How a source’s material is presented—and received

“Engaging with the Press: A Guide for Perplexed Readers and Sources” was written by Dick Tofel for the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s Center for Health Communication. It was inspired and informed by Dick’s Center for Health Communication class “Engaging with the Press: A Practical Look at Health Communication.”

If you are a source for journalism, you’ll want to consider how the material you provide to the press will be presented, and therefore how it will be received. This implicates each level of what we might call the Pyramid of Presentation, which, at the base, is the publication or broadcast with which you’re engaging, but narrows, successively, to the package of stories or series (if any) within which the reporting is presented, then further to the atomic unit of the story, and finally to snippets or sound bites of what you might offer, which can take on a life of their own.

One of the themes of this exposition has been that you should, if at all possible, endeavor to be familiar with any publication or broadcast before you talk to them. One reason for this is that, in rare circumstances, you may want to rule out cooperating with some outlets altogether. As noted below, that will particularly make sense in cases where you have reason to doubt their accuracy, or their reliability in fulfilling source agreements.

It doesn’t make sense, at least in my view, to decline to speak with a publication or broadcast just because you disagree with its general editorial line, or even because you don’t think a piece of reporting they are pursuing is newsworthy. Indeed, in our polarized society—and absent concerns about accuracy and reliability—it may be especially valuable to respond to inquiries where you do disagree with the approach. If your input is being solicited in these circumstances, it could prove particularly influential. Pete Buttigieg, for instance, both as a Democratic presidential candidate and more recently as Secretary of Transportation, has made repeated appearances in the hostile environment of Fox News, with significant positive results both for him personally and for policies he was championing.

As we progress down the Pyramid of Presentation, your questions for those who would question you should become more detailed. If the article in process is part of some larger effort, such as a package or series, it would be helpful to know that, especially in cases where part of the undertaking has already been published.

I referred to the story itself as the “atomic unit” earlier because this is a critical aspect of journalism today. With search, social media, and now increasingly AI, articles are often retrieved and consumed apart from the publication of which they are an element. This is one of the most important changes that the digital era has brought to journalism. On the one hand, as noted earlier, you will want to be aware of the larger context that has caused the piece to be written. But on the other, you will want to understand clearly that many readers will experience the journalist’s work—and your contributions to it—shorn of that context.

It doesn’t make sense, at least in my view, to decline to speak with a publication or broadcast just because you disagree with its general editorial line, or even because you don’t think a piece of reporting they are pursuing is newsworthy.

The snippet or sound bite is the extreme result of this process of disaggregation. While there will always be a risk of being quoted out of context, both in a full story and in any excerpt of it (including both a full and a partial quotation), there are steps you can take to limit this risk. First and most simply, try to speak in full sentences if you can. Next, if a reporter asks to record an interview (and many good ones will), unless you know and trust them, it is good practice, when you readily can, to also record it yourself. Finally, again absent both familiarity and trust with the interviewer, try to resist the colorful phrase or clever riposte that almost begs to end up floating off on its own into the digital ether.

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