June 15, 2000
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If you get approached for an interview, the first thing you should do is think for a second about who e's doing the interview for. Each publication, web site, and television show can have its own distinct audience, and you should keep that into consideration as you do the interview.
One of the biggest ways for something to go wrong is for a story to become oversimplified and distorted, and obviously that's much more likely to happen when you're dealing with a non-technical audience. If you're dealing with someone who represents an audience like that, remember to overexplain a little, just to make sure.
As people with a very high level of technical interest, you're a member of subculture, and you can use that to your advantage. There are publications that aren't so tech-focused, but pretty non-mainstream, and they can be sympathetic to certain aspects of living outside the norm. The Village Voice is probably a good example: Its readers are no more technically savvy than the readers of Newsweek, but its readers are more likely to value certain aspects of individuality and being in a subculture, such as taking a stand based on an unpopular opinion.
On the other hand, a mainstream outlet is more likely to fall into the trap of portraying you as somebody who's just rebelling for the hell of it, to be cool, but not out of any genuine interest or belief. When you're dealing with those kinds of reporters, you may have to go out of your way to point out that it's not just a case of a corporation chasing down thrill-seeking kids, that there are actual issues and opinions at stake.
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