6. January 2009 08:23
"If I agree to that interview, I want to check what they're going to print before it goes to press..."
Sorry, but dream on. Most journalists will resist very strongly any attempt by anyone outside their publication to influence or in any way exert editorial control over what they have written.
As one reporter at Property Week told me indignantly a while ago when someone had apparently asked for the chance to check in advance what would be published: "I don't tell them how to do their job! I will not be told how to do mine."
The only journalist I know who ever offers my clients the chance to look at what she's written to ensure the facts are correct is Jan Ambrose, editor of the RICS Building Control Journal. But she is entirely and wonderfully unique!
If you're worried about being misquoted, or that a journalist may have got the wrong end of the stick, then there are better ways of making sure the facts come out as they should.
Demanding to check the copy before it goes to press is just seen as an attempt at censorship, so please don't even ask!