[00:00.420 --> 00:05.440]  Narrative, oftentimes, it's very hard for me to tell that story to a reader who doesn't have to read it.
[00:05.620 --> 00:09.200]  The narrative is kind of like the sugar around the medicine.
[00:09.760 --> 00:13.060]  If I can't give people that sugar, then it's a bitter pill, and they won't read it.
[00:13.860 --> 00:18.200]  So I really like to have stories that have narrative, that have some sort of novelty.
[00:18.980 --> 00:24.160]  I like if I've got great characters, if I've got some sort of good sequence of events in there.
[00:24.620 --> 00:27.620]  Maybe it's a very complex issue that has lots of significant stuff.
[00:27.620 --> 00:31.760]  But I need to give the reader, in a few sentences, a reason why they should keep reading the article.
[00:31.960 --> 00:36.320]  And so I will use a single sentence, maybe, to sum up something or sum up its significance.
[00:36.680 --> 00:41.640]  And people sometimes will get annoyed with that because they think, well, I'm oversimplifying a complicated story.
[00:41.680 --> 00:53.040]  But the point is, if I give them the huge, great, novelty wob of all of the caveats and nuances and everything right up front, we know they're not going to read that much further down into the article.
[00:53.280 --> 00:56.740]  They always have to know why are they reading the story.
[00:56.740 --> 00:59.000]  So that's what I need to tell the reader.
[00:59.540 --> 01:24.720]  So what this means for you is that if you can tell me that little piece of information, if you can help me find a story, if you can package up, to a certain extent, for me, the little shiny, you know, one-sentence takeaway and give that to me, you're much more likely to find that I'm going to be able to take your story or your event or whatever it is you're trying to get out and put that into a
[01:24.720 --> 01:24.980]  story.
[01:25.300 --> 01:28.140]  So, again, interesting characters, intelligent plot, significance, novelty.
[01:29.280 --> 01:30.180]  One may be enough.
[01:30.380 --> 01:31.220]  All three is awesome.
[01:32.260 --> 01:35.780]  These are just things you want to bear in mind if you're making a pitch or giving an interview.
[01:37.480 --> 01:39.260]  So let's just break those down a little bit.
[01:40.400 --> 01:41.120]  Interesting characters.
[01:41.120 --> 01:44.540]  So this is why, you know, you see a lot of celebrities around the place.
[01:44.600 --> 01:51.800]  Because if I can put somebody who the audience knows in front of the audience and say, look, they're talking about X, that's automatically going to be interesting to them.
[01:52.800 --> 01:58.480]  If you don't have celebrities, think about the people in your organization and your backgrounds.
[01:58.980 --> 02:01.420]  You also want to establish here what's called a platform.
[02:01.860 --> 02:05.880]  If you don't have a celebrity and you're just yourself, you want to establish a platform.
[02:06.000 --> 02:08.040]  By a platform, I mean some sort of basis of authority.
[02:09.460 --> 02:12.860]  So you don't necessarily write some very dry copy.
[02:13.200 --> 02:14.700]  Try and make it as interesting as possible.
[02:14.860 --> 02:19.560]  It's like the kind of stuff you might see, you know, in a caption of a story.
[02:20.640 --> 02:22.360]  So Jane Doe is the host of Tech Travels.
[02:22.400 --> 02:24.320]  She's backpacked across four continents with her laptop.
[02:25.160 --> 02:26.980]  John Doe does all this kind of good stuff.
[02:27.780 --> 02:34.440]  The reason why these bios help establish authority is that a journalist then has a reason to believe that you're worth quoting.
[02:35.720 --> 02:41.620]  And later on, I'll talk a little bit about how to actually get a platform when I get to the TV pundit stage of the talk.
[02:44.140 --> 02:45.000]  Intelligital politics.
[02:45.360 --> 02:50.960]  If you have a press release or if you are being interviewed about something, explain what happened.
[02:51.140 --> 02:55.280]  And really, you know, use your Captain Dummy voice to a certain extent.
[02:55.280 --> 02:57.500]  I mean, don't be a smart ass, but...
[02:59.680 --> 03:00.360]  Be explicit.
[03:00.560 --> 03:04.580]  Don't expect people to know, necessarily, say what a file system is.
[03:04.760 --> 03:05.780]  Right off the top of the bat.
[03:06.280 --> 03:07.760]  And do you really have to say file system?
[03:07.960 --> 03:10.460]  Could just use a way of storing, you know, it's a...
[03:10.460 --> 03:11.040]  You know, we have...
[03:11.040 --> 03:12.440]  We've come up with a new file system.
[03:13.620 --> 03:15.720]  You know, or this file system is very important.
[03:16.120 --> 03:18.600]  Or, you know, a certain file system is even patented.
[03:18.860 --> 03:22.120]  You might want to say, well, you know, this way of storing files on disk.
[03:22.260 --> 03:23.460]  Or this way of storing documents on.
[03:23.460 --> 03:24.800]  Don't use jargon.
[03:24.900 --> 03:25.640]  Try and break it down.
[03:26.020 --> 03:27.060]  Think in terms of things.
[03:27.840 --> 03:37.320]  When you're explaining things, think in terms of their functionality, not the terminology, but what do they actually do or what do they mean in this particular system?
[03:38.000 --> 03:42.580]  Again, the best way to do this is imagine you're trying to tell your story to someone in a bar.
[03:43.040 --> 03:44.280]  Bars are good because bars are noisy.
[03:44.400 --> 03:45.740]  You can't really get detailed stuff.
[03:45.740 --> 03:47.360]  You only have a few sentences to explain it.
[03:47.700 --> 03:50.560]  So literally think in short, simple, declarative sentences.
[03:50.560 --> 03:53.320]  How would you explain whatever it is you're trying to do?
[03:54.900 --> 04:00.180]  You don't really care necessarily very much about implementation of technology, if you happen to be talking about a technology.
[04:02.120 --> 04:08.200]  Computer programmers often think in very abstract terms and structures and so on.
[04:08.300 --> 04:10.020]  That's naturally because that's how their job is structured.
[04:10.300 --> 04:15.080]  But really when you're trying to work out concrete examples of things or consequences and so on.
[04:15.480 --> 04:21.500]  So think in really terms of a user using a computer or a company being affected by something.
[04:21.740 --> 04:28.120]  Really think about what is the end real-world manifestation or something, not the internal structures.
[04:28.320 --> 04:35.720]  Now these often are very important from a technical point of view, but from the mainstream media, they don't really...are not going to care so much.
[04:37.460 --> 04:39.160]  Explain the context of what's going on.
[04:39.620 --> 04:43.180]  And this is where understanding that maybe the journalist's target audience comes in.
[04:43.700 --> 04:48.580]  You know, when I was on Spectrum, I was a beat reporter for a technology magazine.
[04:48.820 --> 04:51.920]  So I could go into...I could actually go into a little bit of technological detail.
[04:52.460 --> 04:59.660]  Now I'm at Discover Magazine, I don't quite go into that detail, but I'm still a science and technology magazine, so I can take a certain amount of technical stuff.
[05:01.080 --> 05:07.360]  So, but the example here is to imagine a new media developed in the U.S. that has digital-linked Copyright Act implications.
[05:08.280 --> 05:16.100]  If I'm talking to a business journal, let's say somebody from The Economist or so on, you might want to lead...might want to talk to them about the impact on global competitiveness.
[05:16.660 --> 05:20.780]  If I was, say, talking with someone from The Village Voice, maybe I want to talk about the free speech angle.
[05:20.780 --> 05:26.440]  So it's a little bit of a matter of...you're really only going to get one, two, three points across the journalist.
[05:26.920 --> 05:29.080]  Think very hard about what those points are.
[05:29.200 --> 05:33.440]  And again, think about the significance, maybe not so much the technical details.
[05:34.600 --> 05:43.240]  And this idea of setting up the significance and worrying about intelligent plot and putting bias should inform...
[05:43.240 --> 05:51.280]  So if you're doing a media campaign, it should inform everything you do, from setting up media into websites, writing press releases, choosing who to say to them, what to say in interviews.
[05:53.500 --> 05:54.660]  And then novelty.
[05:54.880 --> 05:58.220]  Now, because you guys are developing new technology, this is actually the easiest part for you.
[05:58.320 --> 06:01.480]  There are other people in other organizations who have difficulty with this.
[06:01.560 --> 06:09.100]  If you're, for example, you know, maybe doing a disease that's focused on a medical condition, especially a chronic medical condition, well, maybe there's not a lot of new news.
[06:09.100 --> 06:13.700]  And you often find yourself really working hard to make new news, and that's, again, where celebrities come in.
[06:14.120 --> 06:20.480]  Because you guys are technology, and it's new things, and it's, you know, things are happening, that's often maybe the easier part for you.
[06:20.600 --> 06:22.900]  But you need to tell them why it's not yet another.
[06:23.200 --> 06:27.600]  Like, give them what's the new thing, what's the twist, what's the angle, what's the importance.
[06:29.580 --> 06:34.920]  So, with all that in mind, how do you get people, like, my attention?
[06:37.440 --> 06:41.180]  The point about it is that I get a huge amount of news flowing into me.
[06:41.360 --> 06:43.420]  And part of my job is to act as a big filter.
[06:44.380 --> 06:47.100]  And I use automatic filters, but I still have to filter a lot of things.
[06:47.300 --> 06:48.360]  So, how do you stand out?
[06:48.460 --> 06:51.300]  I mean, I get dozens of press releases a day.
[06:52.920 --> 06:55.540]  So, how do you make yourself really stand out from that cacophony?
[06:56.500 --> 06:58.480]  I think these are some of the best ways.
[06:58.480 --> 07:01.820]  Don't bother sending unsolicited email press releases.
[07:02.520 --> 07:04.400]  Even a few years ago, I used to get a lot of these.
[07:04.540 --> 07:10.020]  It's actually beginning to tail off now, because I think people have realized that press releases just go to a magic place called trash.
[07:10.240 --> 07:16.600]  I mean, unless it's a press release feed that I have subscribed to.
[07:16.740 --> 07:23.600]  So, for instance, I covered the SpaceBeat Discover, so I subscribed to NASA HQ press release, and I pay attention to that.
[07:23.600 --> 07:29.320]  But all of the other press releases that come in, half of them I don't even see, because my computer automatically flags them as spam.
[07:30.140 --> 07:32.900]  And the other half, they get very much glancing attention.
[07:33.600 --> 07:38.680]  And faxes, I used to get, again, these fortunately are dying off as well, because there's just no return on them.
[07:38.760 --> 07:45.480]  People would send me faxes with stuff, and I would just look at them, and then they would go, okay, I could bring this back to my desk, or I could, oh, trash.
[07:46.520 --> 07:47.800]  And that's generally where they went.
[07:48.120 --> 07:57.160]  What really works really well, and which I don't see it done very much, and that's why it's going to work very well, is actually sending an honest-to-God snail mail letter.
[07:58.180 --> 08:00.660]  Find out the name of a journalist at a magazine.
[08:00.820 --> 08:08.820]  So if you want to get into the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times, find out who is the guy who's written similar articles about that area before.
[08:09.220 --> 08:13.180]  And then just write, Joe, journalist, at the address of the...
[08:13.180 --> 08:15.160]  You know, you don't have to, like, do great detective work to find out.
[08:15.380 --> 08:18.280]  Usually the periodical, you know where it is.
[08:18.420 --> 08:20.460]  You know, it's not like trying to work out an email address.
[08:20.460 --> 08:20.940]  We've got...
[08:20.940 --> 08:24.160]  Now, is it, you know, first initial, underscore, last name?
[08:24.220 --> 08:24.900]  You don't do any of this.
[08:25.020 --> 08:29.780]  You just write their name on an envelope, and people will be paid to transport that into their hands.
[08:30.460 --> 08:31.960]  Look at bylines and mastheads.
[08:33.000 --> 08:34.080]  Put in a press release.
[08:35.460 --> 08:45.720]  And the point about this is when I get a letter that's actually written to me, it's stamped, and maybe it's, like, handwritten, or at least it's addressed to me, I open that up and I pay attention to it because, one, I don't get very many of them.
[08:45.720 --> 08:47.160]  And then, two, it's kind of sticky.
[08:47.360 --> 08:48.660]  It does actually sit on my desk.
[08:48.780 --> 08:49.840]  It hangs around for a little while.
[08:49.920 --> 08:51.080]  It's something for me to refer to.
[08:51.260 --> 08:53.000]  It's something for me to scribble notes on.
[08:53.920 --> 08:57.780]  So, in terms of a little bit of persistence, so, one, you've got my attention, and now, two, you're being kind of...
[08:57.780 --> 08:59.340]  You have a bit of persistence.
[09:01.180 --> 09:01.760]  It's terrific.
[09:02.700 --> 09:03.860]  You should also, if you're...
[09:03.860 --> 09:13.020]  Again, if you're thinking about campaigns, develop an online press kit with, you know, bios and fax and high-quality, high-res images.
[09:14.240 --> 09:17.020]  Known right here, I said high-quality and high-resolution.
[09:17.160 --> 09:18.460]  The two are not synonymous.
[09:19.800 --> 09:24.640]  You know, sometimes you get people who, because they know every submenu and a digital camera, they think they're a great photographer.
[09:25.380 --> 09:26.400]  That's not the case.
[09:27.140 --> 09:35.100]  Really, if you really want, like, really good photographs that a publication would actually seriously consider using, you really need to get...
[09:35.100 --> 09:43.640]  You know, you need to find a buddy who's, you know, in photography school, or, you know, who actually does photography, and maybe pay them some money.
[09:44.520 --> 09:47.660]  Because oftentimes, you know, people will say, oh, yeah, we've got photographs.
[09:47.860 --> 09:54.300]  And we get this stuff, and there's a flash, and it's, you know, kind of grainy, and nobody's well-composited, and there's thumbs.
[09:54.780 --> 09:56.140]  You just cannot use those.
[09:56.300 --> 10:04.080]  If you're serious about doing a press kit, you're going to have to pay a little bit of money to get some pictures that the press can actually use.
[10:04.080 --> 10:08.600]  The advantage of this is if you have those, the press will use them, because we're lazy and we're cheap.
[10:09.960 --> 10:14.240]  You know, why send a photographer out to you if you've got a great photograph that we can use?
[10:14.400 --> 10:18.420]  And so there, you've done a certain amount of being able to control the image.
[10:19.660 --> 10:20.380]  Press releases.
[10:23.180 --> 10:23.780]  There we go.
[10:24.520 --> 10:26.260]  Again, remember what we like to write about.
[10:27.100 --> 10:31.440]  And put as many of these things into the reason as possible.
[10:31.440 --> 10:32.840]  And you have to back everything up.
[10:33.840 --> 10:37.780]  You can say something is new and significant, but you can't just say, this is a new and significant development.
[10:38.380 --> 10:39.860]  Our people will be at such and such.
[10:40.000 --> 10:42.560]  You have to really tell them why, because I...
[10:42.560 --> 10:45.620]  Everything that comes across my desk has got new written on it.
[10:45.800 --> 10:47.420]  You need to do a little bit of convincing.
[10:48.620 --> 10:50.240]  Just a line to back up.
[10:50.660 --> 10:54.180]  This is a new development, you know, using the latest developments in X.
[10:54.180 --> 10:57.260]  Or just something that gives me that makes me think you're not just using a word.
[10:57.380 --> 10:59.620]  You actually have some substance behind that.
[11:00.020 --> 11:03.620]  So here's an example of a bad press release that I made up.
[11:04.760 --> 11:10.600]  The Trogdor Foundation is protesting the FCC's decision to ban encryption of UWB, radio communications, by launching an online petition.
[11:12.060 --> 11:13.640]  That's wrong for so many reasons.
[11:13.880 --> 11:14.980]  It uses a lot of jargon.
[11:16.140 --> 11:16.580]  It...
[11:16.580 --> 11:19.480]  You know, on one sense, yes, it tells you everything that's going on.
[11:20.000 --> 11:22.280]  It's an absolute, literal truth.
[11:23.640 --> 11:24.960]  But it's useless for journalists.
[11:25.060 --> 11:26.520]  And no journalist is going to pay attention to this.
[11:26.900 --> 11:29.180]  What you want to do is think about something more like this.
[11:30.260 --> 11:37.500]  Soon, anyone could stoop in your email or phone calls, thanks to a decision yesterday, by the FCC that bans technology used to protect privacy in next generation wireless devices.
[11:37.660 --> 11:38.280]  See what I did there?
[11:38.700 --> 11:40.660]  Significance, end user, didn't care about the...
[11:40.660 --> 11:43.940]  You know, UWB no longer really exists here.
[11:44.180 --> 11:46.160]  I just say next generation wireless devices.
[11:46.260 --> 11:46.900]  That's what it's become.
[11:47.080 --> 11:48.680]  Yes, it's a simplification and so on.
[11:48.680 --> 11:49.520]  But that's just...
[11:49.520 --> 11:52.220]  It's a much more compelling pitch to a journalist.
[11:52.940 --> 11:53.860]  And then, finally, we have...
[11:53.860 --> 11:58.860]  The Togdar Foundation is letting citizens who are concerned about the FCC's bad decision to voice their opinions by launching an online petition.
[11:59.020 --> 12:00.740]  So now I'm saying there's a call to action.
[12:00.760 --> 12:04.480]  I'm creating a picture of the kind of people who are going to respond to this.
[12:05.640 --> 12:09.220]  Don't forget boilerplate, which is stuff that's really simple.
[12:10.660 --> 12:11.380]  But people...
[12:11.380 --> 12:12.180]  A lot of people forget it out.
[12:12.240 --> 12:14.560]  I get these press releases and then there's, you know, if I'm...
[12:14.560 --> 12:15.960]  Maybe an email address at the bottom.
[12:15.960 --> 12:25.540]  I need to know actually a little block about the organization so that when I'm writing the article and I'm, you know, stuck needing this filler information because my editor is going to want to see it in...
[12:25.540 --> 12:27.180]  My editor is going to want to see it in the article.
[12:28.540 --> 12:34.320]  I need to have all that little bit of information there, you know, the full name of the organization, where it's headquartered and so on.
[12:34.840 --> 12:44.100]  You should also, when you are sending out press releases, you need to put a contact person on those and have somebody dedicated.
[12:44.320 --> 12:51.420]  Which means you need a cell phone number or a phone number that people can call and they will get a response within the hour.
[12:51.600 --> 12:57.420]  Like, if you're sending out a press release and it's news and so you need to be, you know, sort of getting into press release mode.
[12:58.000 --> 13:00.640]  So you need to be able to return people's calls really fast.
[13:00.940 --> 13:09.500]  I mean, an email address is kind of a killer because if I see an email address and a press release, go, oh, okay, well, if I really care about it, I'll email that.
[13:09.660 --> 13:12.860]  But I know that maybe I won't get a response until tomorrow and then it's a three-day thing.
[13:12.860 --> 13:19.480]  If I'm looking for a story to drop in to something and I've got maybe, as happens, I've got to find something in 12 hours.
[13:20.440 --> 13:21.500]  I need phone numbers.
[13:21.620 --> 13:23.360]  I need to be able to talk to people really fast.
[13:23.360 --> 13:30.120]  If you're serious about press releases, you need to set up a kind of a press number and a person who is going to respond to those.
[13:31.180 --> 13:38.340]  Otherwise, what happens is you send your press release out and then you'll see all these emails and then you'll call them back and they'll go, yeah, we just got another story or something going on.
