When ‘off the record’ is not necessarily off the record

Prior to becoming a PR practitioner, I was a journalist for a number of years. As a journalist, as soon as someone would say to me, “this is off the record,” I would reply, “If you tell it to me, it’s on the record.” In most cases, that would end the conversation.

As a PR pro, one of the first rules I insisted account people reporting to me follow was to never have “off-the-record” conversations with journalists. There is no guarantee that “off-the-record” conversations will remain sacrosanct because often future circumstances will force journalists to break their commitments.

Here is the advice I give to clients before the interview begins:

Though it is important to remind clients that anything they say to a reporter can be used in a story, it is equally important for the PR person attending the interview to do the following:

There are also important actions that should be followed immediately after the interview: