Contacted By Local Reporter

[chemfed]

While I was away on business this week, a local newspaper reporter called the house and wants to do an article on geocaching. I had sent some info, and links to other stories to the paper a few months ago. My wife said he wanted me to call him next week. Should be interesting! Any tips from those of you who have delt with the Fifth Estate on this topic?

[+CO Admin]

Be positive, and if you take them on a cache hunt have someone check that the cache is there before you go. Can be a bit embarassing to DNF with a reporter.

[+DustyJacket]

Be very careful what you say and how you say it.

 

Some reporters often are sloppy on interpereting your words, or even have their own agenda. I have been so mis-quoted in my previous life that I no longer talk to the press.

[+Stunod]

I don't know if the reporter will allow this or not, but maybe ask for an advanced copy of the article. That way, you might be able to correct any errors they write before it is published.

[+Doc-Dean]

One of the things I have learned in dealing with the media is to be prepared beforehand... Know exactly what message you want to convey and no matter what questions they ask you, lead them directly to your message.

 

Never let them bait you into answering a question you are not prepared to answer. Some media types will ask questions in such ways as to get the answers they already know they want or in a way that can be easily manipulated to however they want to shape their piece. (Sounds like a lawyer, doesn't it?)

[Keystone]

Speak in short soundbites and keep the concepts simple. Don't attempt to explain the difference between retrieving a travel bug from a cache and grabbing it from another geocacher, the history of travel bug hotels, and why people get upset when their bugs don't move quickly enough. Instead, say "we also have hitch hikers -- objects that move from one geocache to another -- and you can track their travels on the website."

 

Think of a quotable phrase or two. Out of the half dozen or so interviews I've given, my favorite quote about my daughter and me is this one: "The best treasure we've found is the time we get to spend together."

 

Be sure to dispel common misconceptions like "buried treasure" (caches aren't supposed to be buried) and taking the cache once it's found (no, sir... if you take an item, you leave another item in its place).

 

Good luck and thanks for helping to provide positive publicity for geocaching!

[+mozartman]

as others have said, be careful and try to only talk about the positive aspects of the game, CITO, etc...

 

Act like you're explaining it to a 5-year-old, that might help. Even then, the reporter will probably misunderstand you and take your comments out of context anyway, the best you can do is try and get a positive spin on our beloved activity...

 

DustyJacket is correct, you will be misquoted and the final article will be nothing like you think it will be....I know this from Hard-won experience in my 20 years in media and as a former J-school grad... It happens!

 

if you're lucky you'll get somebody who will be willing to go on a cache hunt with you, and if they're the right type they might think it's pretty cool. then you have a good chance of positive PR. If they are the preservationist type who thinks you shouldn't be walking around, much less placing things on "pristine forest lands", then you are screwed and the article will reflect that. Most of it comes down to the attitude of the editors as well. what they say goes and they may get to edit the article to reflect the view of the paper, editorial board, or publisher.

 

this is just my opinion, and may not reflect that of other cachers or Groundspeak.

[solohiker]

During my efforts to promote this hobby with land managers I relied on Jeremy to be the heavy on rouge cachers. It blew up in my face when Jeremy, the admin folks, the cachers and I had a face off.

 

My advice is to let Jeremy handle all the land management issues and publicity.

[+Renegade Knight]

Those quotable sound bites are important. If you give them ones they can use they will. After all they are quoting. If you don't...don't be surpised if they find one anyway...

[+CYBret]

Yep, stress CITO, stress cooperation with land management, stress family, stress NOT BURIED.

 

Other than that, enjoy the process...really, there's no stress.

 

Bret

[+Trudger]

I was just interviewed a few weeks ago by a guy from a local paper. I was lucky. This reporter had already been geocaching and loves it. I would like to echo, however, the suggestions already posted. Definitely prepare yourself. Definitely be positive, and definitely speak as well as you can about geocaching. By that I mean the quotability, clarity and so forth. I was careful not to say anything grammatically disturbing ...for a good example of what I mean, watch either NASCAR, or Football interviews. Very good examples of unclear speaking there.