[13:39.060 --> 13:45.080]  Dealing with the press these days, especially with the kind of compressed media cycles that new media has brought on is a lot about speed.
[13:46.400 --> 13:51.480]  Another way is rounding up the journalists and getting them all in one place and getting them to an event.
[13:51.740 --> 13:53.440]  So bribery, it's great.
[13:54.160 --> 13:58.420]  You know, we can't accept gifts normally, but we can eat all you can supply us.
[13:59.440 --> 14:08.780]  What's also good, if you are having, like, a conference or an event, it can be useful to have, like, a special area just so they can sit down and maybe plug in a laptop or file copy.
[14:09.260 --> 14:14.320]  Again, a lot of my colleagues now, and I've done this too, you know, new media has affected our jobs as well.
[14:14.860 --> 14:19.380]  So sometimes when I go to an event, first off, I'm working at 12 hours during the day.
[14:19.520 --> 14:25.300]  I can't really pick and choose not to go to a conference because I'm feeling tired or because I'm feeling hungry.
[14:25.540 --> 14:30.940]  You know, I easily do work much harder when I'm on the road than otherwise.
[14:31.160 --> 14:41.500]  And it's nice to have maybe somewhere I can just plug in my laptop and then my video camera and then my, you know, digital recorder or maybe file some copy from the ground because nowadays we do that.
[14:41.560 --> 14:46.440]  And if you say to journalists, hey, we will have, you know, a place for you to fill in, they're just that much more likely to come.
[14:47.800 --> 14:50.080]  Make sure that they can get to the key people.
[14:50.120 --> 15:03.540]  If you've had a press release with, like, four people, they need to be able to talk to them either at a press conference, which is just press only, or there's some sort of media availability at the end, a little bit of one-on-one time.
[15:03.760 --> 15:14.540]  You don't want necessarily your journalists competing with, if you're having a general conference, your general attendees, because they often have different types of questions that they might want to ask.
[15:14.700 --> 15:17.020]  And they also want to be able to talk to your people directly.
[15:17.020 --> 15:27.320]  They want to be able to ask a question and get a response back for your person so that they can write or say the copy in response to a question from Discover Magazine, so-and-so said.
[15:27.660 --> 15:30.600]  Because that makes their copy stand out a little bit better.
[15:30.600 --> 15:38.160]  Otherwise, if you don't do that, then every press person realizes, well, I've got exactly the same thing that every other press person maybe at this event has.
[15:38.840 --> 15:41.480]  And they know then...and their editor is going to know that.
[15:41.580 --> 15:46.560]  And, again, that's not something that's going to say, yeah, yes, boss, this article is new.
[15:46.700 --> 15:49.460]  We've got fresh stuff and stuff you'll only find in our version.
[15:51.220 --> 15:58.860]  When you do give interviews, I would say don't give interviews off the cuff, unless you've already done a few or you're at a press event.
[16:00.500 --> 16:08.240]  If some button holds you or somebody rings you up and says, hey, I'm from, you know, Village Voice or I'm from something else, and I would like to talk to you about something.
[16:10.160 --> 16:12.080]  They may have reached you for a number of reasons.
[16:12.240 --> 16:17.360]  One, you may have sent out a press release, in which case then you may be expected to do a quick off the cuff.
[16:17.500 --> 16:27.060]  But if you're involved in some story and they have figured out that you're involved in some way and have tracked you down and given you a call, I would say don't immediately do it.
[16:27.240 --> 16:28.600]  Find out what they're working for.
[16:28.900 --> 16:30.800]  Say, look, you know, I'm in a busy room.
[16:30.940 --> 16:31.740]  I have to go to a meeting.
[16:31.940 --> 16:34.040]  And then ask if you can call back.
[16:34.640 --> 16:40.100]  And calling back is great because then you can get the journalist's phone number, which sometimes can be handy.
[16:40.320 --> 16:43.460]  You want some sort of contact detail out of them as well.
[16:43.460 --> 16:45.960]  And then sit down and think for a few moments.
[16:46.160 --> 16:47.440]  Prepare some talking points.
[16:47.580 --> 16:50.580]  Again, think back to all of those things we talked about earlier.
[16:50.840 --> 16:51.760]  You know, what is significance?
[16:52.020 --> 16:54.140]  What is the context and so on?
[16:54.300 --> 16:57.580]  And realize, I'm only going to get one or two points realistically across.
[16:58.560 --> 17:00.560]  What really do I need to get across?
[17:00.780 --> 17:03.380]  And really try and focus yourself down.
[17:05.300 --> 17:10.840]  You know, if you find that you've said, a person calls you up and says, Yeah, I want to talk to you about, you know.
[17:11.740 --> 17:11.920]  Oh.
[17:12.720 --> 17:14.060]  Kevin Mitnick or something like this.
[17:14.400 --> 17:15.120]  I mean, that's fine.
[17:15.240 --> 17:15.880]  You can talk to that.
[17:16.000 --> 17:21.260]  But, if the question is like stray away and it goes from, Well, what do you think about, you know, Kevin Mitnick to, you know.
[17:21.880 --> 17:25.500]  So, how, theoretically speaking, how would you break into the White House, you know, computers?
[17:26.940 --> 17:28.940]  Well, you're getting into a bit of leading there.
[17:29.060 --> 17:34.620]  You may want to say, well, you know, don't be a jerk about it but you may say, well, I can't really comment about that.
[17:34.740 --> 17:36.940]  Don't be afraid to say, you know, I can't comment about that.
[17:36.940 --> 17:39.920]  If you've given a lot of other stuff, you know, it's fine.
[17:41.360 --> 17:42.880]  Prepare talking points, write them down.
[17:43.720 --> 17:45.900]  Sometimes I also get people that say, yes, I'd love to talk to you.
[17:45.940 --> 17:49.020]  My email address is so-and-so or we can do IRC or something like this.
[17:49.420 --> 17:52.960]  And we really hate those for a number of reasons.
[17:53.040 --> 17:53.980]  It just kind of kills flow.
[17:54.140 --> 17:56.020]  It doesn't let us ask follow-up questions very easily.
[17:56.180 --> 17:57.280]  We can't understand tone.
[17:58.300 --> 18:00.960]  It really is much better if you're willing to do a phone interview.
[18:01.860 --> 18:03.420]  Don't set weird conditions for an interview.
[18:03.680 --> 18:15.660]  So, for instance, there's a certain free software, famous free software developer who kind of insists that when you talk about the Linux operating system, you use the phrase, you know, GNU Linux operating system.
[18:16.860 --> 18:21.420]  The point about why that is weird is because journalists then are divided into three parts.
[18:21.940 --> 18:26.120]  There are journalists who understand very, very much... Well, okay.
[18:26.240 --> 18:35.160]  There's journalists who understand very much about the GNU Linux thing and agree with them and so therefore would have used it Anyway, there are journalists who understand the GNU Linux thing and disagree with him.
[18:35.340 --> 18:36.180]  And you know what?
[18:36.260 --> 18:37.480]  They're not going to do it that way.
[18:37.620 --> 18:42.620]  And if you're setting up all these conditions, you know, that's just not going to work for them because they've made that decision.
[18:43.140 --> 18:50.760]  And three, you're talking about journalists who don't know what the hell, you know, this GNU Linux thing is, and so therefore are now scared and maybe don't want to talk to you.
[18:50.840 --> 18:54.080]  So don't try to set up weird conditions.
[18:54.980 --> 19:00.740]  And certainly, you know, don't expect to be seeing things like, well, show me the questions afterwards or give me all of your questions up front.
[19:00.740 --> 19:03.040]  It's okay to get, like, an idea of what topic you're going to talk about.
[19:03.800 --> 19:09.160]  And don't expect, you know, to see, to be able to review, you know, the quotes afterwards.
[19:09.400 --> 19:12.580]  Some journalists do do a source of you without sending you the quotes they're going to use.
[19:14.040 --> 19:14.800]  Most of us do.
[19:14.920 --> 19:15.980]  We do a system like a Discover.
[19:16.140 --> 19:21.280]  We do a fact-checking system, which is actually pretty rigorous, where you will get a call after I've interviewed you.
[19:21.460 --> 19:27.740]  You'll get a call from one of our fact-checkers a few days later or a few weeks later who will say, so generally, did you say this?
[19:27.820 --> 19:30.540]  And then what they're doing is they're trying to extract the facts and then...
[19:30.900 --> 19:31.760]  echo it back to you.
[19:31.820 --> 19:34.580]  But you're not going to see your quotes exactly, so don't insist on it.
[19:35.120 --> 19:36.560]  Be tolerant of stupid questions.
[19:36.700 --> 19:38.900]  And the reason I put that in quotes is because...
[19:38.900 --> 19:42.140]  So, for example, my bead is space.
[19:42.140 --> 19:43.680]  I've been covering it for about 10 years.
[19:43.920 --> 19:49.380]  So, you know, and I think I know a little bit about space technology, among other things.
[19:49.620 --> 19:56.920]  But nonetheless, if I'm talking to a guy, a rocket scientist, my first question is, so, you know, so what is a liftoff?
[19:57.100 --> 19:58.220]  Or explain a liftoff?
[19:58.220 --> 20:00.080]  Or, you know, I'm going to start at real basics.
[20:00.360 --> 20:05.340]  And I'm going to start that because I need those kind of quotes for my audience.
[20:05.640 --> 20:07.380]  So, you know, you know, how does this work?
[20:07.700 --> 20:10.620]  I may even ask, well, so server farm.
[20:10.820 --> 20:12.720]  So what is a server farm exactly?
[20:13.100 --> 20:13.920]  No, I'm not an idiot.
[20:14.120 --> 20:19.340]  I've been to like IBM's Almeida giant web farm and that's a farm because it's got air conditioning.
