BuzzMachine

Here’s the video in case you’re still interested http://www.austin360.com/news/mplayer/sxsw/73367

Great analysis, Jeff.

This says it all: “In my book, getting mark to publicly admit to the yahoo deal, address beacon, and give news on changes in the platform and france equals successful interview.”

You don’t know what you saw, she’s saying.

That the world has changed enough to change the dynamics of an interview does not seem to have occurred to her. Or her “book.”

Obviously the skills that help one do well in print journalism do not necessarily extend to “live” or visual media.

So who thought they would?

Sarah Lacy responds: http://tinyurl.com/3dkqru [YouTube Video Interview]

I was so disgusted yesterday that I left, apparently before the worse part: the last ten minutes. But I had a hard time with her because, as you pointed out, of the Mrs Robinson thing. It made me vomit, as a woman with a long journalistic background. You nailed it. Her interview afterwards with the Austin Statesman American is even worse.

Hillary is not a manager. She is a battering ram. They are never good managers. Scary that 69% of Dems think she COULD share a ticket with Obama.

Her body language in the clip says it all….

Oh, and no one that big will ever come to SXSW again.

The greatest shame in all this silly ugliness is that the audience, and that means us “watching” (Twittering mostly) here at home too, has become is so intensely frustrated with the state of most MSM that they’re reduced to taking out their frustration on some lowly MSM reporter. There’s plenty of higher-up media Bastille left to storm.

I know as I too got so fed-up at the recent Journalism + Computation Symposium at Georgia Tech in Atlanta when a Georgia Public TV reporter took the mic and stated that all bloggers needed to be regulated.

I honestly couldn’t help myself when I then blurted-out in response, “She’s (the GPB reporter) full of shit.”

I’m just glad it was only the head of the Journalism School at UGA who was sitting in front of me who turned to see who was behaving so rudely… and not my mother.

And for those who think that sexist crap doesn’t still happen, it does. Unconsciously mostly, but ALL THE TIME in social media.

I witnessed Jay Rosen’s citizen journalism pal, Leonard Witt, again at the Computation + Journalism Symposium recently at GA Tech, introduce one of the very few women panelists at that particular conference, Ms. Culver from Pownce, by talking throughout the entire introduction time he was allotted ONLY about Twitter… fer chrissake, and barely once mentioning Ms. Culver’s own product or work! And the sad part… he never even realized what he was NOT talking about.

Shame again.

I wasn’t there in person but watched the video online. I didn’t find it very Mrs. Robinson-y. It felt overly familiar, but not necessarily in a flirty way. I think Lacy made mistakes and came off as condescending, but Zuckerberg seems like a horrible interview and the crowd was rude. More than the weird tone of the whole thing, I was really distracted by how Z addressed the crowd instead of speaking directly to Lacy.

It was a boring interview, but I’m still not convinced it warrants as much criticism as it has received. I’d be interested to read what someone like Kara Swisher has to say about this, because a lot of the analysis (not yours) smacks of sexism.

After she asked if someone could send her a message later on why she ‘sucked so bad’, I’m sure I could hear the person at the mic say something like ‘it’s because you’re wearing a dress’

I could be mistaken though.

While I agree with a lot of your points, it seems a stretch to translate this horrible interview into another “wow is the msm out of touch” post.

She did a terrible job of preparation and deciding what was really important. Her failing wasn’t opening up the interview process to the audience ahead of time, or anything else new media related. That wouldn’t have helped her, since she obviously just wasn’t capable of seeing what she needed to do.

And part of her failing was also due to ego, a failing which is just as likely to be found online as offline.

Very thoughtful overall analysis.

Scoble via Twitter: “Mark Zuckerberg wants a redo. He’ll be doing an open Q&A today at 4:30 at Pangaea.”

Maybe he should be given an undo as well.

thank you for the overview and reflection of the event. I am just now starting to read up on this and not being able to go to sxsw I really didn’t understand what the twitter buzz was about it. great advice and observations.

It sounds like she flopped, but who knows–she could have drank a huge cup of coffee beforehand, and that coupled with nerves, plus a feeling of familiarity with Zuckerburg that made her sort of detach from the audience, could have been her downfall. Being up on stage can be a freaky experience and make you do/say things you wouldn’t normally do. (But yes, they should have gotten someone more experienced for this huge opportunity!)

I’ve seen terrible interviews given by men, with the “let me talk about my knowledge of what you do instead of hearing from you…” I really liked the river analogy someone gave earlier. Interviews are all about letting the other person talk and really listening to pick up on cues of where to take it next. This girl needs a PR coach and fast!

Jeff, you don’t get it.

The audience was full of Web 2.0 fanboys and fangirls. You’re criticizing Sarah because she didn’t please the fanboys and fangirls.

But Lacy failed, not because she interrupted, but because she can’t write about Facebook from a social, economic or moral standpoint.

You’re a good evangelist, you use every media opportunity you have to blow the Web 2.0 cause. But you can’t be an evangelist and an honest journalist too.

Watch Zachary and Markoff here, you might get what I think the Doctor is talking about.

http://www.crankygeeks.com/2008/01/episode_97_tech_jounalism_at_t.php

I don’t want the “journalism” you want, because it isn’t journalism – it’s suck-up PR.

Is this so hard to understand?

This is not the first time we’ve seen an interview, panel session, or presentation go south. But this was so darn high profile. In fact, more times than not, people are not prepared or self indulgent.

