Beware the Stealth Interview

Thanks to the time constraints and laziness of both traditional journalists and bloggers, you may be quoted in a story, sometimes at length, without having been interviewed—the victim of a stealth interview. There was a big brouhaha when something similar happened to actor George Clooney recently, but it's really nothing out of the ordinary.

Like Clooney, you would definitely be quoted out of context in a stealth interview, because there is no context. The interview never happened. But you're quoted nonetheless, and you did make the statement. You just didn't think you were saying it to a reporter.

The quote could come from a forum, a blog post or comment, an exchange in a social networking forum, an article you wrote, even an email.

In Clooney's case, the Huffington Post posted a compilation of his critiques of the Iraq war from interviews with Larry King and London's The Guardian.

Chances are good that a traditional or new media reporter is looking for a quote that reinforces or gives contrast to his/her point of view, and something you once said online fit the bill. He or she may take statements of yours from separate interviews or postings and combine them as Clooney's statements were combined. Sure he said those things. Just not in that way, and not all at once. So the reader has no clue that he was, or you were, victim of a stealth interview.

Online, Content Is Forever

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B.L. Ochman is a social media marketing strategist for S&P 500 companies, including McGraw Hill, IBM, Cendant, and American Greetings. She publishes What's Next Blog and Ethics Crisis, where readers can confess their worst ethics transgressions and others can rate them on a scale of one to ten. She also blogs for MarketingProfs Daily Fix Blog.