A print reporter comes to your office to do an interview for a story she’s writing. When she walks in, she pulls out her handy Flip video camera and asks if it’s okay for her to record the conversation. “Sure,” you say.

The next day, you go to the publication’s web site to see if your story is posted yet. Not only did the reporter write about what you said, but she also posted the entire video of your interview.

This has happened recently to a couple of my clients. The good news is they got more visibility and publicity. The bad news is they did the interviews as if they weren’t being taped so they didn’t come across as well as they could have.

What’s the difference? The first is how they sat. On my clients’ videos, they were hunched over a conference table with what looked like sloppy posture. One was wringing his hands during part of the interview.

When you’re on video, you want to sit with good posture, leaning about 15 degrees forward and using the front 2/3 of the chair. That way you look engaged and in control. And yes, use gestures, but don’t play with your pencil or wring your hands.

Second, they rambled with unfocused, lengthy answers. If it were just a print interview (or even an edited TV interview), the reporter could boil it down for her story, just using a quote or two. But on video, it was there for everyone to see and hear.

Third, they lacked energy and enthusiasm. They seemed bored with what they were saying. It might not have come across that way in person, but because TV absorbs energy, we have to be a little more animated than we are during a normal conversation (especially one done at the end of a long, tiring day).

Today, everybody is a journalist, TV reporter, and photographer. And, you always have to be “on.”

This isn’t about communications, PR or media, but I have to blog about it anyway. The Arizona Cardinals are awesome! The fact that they are one game away from playing in the Super Bowl is surreal and absolutely unbelievable.

I’m one of the many fans who’ve have been here in Phoenix since the Cardinals arrived in 1987, watching team after team play embarrassing football. Every fall we’d be promised that “things will be different this year,” but they never were. The owner of the team, Bill Bidwill, was not one of my favorite people.

We fans were overjoyed that the 2008 Cardinals would get to play their first home playoff game since the 40’s. But to think they could actually win it, then go to Carolina and win on the road (after being 0-5 on the East coast this year) is still too much to comprehend.

Then the football gods aligned so that Philadelphia beat the 2007 world champion Giants. Now the Cardinals get another home playoff game. If they win that, I will feel as if I’m on another planet.

I usually like the Fox pregame team — Jimmy, Howie, Terry, and Michael — but none of them gave the Cardinals a chance on Saturday. Neither did the rest of the national sports media, with some even claiming the Cardinals were the worst playoff team in history. After the game, only Terry Bradshaw seemed contrite, saying that he’d never pick against the Cardinals again.

Well, guess what, the rest of you so-called media “experts” can just kiss my you-know-what!

The CEO of a Fortune 100 company was scheduled to deliver a presentation to six hundred of his employees at an off-site meeting. Of course, these are touchy times for businesses, so staffers carefully created extensive PowerPoint slides to go with his speech.

They — and everyone else — were surprised when the CEO walked up to the lectern and announced that he wasn’t going to use his prepared speech. He had decided instead to just talk to the troops — straightforwardly and without the visual crutch.

He’d always been a good speaker, but most in the audience believed this was the best presentation they’d ever seen him give.

Why?

I wasn’t there, but I can guess. Because he spoke from his heart without reading words that someone else had written for him. Because the audience knew the speech wasn’t crafted with carefully worded sentences. Because he didn’t let PowerPoint get in the way of his messages.

I have seen many decent speakers turn into boring drones as they presented dozens of dull slides to their audience. Usually, instead of supporting the presentation, PowerPoint gets in the way of it. The visual “aid” becomes a detriment.

So, if you can’t take the time to design really good PowerPoint slides, why not try to present without them all together? You may be surprised how good you really are.

No wonder most press releases end up in the trash. A random search on Tuesday September 8, 2008.

Quote that says nothing in 64 words:

“We are constantly evaluating our channel lineup to ensure we provide our customers with high-quality programming that best meets their diverse interests,” said Tony Speller, senior vice president for Comcast’s Houston Region. “The enhancements we’ve made to the Canales Selecto package add even more value and choice to this popular level of service and we’re excited to offer this expanded package to our customers.”

Hot air:

“We are excited about the breadth and depth of information we are able to provide on the re-launched website, particularly with the interactive media center,” said Jon Hall, Chief Marketing Officer of Travelport. “We believe that Travelport’s media center offers unique and unrivaled materials which provide views into the travel sector as well as emerging trends in the economy.”

Blah Blah Blah:

“Our customers are constantly facing the challenge of managing information from various data sources, technologies and systems,” said Marge Breya, general manager and executive vice president, Business Intelligence Platform, Business Objects, an SAP company. “They are looking to gain access to unified, reliable and trusted information via an intuitive user experience. With today’s announcement, we are helping organizations to bridge the information divide between the ‘technically capable’ and the ‘professionally informed’ so that everyone can have the decision-quality information they need to do their jobs.”

Two snooze inducers in the same press release:

“The joint interoperability tests with ViVOtech send an important signal to everyone involved in NFC applications: If they use our ProxSIM cards, they can rely on the latest and future-proof technology of NFC-enabled SIM cards and compatible standards for future NFC systems. This, coupled with the experience that we have garnered from numerous NFCprojects all over the world, enable us together to forge ahead with the wide-scale introduction of NFC,” states Dr. Klaus Vedder, head of the Telecommunications division at G&D.

“Successfully completing an interoperability test with a key leader in SIM chip technology such as Giesecke & Devrient’s shows our vision of delivering the most open and interoperable solution to the NFC market,” said Michael Mullagh, CEO of ViVOtech. “With widely tested multi-application NFC software deployed in 25 NFC payment field pilots, and more than 450,000 NFC readers shipped to over 30 countries, ViVOtech is uniquely well positioned to enable mobile network operators, financial service providers, and merchants to quickly roll out of their NFC mobile payment solutions.”

I’m still sleeping:

“This integration of functionality into a customizable suite of add-on capabilities reflects our continuing commitment to stay ahead of the technology curve by anticipating customer needs,” said David Drake, CEO/CTO of Revelation Software Concepts. “The structured suite of add-ons delivers our industry-leading change control technology in a way that allows customers to add functionality without delay when it is needed, and not before.”

Boring:

“The joint interoperability tests with ViVOtech send an important signal to everyone involved in NFC applications: If they use our ProxSIM cards, they can rely on the latest and future-proof technology of NFC-enabled SIM cards and compatible standards for future NFC systems. This, coupled with the experience that we have garnered from numerous NFC projects all over the world, enable us together to forge ahead with the wide-scale introduction of NFC,” states Dr. Klaus Vedder, head of the Telecommunications division at G&D.

“Successfully completing an interoperability test with a key leader in SIM chip technology such as Giesecke & Devrient’s shows our vision of delivering the most open and interoperable solution to the NFC market,” said Michael Mullagh, CEO of ViVOtech. “With widely tested multi-application NFC software deployed in 25 NFC payment field pilots, and more than 450,000 NFC readers shipped to over 30 countries, ViVOtech is uniquely well positioned to enable mobile network operators, financial service providers, and merchants to quickly roll out of their NFC mobile payment solutions.”

Steve Jobs and/or Apple do it right in two press releases on the same day:

1).“iPod touch is the funnest iPod we’ve ever created,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Users can listen to millions of songs, watch thousands of Hollywood movies and now, thanks to the App Store, download and play hundreds of great games on their iPod touch.”

2). “The iPod nano is the world’s most popular music player and we’ve made it even better for this holiday season,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We think users are going to love the amazing new design, the automatic Genius playlist creation, as well as automatically going into Cover Flow with just a turn of the wrist.”

Both John McCain and Sarah Palin hit a home run in their convention speeches last week, each in a different way. McCain arguably had the easiest challenge, at least concerning the delivery of his speech.

Because of past underwhelming examples we’ve seen when he reads a formal speech from a TelePrompter, expectations for Thursday’s acceptance speech were low. But, in my opinion, he was able to exceed those expectations by showing us a real, down-to-earth person.

He does that better in his more informal Town Hall speeches, but this time he brought that same sincerity to the main platform. I was surprised at how comfortable he seemed and how easily he smiled, as opposed the the fake, forced smiles in other speeches. There was very little of the stammering and fumbling I’ve seen in other presentations. Obviously he prepared and practiced, a good lesson for all of us.

But Sarah Palin — WOW! What a speech! She did so many things right, it’s hard to illuminate them all. She was extremely natural, at ease, and seemed like she was really having fun. She spoke conversationally and passionately, but didn’t yell as so many of the convention speakers did. (To their defense, many of them didn’t have the rapt attention that Palin did and had to try to speak louder than the audience members visiting with their neighbors.)

She used the power of the pause, for emphasis and drama. And she read well, without making it seem like she was reading at all. That is a skill that doesn’t come naturally or easily.

The speech was well written, thanks to the writers in the background, but Palin can take the all the credit for the fine delivery. Supposedly, she rehearsed for three days and even practiced the night before at 10:20 to see if she had the right energy level for that time of night.

It paid off!

In an effort to boost advertising revenue, Meredith Corporation has crossed a line that could destroy what little credibility local news has left. I’m talking about product placements during newscasts at KVVU in Las Vegas. Anchors on the morning show sit with cups of McDonald’s iced coffee on their desks during the news and lifestyle portion of the show. Other Meredith stations are doing the same thing.

This is anathema to any true journalist. The strict line between news and advertising is a long-honored tradition. When I worked at KPNX channel 12 in Phoenix, the line was also physical. The news department was upstairs, advertising downstairs.

One day the line was tested. Our investigative reporter planned to air a segment critical of the repair shop at one of the city’s largest car dealerships. The station’s rep for the dealership made the long trip upstairs. He asked the news director to kill the segment because his client had threatened to cancel its hefty advertising contract. The news director refused. That day we all felt proud to be in journalism.

The people at KVVU can’t be feeling proud of their profession these days. The news director at the station was put on the spot when he had to justify his company’s actions in an interview with the New York Times. “There was a healthy dose of skepticism, and I’m please there was—it means they’re being journalists,” said Adam Bradshaw.

Except that now they don’t feel so much like journalists and neither does he. They know like the rest of us that they’ve crossed a sacred line and beyond it lies a very slippery slope. If you can have cups of McDonald’s iced coffee on your desk during the news, it’s not much of a stretch to have sponsored newscast segments with the anchors touting their favorite restaurants or movies.

The result: Audiences don’t trust the news so TV stations don’t get the viewership they need to stay alive. Everyone loses.