I actually got so frustrated going to so many bad panel sessions that I wrote an article entitled “More Schmooze, Less Snooze: How to Deliver ‘The Most Talked About’ Conference Session.” It’s got advice for moderators, panelists, and even attendees. Give it a read and let me know what you think.

Online: http://sparkmediasolutions.com/conference.html
PDF: http://tinyurl.com/2nkfn4

David

OK, this whole debacle got me to thinking about my former stand-up comedy days. And it inspired me to write something about how to deal with unruly crowds. So for those of you who might be faced with a similar situation in the future, I wrote the following post:

How to deal with rough crowds: A stand-up comic’s advice for Sarah Lacy
http://www.sparkminute.com/?p=276

SXSW is a gamers conference? I thought it was a music, film and interactive media conference.

Fascinating argument that the way to deal with an insolent and uncooperative interviewee is to get tough with him. Does that usually work? On 60 Minutes maybe; but that’s an artifact of editing.

On the tape, the crowd has no opportunity to ask questions until hecklers interrupt and demand it, and that’s when Sarah relents and tells the crowd it’s become a Digg-style mob, but, okay, go ahead with your questions….

Susan Mernit: “In this day and age of real time interactivity, unconferences and bar camps, everyone in the audience wants to be the interviewer–and, in a way, they should be. One could argue that Sarah Lacy’s mistake was in not realizing she was just the vessel to channel the crowd–that she didn’t engage enough in participatory media–and that failure made her irrelevant to the audience, who then leapt on her cruelly as she became non-relevant to their agenda.”

“You’re chickenshit and lob your little water balloons. Is that so hard to understand? You want to talk about integrity. Have a little.”

Wow. Instead of insulting your readers, why not address the points they raise?

Here’s that link to Markoff and Zachary again –

http://www.crankygeeks.com/2008/01/episode_97_tech_jounalism_at_t.php

Technology needs to be written about intelligently and critically. Handing the mic to the audience doesn’t cut it. A Twitter feed doesn’t cut it. Can you put your evangelism to one side for a moment, and address this point?

Try again, Jeff. The people formerly known as the audience would love your input on this conversation!

Any allegations of sexism are just laughable. One of the most popular speakers year after year is Kathy Sierra. No one cares about her gender, just her amazing content. That’s why her blog was so popular too.

They do these kinds of interviews every year — last year they had Dan Rather, two years ago they had Craig Newmark. Sometimes they’re good, sometimes they’re so-so. This one was easily the suckiest one I’ve ever seen.

The problem was not the audience or the interview subject (though sometimes it is – Dan Rather was pretty boring). The problem was the person asking the questions. It was obvious to any one who was there.

@Dr. P Miller – she didn’t just interrupt him, she hijacked the conversation and often answer on his behalf. I bet the ratio of words between them was 50/50. A good interviewer should shoot for 90/10 or 80/20. She wasn’t just off her game, she was in the wrong ballpark.

“If I were up there, I’d have blogged a week before asking SXSWers what I should discuss with Zuckerberg. And if things still went sour with my own questions, I’d have opened up the discussion to the floor with the simple question: What do you want to know?”

Easy for you to say now.

I don’t know how you know the audience in a situation like this. It’s so diverse, and certainly more outspoken than any other audience. This is why the “conference” setting is so useless, and the BarCamp approach isn’t.

Not listening is just so bad, and fairly typical. Some people just want to be with the cool kids that they try too hard. Intimidation does strange things to people.

Since you’re a journalism teacher, why is this even important to you? Will your journalism students be doing an interview with billionaire in front of techies? No.

Cuban wrote about how bad newspaper bloggers are for the business. Hopefully you’ll address something your students can benefit from.

Calling for intelligent technology criticism obviously touches a nerve with Mr Jarvis.

Can you tell me which part of my post feels like a spit in the face for you? And which part is over the line?

>>
The audience was full of Web 2.0 fanboys and fangirls. You’re criticizing Sarah because she didn’t please the fanboys and fangirls. But Lacy failed, not because she interrupted, but because she can’t write about Facebook from a social, economic or moral standpoint.

You’re a good evangelist, you use every media opportunity you have to blow the Web 2.0 cause. But you can’t be an evangelist and an honest journalist too. Watch Zachary and Markoff here, you might get what I think the Doctor is talking about.

http://www.crankygeeks.com/2008/01/episode_97_tech_jounalism_at_t.php

I don’t want the “journalism” you want, because it isn’t journalism – it’s suck-up PR.

Is this so hard to understand?
<<

Ouch… I could barely watch enough of the video to understand how well you nailed this analysis of it. Tragic (in the Greek sense) for Lacy. Even if she’s a good reporter, she still shoulders the responsibility for flubbing it here. As you’ve pointed out.

The interviewee wasn’t easy, but she should have known that from the pre-interview meetings she alluded to. And yes, her bizarre flirtatious angle on this was a big part of the problem too. For parts of the interview, she was looking at him aside, twirling her hair, even looking at the floor and talking barely audibly as she swallowed whatever she was saying. Which was always too much to be saying since, no, she was not supposed to be the focus of all this.

But here, I think, is the one real mistake you didn’t directly name — she failed to become fascinated by the subject herself. If there’s one attribute across all great writers and interviewers that stands out, it’s that they are insatiably curious about almost any topic that can be opened up and explored. In short, the writer cares much, about everything. And that passion plus the skill they develop for asking the right questions is what makes them great.

Throughout this whole thing, she didn’t seem to care much at all… about anything but herself and the “hip” impression she hoped to make. In the end (here comes Greek tragedy again) that was the very thing that denied her what she’d hoped for.