Why the executive interview is a fraud

By Digby Whitman
Of all business media practices, the most dreadful, the most decayed, the most hotly embarrassing, the most palpably offensive to the nostrils of God, is the executive message in the form of an "interview" with the company president or Chief Executive Officer.

You know the kind of thing I mean.

Q. "Mr. Huffnpuff, how would you rate our company's performance profitwise for the year just ended?"

A. "Well, Jim, as you know, it was a very difficult year for our industry. But on balance, I think I can say ..." and so on.

I have seen answers beginning "That's a very good question" or even "I'm glad you asked me that."

In a further and equally fruitless attempt to lend credibility to the incredible, the "interview" pages are often studded with photos—Huffnpuff leaning forward, Huffnpuff leaning back, Huffnpuff frowning thoughtfully as he ponders a reply.


A genuine interview is an exchange between a questioner who doesn't know the answers and a respondent who has no control over the questions. The phony "interview" is nothing of the sort. Both questions and answers are carefully tailored to the convenience of the CEO. Indeed, no actual question-and-answer session ever takes place. It's purely a paper exercise.

To me, the most irksome aspect of the exercise is not its fraudulence but its naivete. Nobody old enough to read could for a moment be deceived by it.

Successful fraud may be by general standards deplorable, but at least it has the consolations of success. What can be said for a fraud that exposes itself as it goes along? The inverted commas around the word "interview" in this article are sneers, inserted with the hope of persuading editors (at least) to cast executive or institutional messages as straightforward monologues.

I am not trying to steer you away from fraud; it's an indispensable editorial tool. But stick to honest fraud.

The late Digby Whitman was the director of communications for Employers Insurance of Wausau, and an essayist for The Ragan Report for many years.

Article comments:
Tuesday, December 09, 2008 9:13:37 AM by pat

I'm put in mind of an episode of "The Simpsons," in which Homer's boss at the nuclear power plant, Mr. Burns, is running for governor, and wants to appear to have the common touch. So he agrees to have dinner at the Simpsons' home, and one of his advisors preps Homer's daughter Lisa for the dinnertime conversation:

Advisor: Little girl, do you think you can memorize this by dinnertime tomorrow?

Lisa: "Mr. Burns: your campaign seems to have the momentum of a runaway freight train. Why are you so popular?''

Advisor: Very good.

Lisa: Mm. Well, as long as I'm asking something, can I ask him to assuage my fears that he's contaminating the planet in a manner that may one day render it uninhabitable?

Advisor: No, dear. The card question'll be fine.


Tuesday, December 09, 2008 11:39:56 AM by Jay

As a counterpoint if done well, without the glad-handing and ham-handedness described above, the Q&A can be a very effective format.

It's very concise and easy for the reader to scan, allowing the crisp delivery and retention of key messages.

Like all executive communications, it ought to actually sound like the executive otherwise, it's worthless.

Tuesday, December 09, 2008 11:58:24 AM by John H

Q & A should be an anathema to writers. It's a poor substitute for writing. If it's a transcript, it needs editing. If it's edited, that's dishonest.

Tuesday, December 09, 2008 12:20:03 PM by Vic Morales

I agree with Jay, if done right, it's effective. However, I've done a lot of video and recently a podcast interview. Each time, the interviewee wants a scriptwhich I say no. The reason being is that employees appreciate the non-scripted, real-life answer approach.

Tuesday, December 09, 2008 12:42:35 PM by Steve Lachowicz

Interviewing the general manager about these tough financial times and making the interview available as a minimally edited video on our Intranet has been highly successful for us. We don't shy from the tough questions about pay raises or budget cutbacks, and employees have responded favorably. They say they appreciate seeing the GM respond and want to hear what he has to say.

Tuesday, December 09, 2008 1:19:53 PM by Barry Nelson

Has anyone bothered to research this subject with actual readers? How would they prefer to have the exec's thoughts presented in written form? Which presentation style actually gets the information through? If your audience has already seen it handled more than one way, an objective questionnaire might be useful. If not, maybe a focus group review of alternative formats? Might seem like a lot of bother, but if it settles the question for you, probably worth it.

Tuesday, December 09, 2008 1:46:07 PM by Jay

"Has anyone bothered to research this subject with actual readers?"

I can tell you that a regular Q&A feature on the intranet site I ran for three years was always a pageview leader each month.

I think Q&As still have their place, and while podcasts have risen to occupy that space as well, hits on a Q&A or story almost always outweigh podcast downloads by a factor of 10.

Not such a big fan of online video Q&As the audio is generally fine, but the visuals are pretty static and dull. Better to do a podcast, IMO.

Tuesday, December 09, 2008 3:05:01 PM by Paul Long

The ultimate point here...make the Q&A candid and unscripted. In terms of video, I produce a lot of "soundbite driven" narratives (both internal and external) and even get hired to interview and not ask questions but get good soundbites.

The key is to have authentic and credible soundbites (or in the case of print, those kinds of quotes). The Q&A format can be especially effective if it's an outsider doing the interview and its clear the answers are not prompted or memorized. Even better is to have many different soundbites from key people (and not just C-level) to tell the story.

Otherwise, the author is right...people pick up on that in a nano-second and creates a huge downside.