change:
A typo in your name
A wrong address
An incorrect description of a dish
A nuance the journalist summarized inaccurately
And what you can’t do:
Rewrite the whole text
Run it through ChatGPT to “improve” it
Fix typos — that’s for the editor
Criticize writing style
Add new paragraphs
A journalist recently told me about someone she’d interviewed who flooded her inbox with corrections before she’d even written a word. Another one told me a celebrity she’d spoken to completely rewrote the article into something that no longer resembled the interview at all.
My job is to protect that boundary, to help you get the best possible story out there, to make you trust your own instinctive quotes (the ones we prepared with your talking points, remember?), and to make sure we don’t scare the journalist half to death. This is also why I do the talking after the interview, not the client. With love.
You Don’t Just Send a Lawyer to the Editor
If something goes wrong, chances are your PR rep can solve it with one simple call. Journalists are human too and you can reason with them.
Example: a newspaper once published a photo of a neighborhood where an assault had taken place, and a recognizable restaurant appeared in the image. People assumed the restaurant was involved. Instead of calling a lawyer, one quick phone call to the editor was enough to get the photo replaced.
Editors are open to that kind of feedback, they never want to harm someone unintentionally. They’re very aware of how powerful an image can be.
It was an honest mistake and quickly fixed. But imagine how much goodwill you lose if you send in a lawyer instead.
We play nice.
Editorial vs. Advertising
If you want complete control over what gets written — which is perfectly understandable — you can always advertise. You buy media space (for example, a page in Flair starts at €12,100), and you fill it with your own text and images.
Some sample rates for a full-page ad in Flanders (rounded figures):
Het Laatste Nieuws €67,000
Flair €12,100
Nina €10,500
De Morgen Magazine €8,400
Knack Weekend €14,400
Sabato €11,470
Feeling €12,000
These amounts are, of course, multiples of a PR fee.
If you have questions about interviews, or need someone to prepare or guide you through one, feel free to get in touch.
And if you’ve read all the way to the end: thank you, and cheers for reading me.
Saskia
@saskiathewicked