[20:19.520 --> 20:21.140]  You can't even... You have to wear ear defenders practically.
[20:21.460 --> 20:30.420]  But I'm going to ask you what a server farm is because I want you to explain in your own words because maybe I can get a quote out of it and that I can use.
[20:30.620 --> 20:35.240]  So, you know, they may sound like stupid questions, but just be tolerant of them.
[20:39.980 --> 20:40.600]  There we go.
[20:41.380 --> 20:42.080]  So do's.
[20:42.380 --> 20:47.500]  Do speak slowly and clearly, which, as you may have noticed, is something that I'm not always necessarily good at.
[20:47.720 --> 20:49.060]  But you do just try and speak.
[20:49.440 --> 20:50.820]  You really take breaths.
[20:51.020 --> 20:51.800]  Slow yourself down.
[20:53.300 --> 20:55.180]  Again, try to tell your answers to the journal.
[20:55.240 --> 20:56.040]  Oh, I made a typo.
[20:56.040 --> 20:57.640]  To the journalist and their audience.
[20:58.500 --> 20:59.160]  Keep notes.
[20:59.340 --> 21:01.480]  If you can record the conversation, that's great.
[21:01.560 --> 21:05.620]  You can get like a little dongle from Radio Shock for like two bucks.
[21:05.740 --> 21:09.880]  It's a little induction earphone that you can plug on to pretty much any telephone and then you can just tape that.
[21:10.440 --> 21:11.880]  Assume that you're being recorded too.
[21:12.040 --> 21:19.080]  State laws vary, but certainly in New York state, only one party to a recording has to know that it's being recorded for that recording to be legal.
[21:19.860 --> 21:24.040]  And I routinely will tape a lot of my stuff just to cover my own ass.
[21:24.180 --> 21:27.520]  And mainly as a sort of a note keeping exercise.
[21:27.720 --> 21:28.980]  And it all gets stored in my computer.
[21:30.140 --> 21:33.900]  Again, simplification is not a crime or accuracy is not a precision.
[21:34.220 --> 21:41.940]  And what I mean by that is that sometimes people really get hung up on little details and they get very, very upset about it.
[21:42.160 --> 21:49.900]  So, you know, they'll say, you know, you're talking about a better protocol and they want to tell you that it doesn't use TCP, it uses UDP.
[21:50.300 --> 21:51.780]  You know, kind of doesn't matter.
[21:51.980 --> 21:54.680]  It's just traffic moving over the network.
[21:54.680 --> 21:55.860]  That's all you have to say.
[21:56.040 --> 21:58.160]  You know, you don't, it doesn't really, it doesn't really matter.
[21:58.960 --> 22:10.260]  A great thing to do, a really great thing to do that doesn't happen enough is if at the end of a journal, at the end of the conversation, you say, hey, you know who else would be great to talk to Jo Schmo or, you know, Jane Bloggs.
[22:10.340 --> 22:11.080]  Go, go talk to her.
[22:12.100 --> 22:23.680]  That is great because one, you've also helped to, you know, again, maybe guide the journalist towards somebody you would like them to talk to who all maybe also has, has, has, is going to push for your agenda a little bit more.
[22:24.320 --> 22:34.400]  And two, you've also made yourself, you've done something nice to journalists and they will think, oh, there's a great person who actually knows their field, who knows contact, who knows people.
[22:34.880 --> 22:37.320]  And you've become more than just a one-time source.
[22:37.440 --> 22:39.760]  You're more likely to become a two-time source and a three-time source.
[22:40.040 --> 22:54.320]  And you may actually eventually become, journals have different names for them, like a rabbi, which is, I have some people who, you know, if something big happens in the news or there's some development in their field, I'll ring them up and I'll just say,
[22:54.360 --> 22:56.220]  hey, you know, I saw this thing happening.
[22:56.260 --> 22:56.880]  What's going on?
[22:57.040 --> 22:57.920]  And it'll be off the record.
[22:57.980 --> 22:58.900]  It'll be background only.
[22:59.040 --> 23:00.600]  We'll have a little bit of a chat about it.
[23:00.880 --> 23:03.460]  And then I'll go maybe and follow some of the leads that they've given me.
[23:03.460 --> 23:08.100]  They may never appear in the story, but nonetheless, they've had an influence on my reporting.
[23:08.360 --> 23:14.980]  So if you're the kind of person that journalist knows that, that, you know, you know your field and you can, you will help them, they're more likely to come back to you.
[23:17.740 --> 23:18.060]  Don't.
[23:18.060 --> 23:19.120]  Don't talk somewhere noisy.
[23:19.320 --> 23:22.360]  I have been driven insane when people say, oh yeah, it's great.
[23:22.360 --> 23:22.900]  I'll talk to you.
[23:22.980 --> 23:26.620]  You know, I am just going to drive to the airport and then we can do it in the car.
[23:26.620 --> 23:28.720]  And then it's just really, really awful.
[23:29.640 --> 23:31.640]  Because I, you know, I word stop out.
[23:31.760 --> 23:34.300]  It's very difficult for me to recover the conversation from my notes later.
[23:35.020 --> 23:36.220]  Don't use speakerphones.
[23:38.400 --> 23:39.840]  You know, that's also a bad thing.
[23:39.920 --> 23:41.160]  I mean, sometimes it's unavoidable.
[23:42.200 --> 23:47.820]  But that leads to the next part where people use speakerphones because they want other people to be part of the conversation and maybe there's a legal person.
[23:48.040 --> 23:50.340]  And it's really kind of kills your credibility.
[23:50.820 --> 23:54.840]  If you're, if I ask you, well, you know, does the wonderfulonium kill people?
[23:55.460 --> 23:58.600]  And you go, well, and there's a lot of whispering in the background.
[23:58.840 --> 24:01.520]  And eventually it's like, no, we have no basis for that belief.
[24:01.660 --> 24:02.520]  You know, you kind of think, oh.
[24:03.300 --> 24:05.320]  So, you know, try to keep it down.
[24:05.440 --> 24:10.580]  I mean, sometimes speakerphone is useful when you have, when you do really need to talk to two or three people at the same time.
[24:11.200 --> 24:16.480]  But what I'm saying, when you're doing that, make sure you should, you should always identify yourself as much as possible.
[24:16.640 --> 24:25.900]  Because otherwise what happens is, I get a recording or I get a bunch of notes where I can't always tell exactly who is speaking, which means I've got to go back to you for attribution.
[24:26.040 --> 24:29.180]  So if you just say, hey, you know, Bob's speaking, and I think that point.
[24:29.320 --> 24:34.620]  Now, after you've done that a few times, you don't have to keep it up to the entire interview, but it's really useful.
[24:35.240 --> 24:38.640]  Don't go off on theory of everything rants or conspiracy theories.
[24:39.200 --> 24:47.740]  So this is also part of, you know, mainstream media will often reach people who have different world systems and world views to you.
[24:47.860 --> 24:55.780]  And if you can't, if you can't get across, you need to meet and find some sort of common ground.
[24:56.080 --> 25:08.100]  And if you're saying that the idea of the concept that you're trying to get across has to come with this whole array of other concepts, ideas that are closely knitted together, you're going to have maybe a little bit of difficulty getting across to the journalist that,
[25:08.180 --> 25:11.680]  yes, this is a common ground concept that everybody can understand.
[25:11.920 --> 25:23.400]  And what I mean, you know, so if you're talking about, you know, a particular copyright issue or a particular, some law that you think is bad because it's going to restrict on, maybe on software patents, it doesn't matter.
[25:23.600 --> 25:29.460]  If you start into, so one minute you're talking about software patents and maybe why you think software patents are good or bad, it doesn't matter.
[25:29.960 --> 25:33.700]  And then it sort of merges into, given this audience, we'll say bad.
[25:34.420 --> 25:42.100]  And then it sort of merges into this discussion about corporate evil and in general, you know, you're probably going to lose a journalist a little bit along the way.
[25:42.320 --> 25:44.400]  So, you know, don't, don't just keep it focused.
[25:44.860 --> 25:46.480]  Don't get steamed up or swear.
[25:47.980 --> 25:50.860]  So, for instance, don't insult people, you know.
[25:51.520 --> 25:55.540]  You know, don't say, you know, well, I think, you know, Bill Gates is the devil.
[25:55.760 --> 25:59.340]  Because you don't, you know, or you've never met the man.
[25:59.440 --> 26:04.760]  Unless you're like his, you know, your guy you've known for a long time, you can't really talk about other people that way.
[26:04.840 --> 26:06.180]  So just, just don't, don't swear.
[26:06.300 --> 26:07.220]  It doesn't really, really help.
[26:07.300 --> 26:12.360]  It's okay to be passionate, but don't, don't fly off the handle because it just kills your credibility.
[26:12.740 --> 26:13.600]  Don't use jargon.
[26:14.160 --> 26:17.000]  Don't insult or consent to the journalist, the organization or profession.
[26:17.200 --> 26:26.900]  So, sometimes I'll get people who will call me up and go, well, you know, oh, well, you know, I didn't think it was a good idea to talk to you because you're all liars and thieves and scumbags.
[26:27.120 --> 26:29.640]  And, you know, I'm sure you're going to screw up everything in my, in my talk.
[26:30.040 --> 26:33.340]  Now, the thing is, I get the last word.
[26:33.640 --> 26:36.520]  So, you know, because I'm running the article.
[26:36.700 --> 26:38.020]  So it just, it's just human nature.
[26:38.160 --> 26:39.460]  Just, just, just don't do that.
[26:40.740 --> 26:46.200]  And then, especially if you're talking about something that is maybe a little bit, a little bit technical, I may ask for some documentation.
[26:46.900 --> 26:48.180]  I'm not insulting your credibility.
[26:48.400 --> 26:49.120]  It's not that I don't believe you.
[26:49.240 --> 26:50.180]  It's not that I think you're lying.
