Schmidt stonewalls reporter that flew cross-country for interview
It’s not too often I directly relate to CNET reporters (they’re often doing different things in different ways than us), but I totally feel for Elinor Mills — the way Eric Schmidt treated her as a member of the press is pretty weak. But worse, I’d say, is that his PR / handlers didn’t make it completely clear ahead of time that this wasn’t a general interview, and that she was expected to stick to only one topic — that day’s announcement, which happened to be the excruciatingly dry news about Google Health. (Typically when I get high level executive interviews anything similar to that I just turn them down. Really, what’s the point?) I don’t know if I’ve ever been stonewalled that bad though, that’s rough — very poor form having her fly all the way out for ten minutes of nothing, Google. I don’t know about anyone else, but I want to see a redux — and from Mountain View or SF, next time.
I'm an editor and technology critic in the midst of founding a new web startup: 
From the interview it looked like it was supposed to be related to Google Health so I can understand some of it but I don’t think she deserved to be stonewalled on the privacy/advert stuff.
She was granted the privilege of interviewing a very prominent CEO. She knew what the conditions of the interview were, and she voluntarily violated those conditions; it seems logical and sensible that prospect interviewees will take that into consideration and deny her the right to interview them. Mr. Schmidt accepted her tough questions that were directly relevant to the topic, and that is all that should be expected of him.
You have to be smart about where to push and where not to push, and she Clearly does not know where that line stands.
Doesn’t really work that way, Gremlin. Unless you know you’re walking into an interview with a company or executive with extremely limited scope (not the case here) it’s pretty frowned upon to grant a sit-down with a reporter and then refuse to talk about anything but a single topic. What’s more, most PR people won’t tell the media in advance if they intend to confine the interview only to a single topic. Usually this is because it’s part of their job to meet a quota of a certain number of appointments with high profile outlets, and none of those outlets would bother dispatching reporters for some paltry interview about, say, Google Health — even with someone like Schmidt.
Also, the “privilege” goes both ways, since these CEO’s want the media coverage and, by giving the interviews, they have some control over how the stories get told. They don’t invite the interviewers out of some altruistic agenda, or because they feel they “owe it” to anyone. They give the interviews because they WANT the coverage. It is a symbiotic relationship that benefits both sides.
And, what Ryan is saying is that there are unspoken rules of that game.
BTW, happy fourth birthday, Ryan!