Elevate the Debate

chapter sixWorking with the Media to Increase Your Impact

Stu Kantor

Moving up the communications pyramid, we now arrive at conducting interviews with the media. Many people are nervous when speaking to reporters, thinking that they are going to be misrepresented, misquoted, or misunderstood. The truth is, reporters and researchers are often working toward the same goal: improving lives through the creation and communication of knowledge. Both groups want to contribute to a more informed public and to better policies, programs and procedures.

Researchers and reporters go about their business—often spoken about proudly as public-service missions—in many common ways. They ask questions, test and revise hypotheses, gather data (quantitative and qualitative) from primary and secondary sources, draw conclusions, discuss implications, offer recommendations, and highlight promising solutions. Although both groups may share the same goals, they approach them from different directions.

This chapter explores the relationship between the researcher and reporter, and how you can effectively cultivate this connections to help your work find its way into the hands of people who can use and benefit from it. The lessons shared here are not exclusively useful for media interviews, however. Although you may not speak to the media, you likely present your work to colleagues and managers. In these ...