[26:50.320 --> 26:53.240]  But it just really helps me if I have some paper.
[26:53.400 --> 27:02.260]  I mean, documentation is often the gold coin of the realm because we can talk in an interview and, and, but you're just one person.
[27:02.400 --> 27:08.920]  If you can get like some sort of official documentation, maybe from another source or your own source, first off, it's stuff that I can refer to.
[27:09.160 --> 27:14.400]  And then two, it's also stuff that I can go to an editor and show as part of my supporting material.
[27:14.980 --> 27:19.160]  Because I have to, I, you have to convince me, but I also have to convince people further up in the chain.
[27:20.260 --> 27:25.080]  So after all that work, oh, and there was, I should say this in terms of condescension.
[27:25.080 --> 27:30.060]  I remember one guy who is a quite well-known space-based advocate.
[27:30.640 --> 27:35.800]  And I was at a conference at one time, and there was a guy trying to mic him up.
[27:36.420 --> 27:45.240]  You know, just, just a technician, you know, who's just, you know, working his day, just trying to mic the guy up so they could get good sound on this particular, on this particular video feed, you know.
[27:45.860 --> 27:50.040]  And this advocate was just like, oh, this is terrible.
[27:50.160 --> 27:51.100]  Why are you wasting my time?
[27:51.280 --> 27:57.520]  And he was trying to be like, he was trying like, I think, to get across the idea that he was above the petty vanity of talking to the press.
[27:57.800 --> 28:05.840]  That if he stood there and politely allowed the guys to do other things, he would be seen as some sort of, you know, pandering in some way, or that he wanted to talk to his people.
[28:06.780 --> 28:15.700]  You know, but he was actually being just a jerk to a guy who was just trying to do a job, but he wanted to actually help that advocate get his message out to, you know, hundreds of thousands of people.
[28:16.840 --> 28:18.720]  You know, so just don't be a jerk.
[28:19.420 --> 28:20.580]  So what can you expect?
[28:22.800 --> 28:24.840]  So you're not going to see your name in lights.
[28:25.800 --> 28:31.120]  Sometimes, I've had people say, you know, is this going to be a cover story, or are you going to send a photographer or someone?
[28:31.360 --> 28:36.640]  Well, your goal is really, it's not about you, it's about the information you have in your head or the perspective you have.
[28:36.900 --> 28:42.260]  So your goal is to inform the journalist, to kind of shift their view.
[28:43.280 --> 28:47.420]  Not necessarily to, you know, get great quotes that make you look great.
[28:48.200 --> 28:50.820]  The journalist is not your biographer, cheerleader, or publicist.
[28:51.740 --> 29:01.380]  So if you Google my name, you'll find somebody who was very, very, very annoyed at me because they spoke with me what they considered a lengthy interview, which was about 20 minutes.
[29:02.580 --> 29:06.980]  And they were really annoyed because they didn't turn up in the finished article.
[29:08.900 --> 29:10.020]  Actually, that happens a lot.
[29:10.560 --> 29:14.380]  It doesn't mean that you, just because your quote didn't appear in the article, it doesn't mean you didn't inform me.
[29:14.680 --> 29:22.880]  But if you look at a guy called William Blundell, who wrote one of the Bibles and feature writing, and he talks about interviewing, you know, to get a really good story.
[29:23.020 --> 29:24.320]  And so he really understands that story.
[29:24.500 --> 29:29.280]  He might interview 20, 30 people, maybe 10 of them get quoted in the actual article.
[29:30.820 --> 29:33.760]  And also, when we take quotes, we really look for gems.
[29:33.960 --> 29:38.000]  We're not going to put the information you tell us necessarily directly in between quotes.
[29:38.280 --> 29:43.800]  And we're looking for some little turn of phrase, some particular colorful expression that we can get in.
[29:43.980 --> 29:48.640]  So even if you've talked to me for 30 minutes, you're doing well if you get a couple of sentences in the article.
[29:48.680 --> 29:49.740]  That's about par for course.
[29:49.860 --> 29:52.660]  I know some people get very, you know, I've had people get upset at me.
[29:53.340 --> 29:55.540]  Also, stories get spiked all the time.
[29:55.920 --> 29:59.500]  So, you know, don't keep bugging me about where's that story, where's that thing.
[30:00.780 --> 30:02.280]  You know, the story died.
[30:03.040 --> 30:11.720]  I don't, you know, and it doesn't help to remind the journalist that, you know, they had a story that failed to get through.
[30:11.880 --> 30:13.080]  It got spiked for some reason.
[30:13.260 --> 30:17.000]  Maybe the journalist spiked it, but maybe one of their boss spiked it because something else came along.
[30:17.820 --> 30:23.420]  You don't want to be, you know, someone who is going to be seen as a pest because they are never going to come back to you again.
[30:23.600 --> 30:27.360]  And what you want to do ideally is, I say, become somebody who the journalist can come back to.
[30:28.320 --> 30:33.480]  And then finally, you can't expect the article to advocate your point of view or criticize it.
[30:34.080 --> 30:38.460]  All you can really expect reasonably is to have your point of view represented fairly and not distorted.
[30:40.360 --> 30:44.360]  You know, I get that also where people will tell me, you know, a story and they kind of expect me to go forward.
[30:44.440 --> 30:51.400]  Or you get this with scientists a lot, where a lot of scientists ends up at the end of their research.
[30:51.620 --> 30:54.360]  And you see a lot of papers is, further study is required.
[30:55.260 --> 30:58.000]  Or, you know, which really means I need more money for funding.
[30:58.180 --> 30:59.280]  You know, I need more grants.
[30:59.640 --> 31:05.640]  And they get very... and it doesn't occur to them that journalists would say, well, maybe they shouldn't get more funding for grants.
[31:05.980 --> 31:07.400]  Because the journalist is looking at the big picture.
[31:07.500 --> 31:08.380]  He's looking at a lot of research.
[31:08.540 --> 31:12.200]  And you have to, you know, we have to make choices, policy choice by who we fund and who we don't.
[31:12.800 --> 31:15.260]  And I think sometimes people get really surprised.
[31:15.260 --> 31:16.320]  But you talked to me.
[31:16.440 --> 31:17.340]  You were nice on the phone.
[31:17.500 --> 31:18.240]  We had a great chat.
[31:18.500 --> 31:22.100]  And yet, at the same time, the article still came down with this opposing point of view.
[31:22.420 --> 31:23.260]  That's going to happen.
[31:24.440 --> 31:30.700]  And you can't really expect that... it's not fair to expect that journalists is definitely going to take your point of view.
[31:31.820 --> 31:37.140]  Because you wouldn't necessarily want... do you want every journalist to take the point of view of every politician they speak to?
[31:37.400 --> 31:40.560]  Or every... you know, you expect them to critically examine other people.
[31:40.840 --> 31:43.040]  So, you know, what's good for the goose is good for the ganner.
[31:43.160 --> 31:44.560]  They're going to do the same to you.
[31:45.900 --> 31:48.740]  So, I did say you have a right, though, to be fairly represented.
[31:49.280 --> 31:53.120]  When things go wrong, you write a polite letter to the journalist, backing up your certations if possible.
[31:53.300 --> 31:56.500]  And you'll detect a theme in these responses.
[31:56.780 --> 31:58.440]  And it is all about politeness.
[31:58.560 --> 32:00.440]  You can escalate things if you don't get it.
[32:00.800 --> 32:03.820]  But the less rude you are, the less defensive they'll be.
[32:03.960 --> 32:07.440]  If you come out of the gate going, you are a complete idiot.
[32:07.580 --> 32:08.960]  You obviously didn't do any research.
[32:08.960 --> 32:13.620]  You are monkey people who shouldn't be let anywhere near a typewriter, let alone a printing press.
[32:14.980 --> 32:28.360]  You know, that's kind of go on to the... However, if you write and say, look, you know, we feel that maybe, you know, if you write and say, well, we think, you know, maybe you can back it up because you've got your notes.
[32:28.540 --> 32:30.540]  We think that we were misquoted.
[32:30.720 --> 32:32.260]  Or we feel that we were misrepresentative.
[32:32.260 --> 32:35.700]  Or we feel that, you know, on balance, your article was wrong.
[32:35.820 --> 32:36.620]  And this is why.
[32:37.060 --> 32:38.620]  They've got to be a lot less defensive about it.
[32:38.660 --> 32:42.580]  You're much more likely to get a correction or something like that into the press.
[32:43.020 --> 32:45.420]  You know, journalists don't... There's no Hippocratic oath of journalism.
[32:45.880 --> 32:48.180]  You know, they're not compelled to do anything.
[32:48.560 --> 32:51.140]  So a little bit of niceness helps a lot.
[32:52.220 --> 32:55.320]  So finally, then, is how to become a pundit.
[32:55.740 --> 33:02.380]  So I have a little bit of video, which may or may not work, which documents some of my voyages into punditry.
[33:02.620 --> 33:03.600]  So let's see if this works.
[33:06.240 --> 33:08.380]  So this was last year when the Minnesota bridge collapsed.
[33:08.380 --> 33:11.600]  Just ahead on World News, a closer look at the bridge collapse in Minnesota.
[33:11.740 --> 33:15.760]  But we're talking with an expert who may be able to tell us why it collapsed and what...
[33:15.760 --> 33:20.720]  I'm sitting in a little studio in New York going, expert, who will tell her how the bridge collapsed.
[33:20.900 --> 33:22.300]  This is like the day after the bridge collapsed.
[33:25.120 --> 33:29.580]  ...on the scene are trying to figure out just what caused this tragedy in the first place.
[33:29.760 --> 33:33.640]  Join us now from New York to discuss some possibilities of that cause.
[33:33.760 --> 33:36.720]  Steven Cass, he's the editor of Discover Magazine.
