What Went Wrong in Sarah Lacy's Interview of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg?

BusinessWeek reporter Sarah Lacy conducted a keynote interview session with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, as part of an SXSW conference. In the interview, the audience began to criticize her technique and even Mark Zuckerberg called her to task over how she was conducting the interview. Sarah Lacy did the clear majority of the talking, and asked very few questions, instead making statements, and talking about things that occurred during her book interview with Mark Zuckerberg, rather than addressing the issues the audience was there to hear about.

The first thing Sarah Lacy did wrong was forget about her audience. The forum was SXSW, and therefore all questions she asked should have been those geared towards the interests of such an audience.

For those who don't know, SXSW stands for 'South by Southwest' and is an Austin, Texas. It's a series of conferences and festivals revolving around music, film, and interactive media. In other words, her audience would likely be 'techno-geeks' who would be most interested in the development of Facebook as well as upcoming features planned for users of the social networking hub. Other issues to be addressed would have included comparisons of the social networking utility with competitors such as MySpace and Google; and the latest news involving Facebook such as new hire, Google's Sheryl Sandberg.

The next way in which Sarah Lacy erred was in forgetting whom was the subject of the interview. Here is a hint, it was not her, contrary to how she conducted herself. She spent far too much time trying to be cute, talking, and adding her own opinions. The keynote was not her, it was Mark Zuckerberg; and as a professional journalist, that should have been one of the first things she noted for her interview. She took this mistake further with the poor manners of continually interrupting Mark Zuckerberg when he did get an opportunity to speak.

Another gaff on Sarah Lacy's part was in getting too personal. In writing a book, you may have the freedom to explore personal insights into the subject you are interviewing, and share descriptions of character, setting, and mood. In a keynote interview geared towards 'tech-heads' it is not only inappropriate, but it is uninteresting to the audience. They want facts and figures. They want solid information from the keynote. They are not interested in the interviewer's quips or lengthy descriptions of the setting - especially when the long-awaited 'question' is not relevant to the audience or conference . . . and not even a question.

Things became noticeably worse when the audience and Mark Zuckerberg began to comment on Sarah Lacy's poor interviewing skills. Rather than apologize or change what she was doing, Sarah Lacy proceeded to play the role of the victim and even went so far as to claim the audience had no idea how hard it was to do what she was doing. If she felt truly lost, she could have easily opened up the floor to the audience to at least get a feel for what they wanted to know and where she was making mistakes; and at the most, so she could change the situation to a positive one in which all parties would leave happy.

It is challenging to interview someone and come up with interesting questions. It is nerve-wracking for some to be in front of an audience. However, Sarah Lacy made the decision to not only take on the public forum, but to do so at a technical venue. She was ill prepared and unprofessional. She and BusinessWeek should be ashamed of the poor level of journalistic professionalism shown by Sarah Lacy. Can she redeem herself? Of course. However, in an interview afterwards, she continued to play the role of victim and took no responsibility for her own mistakes. Despite audience and critical reaction, she claims the interview went well and that Mark Zuckerberg was happy with it.

A partial segment of the full interview may be seen on youtube, as may the interview of her afterwards.

Sources:

Mark Zuckerberg: Interview with Sarah Lacy. Video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxZ6-O5R1zs

Sarah Lacy Speaks. Video. Omar L. Gallaga. Austin-American Statesman.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wyrny8PP-M