 

Anyway, lastly, I agree with being prepared for your interview. I wouldn't say that you need to make notes, or write anything down, but definitely figure out what you think of geocaching, and how to say it in a concise way. Make sure you remember how you got into geocaching and think of one or two of your best experiences or stories. I also agree that it's not a stressful thing at all. I loved my interview. We met at a cache I had placed and we just talked. Relax and tell your story. No pressure, but you're representing us ALL!! Hehe!

 

Good luck

~~Trudger

[Vacman]

Yes, PLEASE be carefull of what you say! Make sure you fel you can trust the reporter to report what you want. My wife has forbidden me from ever doing interveiews again after what happened to me.

 

This is the cache that started the story. If you haven't read the original threads - you unfortunately can't (GC took them down when they moved over here). I will be glad to resurect the story here if anyone is interested. After I had made specific requests to NOT mention my wife, kids or business in the article, the reporter mis-quoted some of things I siad, and if you read the first paragraph of the article he made it sound like I was one that was involved.

[+GeoSharks]

My son and I were included with some other local cachers on a TV news segment.

The reporter did a great job explaining the basics and presented it as a good family hobby. We had fun doing it.

 

The segements were taped in November and broadcast on Dec 11.

 

You can view them at the RCGDS.net web site.

 

There are two segments, both are different.

Edited January 1, 2004 by GeoSharks

[Keystone]

Yes, PLEASE be carefull of what you say! Make sure you fel you can trust the reporter to report what you want. My wife has forbidden me from ever doing interveiews again after what happened to me.

 

This is the cache that started the story. If you haven't read the original threads - you unfortunately can't (GC took them down when they moved over here). I will be glad to resurect the story here if anyone is interested. After I had made specific requests to NOT mention my wife, kids or business in the article, the reporter mis-quoted some of things I siad, and if you read the first paragraph of the article he made it sound like I was one that was involved.

Vacman, your forum topic about the jailhouse cache can be found right here. I believe you are under the mistaken impression that old topics disappeared when Groundspeak switched to the new forum software. That is not correct. Look at the bottom of the page where there is an option to show topics from the past thirty days, since the beginning, etc.

 

Your old topic is alive and well. I suspect you may wish to edit your cache page again to provide a link to it.

[Vacman]

Yes, PLEASE be carefull of what you say! Make sure you fel you can trust the reporter to report what you want. My wife has forbidden me from ever doing interveiews again after what happened to me.

 

This is the cache that started the story. If you haven't read the original threads - you unfortunately can't (GC took them down when they moved over here). I will be glad to resurect the story here if anyone is interested. After I had made specific requests to NOT mention my wife, kids or business in the article, the reporter mis-quoted some of things I siad, and if you read the first paragraph of the article he made it sound like I was one that was involved.

Vacman, your forum topic about the jailhouse cache can be found right here. I believe you are under the mistaken impression that old topics disappeared when Groundspeak switched to the new forum software. That is not correct. Look at the bottom of the page where there is an option to show topics from the past thirty days, since the beginning, etc.

 

Your old topic is alive and well. I suspect you may wish to edit your cache page again to provide a link to it.

Very Cool! I thought it had gone AWOL! Thanks for letting me know - I sent an e-mail TTPB and here I have my answer right here! Thanks!

[+robert]

You can read an article that was done here in Maryland with one of our local cache teams.

 

The article is here.

[+pnew]

Hey here are some tips from my experiences. I was interviewed by The Houston Chronicle over the summer and my interviewer had gone to great lengths to understand how geocaching works. She read posts on the forums, read logs from many area caches, and then she interviewed me. I was very very impressed and the article came out great and I got my picture on the front page of the "This Week" section.

 

then

 

I was asked to be interviewed by a reporter working for my university's online magazine. She had no clue what geocaching was while she was interviewing me and the whole time she had this "I think this is really stupid" tone in her voice. I had to explain all my answers in fear of her misinterpreting and the whole interview went pretty badly. She wasn't going to run the article until I sent some pictures of me with a GPS so I sort of never sent the pics. Then she asked why I never did and I flat out told her that I felt she didn't understand anything of what she was trying to write the story over and that I'd rather have no article at all than a bad and misinformed article. I offered to be interviewed at some other time but she never called back and the story was never published.

 

Be polite but if you don't like how the interviewing is going (too much misunderstanding) I'd kindly ask the interviewer to do some more homework before he/she ran the story or interviewed you again.

Edited January 2, 2004 by pnew