[33:36.920 --> 33:38.680]  Steven, thank you so much for joining us.
[33:39.240 --> 33:39.500]  Pleasure.
[33:39.700 --> 33:43.280]  Your thoughts on the possible cause of this tragic collapse?
[33:43.860 --> 33:47.800]  Well, I think it's important to say that right now we don't know what happened.
[33:47.800 --> 33:50.740]  Okay, so that's how I say I salvaged my mental glory.
[33:51.660 --> 33:53.060]  So a few things happened there.
[33:53.180 --> 34:00.460]  How did I end up talking on CNN International a few days after the Minnesota Bridge Collapse as an expert who's going to tell the world how the bridge collapsed?
[34:01.560 --> 34:04.840]  Okay, first off, what killed me was they said editor of Discover Magazine.
[34:05.020 --> 34:06.660]  I'm not the editor of Discover Magazine.
[34:06.900 --> 34:08.680]  Somebody else is the editor of Discover Magazine.
[34:08.820 --> 34:09.660]  They are my boss.
[34:12.380 --> 34:14.880]  So I'm like, oh great, this is wonderful.
[34:15.860 --> 34:20.360]  And actually, you know, this was an example where I had... so how did I end up here?
[34:21.700 --> 34:23.060]  So let me go.
[34:24.540 --> 34:36.820]  So what had happened was that before the bridge collapse happened, our PR company, we had a little PR company, had sent out a press release based on a series of talking points that we had come up with.
[34:37.100 --> 34:39.400]  And they got sent out to the various media organizations.
[34:39.640 --> 34:45.020]  And then we got picked up, and I did a bunch of little field of radio and TV interviews, and then ended up, as I say, there.
[34:45.400 --> 34:48.940]  So how did we justify... me, I'm a journalist.
[34:49.200 --> 34:52.780]  I do have a degree in physics, but, you know, I've been a journalist for a long time.
[34:53.100 --> 34:56.100]  How did I end up, you know, talking as an expert on a bridge collapse?
[34:56.820 --> 35:00.420]  The point there was that I had already... we had built what's called a platform.
[35:02.620 --> 35:08.740]  And this is where we're... so if you can come in, where I had taken a very general knowledge base that I have.
[35:08.840 --> 35:11.840]  I happen to have a kind of a peculiar interest in failure.
[35:12.880 --> 35:17.100]  And that I had done previous reporting, for instance, on the Columbia accident investigation.
[35:17.880 --> 35:20.640]  You know, I try to pay attention to what the NTSB does.
[35:20.820 --> 35:28.240]  I'd like to... they have a really great database if you're ever interested in... if you're ever idle, look at the NTSB Accent database, because they're actually really cool little detective stories.
[35:28.460 --> 35:34.340]  Okay, horrible things happen, but, you know, how they figure out how these horrible things happen in the sequences and so on is really... is really fascinating.
[35:34.500 --> 35:35.120]  And it's all there.
[35:35.200 --> 35:41.260]  It's all this great... where you can search accidents involving drizzables in Ohio between 1985 and 94.
[35:41.460 --> 35:42.800]  You can search that fine grade.
[35:42.960 --> 35:43.980]  So... but anyway, that's just me.
[35:45.000 --> 35:47.520]  So... and I had interviewed people about failure in general.
[35:48.080 --> 35:52.220]  So I had a very general expertise, I think, about that.
[35:52.480 --> 35:59.240]  And from that general expertise, we were able to work out some general talking points, which we were able to then send out to the media.
[35:59.420 --> 36:05.340]  So if you have a general expertise in, say, computer security, perhaps... I think there's something on the top of my head.
[36:05.940 --> 36:11.160]  I think that means that you can actually parlay that into being able to talk specifically about something.
[36:11.540 --> 36:16.920]  So it's being able to make a connection between the general expertise with some specific event.
[36:17.100 --> 36:19.240]  Because, again, the news cycle is very, very fast.
[36:19.460 --> 36:23.820]  They want... they know they're not going to find, you know, a perfect structural engineer up.
[36:23.920 --> 36:26.400]  They need someone who can speak generally about the area.
[36:26.620 --> 36:33.320]  And I think people sometimes are... they feel a little embarrassed because, you know, I don't know the specifics of that particular intrusion.
[36:33.320 --> 36:35.460]  I don't know the specifics of what went on.
[36:35.540 --> 36:37.020]  So how can I possibly talk about it?
[36:37.220 --> 36:43.960]  Chances are you have some general knowledge and some general insights, which you may think are perfectly obvious because they're rattling around inside your head.
[36:44.080 --> 36:49.740]  But they're not necessarily going to be obvious to the audience of people people that are involved here.
[36:50.560 --> 36:54.200]  So what happened was, that particular morning, I had come in.
[36:54.320 --> 36:56.960]  We had talked a little bit about, oh, the Minnesota bridge collapse is terrible.
[36:57.220 --> 37:04.340]  And then I mentioned, well, you know, this is... there's actually this whole thing where every 30 years there's a major bridge collapse and there's all these cycles of disaster.
[37:04.520 --> 37:06.080]  So a few general talking points.
[37:06.400 --> 37:14.960]  And we got up... we started talking about the implications of the Minnesota bridge collapse on the, you know, what does this mean for the general infrastructure in the country, which is really our point.
[37:15.240 --> 37:21.760]  I would say out maybe half an hour before everybody else did or became a very common part of the conversation.
[37:22.080 --> 37:23.720]  So it's a matter of acting fast.
[37:24.140 --> 37:30.740]  But we were able to say, we were able to mail, you know, producers or other journalists, people working in broadcast.
[37:31.760 --> 37:32.780]  This is Stephen Cass.
[37:32.960 --> 37:34.020]  This is his platform.
[37:34.100 --> 37:37.880]  In my case, I have authority given to me by the power of the Discover brand.
[37:38.020 --> 37:41.120]  It's like, you know, He-Man and Castle Grayskull.
[37:41.220 --> 37:42.940]  By the power of Grayskull, I will tell you about this.
[37:43.380 --> 37:50.240]  If you don't, if you're not part of an organization that gives you instant credibility like that, what you need to do is build up a little bit of a platform.
[37:50.720 --> 37:53.200]  And in other words, you kind of want a little bio that says you're an expert.
[37:53.440 --> 37:56.540]  And you do this by, you can start out by writing, have a blog.
[37:56.880 --> 37:58.720]  Start writing articles for 2600.
[37:59.340 --> 38:07.440]  So if you say to a journalist, you know, I am Joe Bloggs and I have the following, you know, and I'm commenting on this particular intrusion.
[38:07.700 --> 38:15.760]  Joe Bloggs is a published, you know, has published articles on computer security and runs the popular, you know, XYZ security blog.
[38:16.040 --> 38:17.580]  There you've instantly got a platform.
[38:17.760 --> 38:18.580]  You have some authority.
[38:18.800 --> 38:23.380]  You have some justification now that journalists can have to put you on television and call you an expert.
[38:23.920 --> 38:26.700]  You know, because as far as they're concerned, you are an expert.
[38:26.920 --> 38:29.080]  Again, it's also a matter of putting together talking points.
[38:29.200 --> 38:36.380]  So you need to sit down and they may be blindingly obvious to you, but write out some things that maybe might not be obvious to everybody else.
[38:36.580 --> 38:45.320]  So our immediate point, when everybody was still very much focused on the Minnesota Bridge collapse and the very specific details of how the bridge fell, which nobody could know at that point.
[38:45.500 --> 38:51.300]  If you watch the rest of the interview, like, five seconds later, I'm saying, the NTSB will find out in about six months.
[38:51.300 --> 38:52.400]  We should let them do their job.
[38:52.480 --> 38:55.480]  Let's not speculate, which is how I slept well that night.
[38:57.600 --> 39:03.940]  And then I went into my general points, which is, we don't know how this bridge collapsed, but we do know some general things about bridges collapse.
[39:04.120 --> 39:11.320]  And that generality made me go on to start talking a lot about, well, the infrastructure in this country also is aging, and we need to maintain it.
[39:11.740 --> 39:14.820]  And, you know... So it may sound like a very simple point.
[39:15.220 --> 39:15.980]  What should we do?
[39:16.060 --> 39:19.880]  We should maintain our bridges, and we should build bridges that are not badly designed.
[39:20.300 --> 39:25.080]  Now, that may sound like a very blindingly obvious point, but, you know, the anchor can't say that.
[39:25.220 --> 39:26.760]  They need to find somebody to say that.
[39:26.920 --> 39:37.200]  So even if you're saying what you think might be blindingly obvious points, first off, you know, somebody says blindingly obvious things can still be of use, especially this kind of like crazy news cycle.
[39:38.180 --> 39:40.620]  And, two, they may not be as obvious to other people.
[39:40.980 --> 39:44.280]  But it is a matter of being able to act fast and getting out very quickly.
[39:44.500 --> 39:52.880]  So again, if you're part of an organization, you really need to think about, you know, setting up some sort of media responsive organization, being able to respond very quickly to their queries.
[39:53.040 --> 40:00.020]  And when things like this happen, it means being able to send out a press release, which are talking points, quickly, and then having people who can react to that.
[40:00.140 --> 40:06.440]  So you need to be able to say to somebody, look, you know, don't disappear for the next 24 hours, because we've got this thing out.
[40:06.540 --> 40:09.560]  We need you around in case we get some callbacks.
[40:10.580 --> 40:14.220]  Okay, well, so any questions?
[40:15.000 --> 40:16.840]  I'm really surprised there are so many people here now.
[40:16.980 --> 40:17.380]  It's really scary.
[40:17.780 --> 40:18.300]  Sorry, yes?
[40:20.100 --> 40:20.760]  Oh, sure.
[40:23.260 --> 40:24.820]  I believe there are mics in that direction.
[40:32.210 --> 40:36.650]  I have three questions for you.
