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When Journalists Request An Interview Over The Phone, Say You Prefer E-mail

When reporters ask you for an interview over the phone, say you prefer to do it over e-mail. Why ?

Well, Tricks of the trade has listed the advantages of emails over phone interviews and they probably make lot of sense:

1. It is more likely that longer excerpts, or more excerpts, will be used in the story, because

   (a) the reporter will have to think longer about the questions he will ask and where he is trying to get, because the questions will have to be written down, and in a reasonably logical order;

   (b) it is easier to copy and paste whole intelligible sentences than listen to a tape and type the conversation and then turn confusing and long-winded arguments into intelligible short sentences;

2. It is less likely that your words will be distorted intentionally or unintentionally by the reporter and if they are intentionally distorted you have proof of what you said and of the context in which you said it.

3. You will sound more intelligent (unless you are a really bad writer) because you will "speak" in intelligent sentences and will have more time to think about the answers.

Related: Pleasures of Interviewing Inexperienced Personalities

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