Clients often tell me ‘Laura, the journalist misquoted me. Why would I want to do any more interviews when they’ll just twist my words?’

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard this over the past 15 years.

In fact, fear of being misquoted is one of the main reasons many people don’t want to talk to journalists at all.

But, 9 times out of 10,  when people tell me they were misquoted, they weren’t.

Something else happened that had nothing to do with nefarious journalism and everything to do with the spokesperson being deeply unquotable.

In this video I break down why you were misquoted and what you can do to make your quotes hit the mark every time you talk to journalists on the record.

If you are the one in ten who was actually misquoted, then clearly that is not good and may need specific follow up with the journalist or their editor. But I should stress how rare wilful misquoting actually is. So please make sure that you know exactly what happened before you get in touch.

Because it’s always better to control your own behaviour before and during an interview than to burn your bridges with journalists by trying to control theirs.