[40:37.030 --> 40:44.670]  First of all, with the CNN piece, I'm assuming that that was in the CNN New York studios.
[40:45.090 --> 40:45.430]  Yes.
[40:45.530 --> 40:46.910]  And I should say, yeah, a little bit about that.
[40:47.070 --> 40:53.010]  When you do some of these interviews, if you're doing TV interviews, it's not like you get taken to this great place and they do makeup.
[40:53.770 --> 40:54.970]  Sometimes you do it on the used room floor.
[40:55.090 --> 40:56.530]  Generally, you just get shoved in front of a camera.
[40:56.830 --> 40:59.710]  And if you're lucky, the person you're talking to is in the same building.
[41:00.330 --> 41:04.130]  In this case, that particular, her name I forgot, was in Atlanta.
[41:04.470 --> 41:06.090]  And so I'm basically shoved into a chair.
[41:06.230 --> 41:09.130]  I had this, you know, assistant comes up, wires me up, and then she disappears.
[41:09.670 --> 41:13.490]  And I'm just sitting there looking at this monitor, and like, I get this voice in my ear that eventually comes up.
[41:13.930 --> 41:14.570]  30 seconds.
[41:14.770 --> 41:15.590]  I'm like, okay, well.
[41:17.430 --> 41:21.370]  Okay, I really wasn't paying attention to anything that's been going on, but I'm going to really listen hard now.
[41:21.770 --> 41:22.990]  So yeah, it was in New York.
[41:23.090 --> 41:23.650]  It was remote.
[41:23.770 --> 41:24.950]  A lot of them are done like that.
[41:25.030 --> 41:32.190]  So your PR people contacted CNN and other organizations, and then you got a call.
[41:32.350 --> 41:35.990]  And then what was it like, hey, run into a taxi and run down there?
[41:36.070 --> 41:37.550]  Actually, for the CNN one, I had a little bit.
[41:37.650 --> 41:43.910]  I had, I think I had like, they contact me at six o'clock the night before, and then they sent a car, which is very nice, which they don't usually do.
[41:44.170 --> 41:48.470]  But I had done like other interviews, for instance, like Fox News, where it was like, can you be here in 30 minutes?
[41:48.470 --> 41:50.250]  And so I had to buy a shirt and run up.
[41:50.350 --> 42:01.030]  And then they didn't even put my name on the TV to just use my... But like, sometimes it happens very, very... Well, you know, that was a problem, because, you know, I'm doing it because we're hoping to get a little bit of publicity for Discover Magazine.
[42:01.170 --> 42:05.070]  That's the subtext of why we put out about, you know, these press leases in the first place.
[42:06.010 --> 42:07.890]  But yeah, sometimes it's a very short notice.
[42:08.050 --> 42:14.190]  For TV, especially for TV or radio, because they're fighting that cycle, you can be expected to get somewhere in, you know, 30 minutes.
[42:14.330 --> 42:21.570]  So if you're a large organization, nominating somebody who lives in a major media center, like New York, can be helpful to be your point person.
[42:21.870 --> 42:23.070]  Two other questions.
[42:24.890 --> 42:33.910]  When you said early on about using snail mail press releases to contact journalism... Journalists, excuse me.
[42:34.210 --> 42:35.810]  What about telephone calls?
[42:35.910 --> 42:36.830]  What about just ring...
[42:36.830 --> 42:37.910]  I'm working on a book.
[42:38.210 --> 42:38.550]  Right.
[42:38.690 --> 42:49.030]  What about just ringing up a journalist and saying, hey, I saw you do an article on the topic that's similar to what my book is about, uh, instead of, um, sending out...
[42:49.030 --> 42:52.110]  No, I would still, I would still, because I get phone calls a lot all the time.
[42:52.230 --> 42:55.530]  And again, they're, they're like, if it's a peer, usually I'm in the middle of doing something.
[42:55.770 --> 42:55.910]  Right.
[42:55.990 --> 42:57.510]  You've, you've inevitably interrupted me.
[42:57.670 --> 42:59.810]  If you call me, you've inevitably interrupted me.
[42:59.810 --> 43:02.190]  Um, and it's... So it's a bad start.
[43:02.310 --> 43:03.730]  And it's, it's kind of a bad start.
[43:03.850 --> 43:13.010]  But a snail mail letter, you know, especially if it's, if it's for a buck where you, if it's, if it's, you're really on deadline then and it's urgent and you're, and you're like, because I did this to other people all the time.
[43:13.030 --> 43:15.610]  So if, if another journalist calls and says, look, I need to do a story for tomorrow.
[43:15.710 --> 43:16.210]  Can you talk?
[43:16.710 --> 43:19.530]  Then yes, I will do that because I know they've got a short deadline.
[43:19.630 --> 43:23.170]  But especially if it's something for a book, you have a little bit of lead time, use it.
[43:23.330 --> 43:27.210]  So, you know, send out those snail mail letters and then, you know, and say, hey, look, Here's a letter.
[43:27.350 --> 43:28.590]  I'd really like to talk to you.
[43:28.750 --> 43:29.830]  Here's my contact details.
[43:30.410 --> 43:31.690]  I would be... and they will email you.
[43:31.830 --> 43:33.850]  And then again, you'll have their email address and so on.
[43:33.970 --> 43:38.070]  So I would really... and you can follow up with maybe with a phone call.
[43:38.270 --> 43:40.210]  You know, you wait two weeks and go, hey, look, I sent you a letter.
[43:40.330 --> 43:40.810]  Did you get it?
[43:40.850 --> 43:43.110]  And they might go, oh, yeah, you know, and they may go.
[43:43.290 --> 43:48.710]  But don't start off the relationship perhaps with a cold telephone call.
[43:48.770 --> 43:49.790]  That can be difficult.
[43:49.930 --> 43:51.930]  Warm it up a little bit with a letter or something beforehand.
[43:51.930 --> 44:02.390]  One last question for you is... I've been reading a lot of books lately about how to write press releases, how to contact journalists and such.
[44:02.730 --> 44:10.230]  And one thing that I see commonly is having a list of prepared questions for the journalist.
[44:11.470 --> 44:13.670]  Do you like that?
[44:13.830 --> 44:16.310]  Or do you look down at that?
[44:16.510 --> 44:19.630]  Do you want to make your own questions or does that help you?
[44:19.630 --> 44:21.330]  Yeah, I will make my own questions.
[44:21.470 --> 44:27.570]  I mean, some... I mean, you know, that's... I... I myself make up my own questions.
[44:28.190 --> 44:31.490]  But it's nice if you show me... if you show me a list of things that you can talk about.
[44:32.110 --> 44:36.430]  You know, you might say, you know, Joe Schmo can talk about, you know, the earth and so on.
[44:36.590 --> 44:39.330]  I mean, I suspect, yes, that some people will use those questions.
[44:39.550 --> 44:42.030]  I mean, I would never use those exact questions.
[44:42.130 --> 44:46.670]  I mean, if you give me a list of questions, I'm still not going to use them exactly for exactly the same reason that I wouldn't...
[44:46.670 --> 44:58.630]  I'm not going to send you a list of questions prior to an interview, unless you're, you know, there are very rare circumstances where I'll do that, which is you're somebody who is incredibly important, who I can't get any other way, and then I might, you know,
[44:58.710 --> 44:59.730]  a president or something like that.
[45:01.450 --> 45:04.150]  But generally speaking, you know, I don't think that would hurt.
[45:04.590 --> 45:06.090]  And I think it may help with some people.
[45:06.270 --> 45:09.130]  So, you know, it wouldn't do anything for me, but it might for other people.
[45:09.370 --> 45:09.890]  Thank you.
[45:10.230 --> 45:10.390]  Sure.
[45:11.370 --> 45:12.050]  Anybody else?
[45:15.590 --> 45:25.490]  This is less a question about dealing with the press, but more a question about how the press sees their role, and I guess, you know, making it more personal how you see your role.
[45:26.770 --> 45:38.770]  I've had some interactions with the press where I've gotten a phone call, because I have a little bit of a platform, as you were saying, and, you know, a reporter will call me and say, we were just on the phone to somebody, and they said that 2 plus 2 equals 5.
[45:40.450 --> 45:41.530]  Is that right?
[45:41.670 --> 45:42.910]  Do you think 2 plus 2 equals 5?
[45:43.150 --> 45:50.490]  And I'll say, gosh, no, there's actually overwhelming evidence to say that 2 plus 2 equals 4, and, you know, here's what it is.
[45:51.150 --> 45:54.990]  And then the article ends up being a he said, she said kind of piece.
[45:55.170 --> 45:55.310]  Right.
[45:55.510 --> 45:56.290]  No, yeah.
[45:56.590 --> 46:06.510]  And so I'm curious, kind of, you know, I remember when I saw that, I was like, but, like, I don't, with even a modicum of work, you could clearly see that the first person just wasn't right.
[46:06.510 --> 46:07.950]  There's really no two ways about it.
[46:08.070 --> 46:09.870]  I'm just, I'm curious how you view your...
[46:09.870 --> 46:14.570]  No, no, you're actually tapping into what's become a very non-trivial debate in journalism.
[46:14.710 --> 46:17.750]  It used to be, especially with science journalism, as a different...
[46:17.750 --> 46:20.090]  Mainstream journalism tends to be a little bit more he said, she said.
[46:20.270 --> 46:22.530]  Science journalism tends to be, go the other way.
[46:22.730 --> 46:28.370]  But now there's this big debate that's spilled over from science journalism into mainstream journalism.
[46:28.810 --> 46:33.990]  And it's particularly about evolution and global warming, where if you look at the Columbia Journalism Review, you can...
[46:33.990 --> 46:35.210]  I think it's freely available.
