February 8, 2012, Toronto, ON – Leigh Haber, Editor-at-Large for Chronicle Books announced the acquisition of North American rights for Bodine Williams’ The Art of Talking Back: 21 Rules for Media Interviews & Other Defining Moments. Agent Sam Hiyate of The Rights Factory arranged the deal.
 The Art of Talking Back presents 21 famous interviews, the players, the fallout and the lessons learned. On her selection Haber, who was the editor for Al Gore’s book, An Inconvenient Truth, said, “I love this book because it does for communicating in a social …

Bret Baier’s interview with Mitt Romney on (Fox, November 29, 2011) will go down as a defining moment in Romney’s quest for the GOP nomination. Romney’s rare sit-down was a disaster. Not the explosive kind that blows up and then blows over, but the slow moving kind that smolders.
The 15-minute outing grabbed the attention of columnists and pundits who described the former Massachusetts Governor as “testy,” “thin-skinned,” “repressed,” “prickly,” “ irritated,” “brittle.” Harsh words—and a reminder to all—that on the record interviews decode behavior.
Romney was overly-scripted yet unprepared.  In fact, his was …

Soldiers are not sent into battle in the hope that they will “wing it” or “rise to the occasion.” They perform at the highest level of training. And that’s exactly what it takes to ace media interviews and debates. Don’t count on your past accomplishment or a flash of verbal inspiration to get you through. On the spot, you are more likely to freeze up or overreact.
Psychologists say it was “brain freeze” that caused Texas Governor Rick Perry’s much-parodied moment during the GOP debate on November 9, 2011. Perry struggled for 10-20-40-60 …

This is the age of the interview. You can’t land a job or get elected president if you can’t ace one.
In school we are taught to focus on the written word, when in life it’s what we say that matters. There’s the problem. Too often, our words reveal more than we intend. In fact, most verbal blunders – either at the podium or in an interview – result not from tough or unfair questions, but from self-destructive answers.
Dazed or bewildered by the glare of bright lights people lose confidence, sometimes …

Don’t allow the interviewer or the question to define you. Let’s take a lesson from a master. Henry Luce, the man who had hundreds of reporters on the payroll, hated giving interviews. Luce was the founder of TIME (with Brit Hadden in 1923), Fortune (1930) and Life (1936) magazines. TIME, a weekly digest of news for busy people would revolutionize the magazine industry. Fortune would glamorize the business of making money and Life would become the photo album of the American experience. It was Luce who coined the phrase, “The American Century.”  In …