[46:35.410 --> 46:49.770]  You can search for this, where, you know, we realized we were having this problem, whereby, you know, when you have 99.9% of scientists on one side of things and 0.1% on the other side, and yet you had articles which still were giving almost, you know,
[46:49.830 --> 46:53.970]  60-40 or 50-50, because some editor said, no, you need to go out and find balance.
[46:55.510 --> 46:58.530]  And at a certain point, it became just absurd to maintain that.
[46:58.530 --> 47:11.030]  So, right now, there is actually a... I mean, the AP just have also released new guidelines about how they're going to add... how they're going to have maybe journalists just writing more sort of...
[47:11.030 --> 47:11.570]  Analysis?
[47:11.870 --> 47:12.150]  Analysis.
[47:12.390 --> 47:16.270]  Yeah, a little bit more like this, where they're able to come down on one side of the fence or the other, so they don't necessarily...
[47:16.270 --> 47:20.670]  They can actually make... yeah, make synthesis even more so than analysis.
[47:22.050 --> 47:23.790]  And that is actually ongoing right now.
[47:23.930 --> 47:27.610]  I mean, yeah, I agree with you that it is a problem, and I tend to...
[47:27.610 --> 47:34.330]  And I personally think that, as I say, you know, equivocation is a poor substitute for objectivity.
[47:34.610 --> 47:39.850]  You know, we're interested in the truth, and sometimes the truth isn't always even-handed.
[47:40.090 --> 47:41.410]  So, I personally agree with you.
[47:41.550 --> 47:44.070]  Sometimes I will still get, no, you need to find a quote, you need to get there.
[47:44.210 --> 47:48.870]  And that's where, you know, and that's where it comes in, where if I have documentation, I can so on.
[47:48.890 --> 47:51.850]  I can really show, look, it is overwhelming.
[47:52.090 --> 47:57.050]  I talked to this guy, and he sent me this, you know, thing that's been signed by, you know, all these other scientists.
[47:57.050 --> 48:00.030]  Or this great big report, which is, you know, and I can use that.
[48:00.050 --> 48:05.650]  I can use that to go to my editor and say, look, this is why, you know, balance is actually not fair in this particular case.
[48:05.750 --> 48:08.670]  And this is why, you know, trying to go he said, she said is wrong.
[48:08.830 --> 48:17.570]  But it's a debate that is very much still emerging and is still going on in the media.
[48:17.570 --> 48:18.310]  Thank you.
[48:18.470 --> 48:18.750]  Thank you.
[48:21.490 --> 48:22.070]  Anybody else?
[48:22.170 --> 48:22.370]  One more?
[48:24.470 --> 48:25.970]  I realize you work for a magazine.
[48:26.170 --> 48:29.210]  This is a question about newspapers, so it may not be fair.
[48:29.830 --> 48:38.970]  But do you have any idea, I do the unfortunate thing about reading computer stories in the newspapers, and they very often contain technical mistakes.
[48:39.350 --> 48:41.450]  Do you have any idea why that is?
[48:41.650 --> 48:43.070]  I mean, you mentioned fact checkers.
[48:43.150 --> 48:44.190]  I almost fell off my chair.
[48:44.190 --> 48:47.210]  Well, we do fact checking.
[48:47.370 --> 48:53.390]  So if I have a story, you know, it takes a competent person one to three days to fact check a story.
[48:53.530 --> 49:00.230]  And newspaper just doesn't have that particular time, which is why I think you should all read magazines and not newspapers, in particular my magazine.
[49:01.610 --> 49:03.190]  Certainly for computer stuff, I would agree with you.
[49:03.190 --> 49:03.730]  Certainly for computer stuff.
[49:03.830 --> 49:04.930]  But even we get it wrong.
[49:05.050 --> 49:15.010]  And we get it wrong sometimes because, you know, that's where, you know, if you throw a lot of jargon at a reporter, that's part of what's going to happen.
[49:15.670 --> 49:17.490]  Part of it is because maybe they haven't had time to check.
[49:17.690 --> 49:22.330]  And sometimes because, you know, sometimes the experts we talk to aren't always right as well.
[49:23.250 --> 49:24.690]  You know, I recently had a...
[49:24.690 --> 49:28.230]  I guess the point being the reporter's not the expert in the field that you are.
[49:28.370 --> 49:28.990]  Reporter's not the expert in the field...
[49:28.990 --> 49:31.610]  If you sent out to cover accounting, what would you know about it?
[49:31.650 --> 49:32.270]  Yeah, exactly.
[49:32.570 --> 49:33.870]  They're not the expert that you are.
[49:33.950 --> 49:34.990]  So you really have to...
[49:34.990 --> 49:36.290]  Don't lose them in jargon.
[49:36.370 --> 49:37.130]  Try to break it down.
[49:37.290 --> 49:41.310]  If you can send them to some sort of resource where they can look it up, that all helps.
[49:41.510 --> 49:44.730]  They're usually working very quickly and they may not understand the topic very well.
[49:45.350 --> 49:53.510]  There are a lot of reasons for those mistakes, but generally you will see it more in newspapers simply because they don't have as much time to think about things.
[49:53.750 --> 50:00.870]  It's also the advantage of maybe, you know, this is why, you know, there used to be concept of the beat journalist, which is being eroded somewhat.
[50:02.350 --> 50:04.530]  Now people kind of expect to be all things to all people.
[50:04.730 --> 50:08.250]  But if you can find a beat journalist, you know, that's a good person to talk to.
[50:08.250 --> 50:15.290]  And that's why I'm saying when you're pitching and you're pitching a press release, if you can find the person in the organization who has written good articles about it.
[50:15.470 --> 50:18.150]  So you've only got a limited amount of time and resources to pitch to journalists.
[50:18.530 --> 50:24.870]  Find the four or five journalists that you think have done really good jobs and, you know, target them and just ignore the rest.
[50:25.290 --> 50:27.970]  So, but yes, it's a problem, but...
[50:27.970 --> 50:28.850]  Thank you.
[50:29.030 --> 50:29.650]  There's not much we need to add.
[50:29.910 --> 50:30.170]  Thank you.
[50:30.390 --> 50:31.190]  I think one more.
[50:31.490 --> 50:31.650]  Thank you.
[50:31.850 --> 50:36.790]  So I've just got a brief question, kind of more specifically targeted at the security community.
[50:36.790 --> 50:51.570]  One of the things, one of the times when we end up talking to the press is when someone has released something, something that looks very bad, and you get people from the press coming up to hackers and saying, hey, why did you do this?
[50:51.650 --> 50:52.830]  Are you an evil person?
[50:53.030 --> 50:53.770]  That kind of thing.
[50:54.170 --> 51:09.450]  I don't know if you covered this earlier, but if you could speak a little bit towards dealing with apparently hostile interviews, you know, or times when the press is looking for a quote that will specifically make you look bad because that's their story.
[51:09.630 --> 51:09.770]  Right.
[51:09.910 --> 51:10.430]  That would be interesting.
[51:10.530 --> 51:15.290]  If you think you're in that situation where you've got somebody who is just looking for a quote to hang you, just say no comment.
[51:15.810 --> 51:17.210]  Like, don't give them any father.
[51:17.570 --> 51:21.410]  I mean, because, yeah, you always have to say, oh, then I'll cut no comment to look bad.
[51:21.890 --> 51:25.410]  Actually, most people who do no comment don't turn up at all.
[51:25.750 --> 51:33.830]  I mean, it's actually really difficult to print no comment because what happens is they'll go back to their editor and they'll say, well, I tried to talk to three guys and nobody would talk to me.
[51:34.770 --> 51:37.910]  And, you know, some stories die on that basis.
[51:38.050 --> 51:42.350]  So if you think someone is hostile and really has an agenda, you can just say no comment.
[51:42.530 --> 51:54.190]  On the other hand, if you want to engage them and maybe, I think, you know, and change their perceptions a little bit about, it's about saying, you know, first off, don't be an apologist.
[51:54.810 --> 51:58.530]  If you think somebody has done something bad, you know, don't try, well, they're just kids.
[51:58.530 --> 52:02.990]  You can say, yeah, that was, you know, that exploit happened.
[52:02.990 --> 52:05.190]  I don't particularly agree with it or maybe you do.
[52:05.310 --> 52:09.350]  But, you know, just say, look, you know, make your point.
[52:09.490 --> 52:11.050]  We're not a unified group.
[52:11.050 --> 52:13.670]  I don't know what these people did.
[52:13.710 --> 52:14.490]  I don't know them.
[52:14.950 --> 52:16.550]  And, you know, my concern, you can see this.
[52:16.790 --> 52:20.110]  My concern here is that every hacker will get tired with the same brush.
[52:21.450 --> 52:26.350]  And, you know, that's a very simple quote to make and a very simple statement that they can maybe take away.
[52:26.350 --> 52:31.190]  Don't try to get into, like, a lengthy argument with them that you're misrep...
[52:31.190 --> 52:34.950]  If you really genuinely think they're going to misrepresent you, don't talk to them.
[52:35.250 --> 52:41.470]  If you are concerned that misrepresentation is happening, just, you know, who's stereotypes and so on, just be very upfront.
[52:41.650 --> 52:43.450]  Make that your point that you're going to get across.
[52:43.570 --> 52:46.290]  Earlier I said you're only going to get one or two points ever across.
[52:46.530 --> 52:49.930]  Make that your point and just keep hammering away at that particular point.
[52:51.030 --> 52:51.390]  Okay.
[52:51.550 --> 52:52.390]  Well, I think that's it.
[52:52.550 --> 52:52.650]  All right.
[52:52.730 --> 52:53.270]  Thank you very much.
[52:53.530 --> 52:53.730]  Thank you.
[52:55.490 --> 52:58.170]  Oh, and my card is here if anybody wants it up front.
[52:58.350 --> 52:58.610]  Thank you.
[53:07.340 --> 53:11.480]  If my book is designed with technology, but let's say if they...