A crisis has hit. Your business or organisation is embroiled in a media storm. You have been nominated to front up to the press. So how do you handle hostile interviews? Remember: your two key objectives if you are doing a crisis interview are to take control and deliver your key messages. This is all […]
Media training video: how to give soundbite interviews
This is excruciating, isn’t it? Here is an interviewee who had decided what he wanted to say and was going to deliver that message, no matter what questions were asked. We’ve heard that this was a soundbite interview, so presumably the reason for his parrot-like repetition was that he knew that if he answered the […]
Media training tip: Keep it simple – as Einstein said
‘You mean dumb it down?’ That’s a line we hear a lot during our media training sessions. It’s generally in response to our advice to use simple language during interviews with journalists. My response is generally to quote Einstein. Because dumbing down is most definitely not what we mean. If you want your audience – […]
Media training dilemma: an untrained interviewee
You are the head of communications in a multinational company. You have a call from a TV newsroom. They want you to put up an expert to talk about an issue in which your company has expertise. It’s a great opportunity to showcase your company, increase your credibility and build your reputation. You don’t want […]
22 bridging phrases to help you control media interviews
What is the point of doing interviews with the media if you don’t say what you want – if you don’t deliver the key messages which promote your company or organisation, or which enhance your reputation. None. So how to do that? By taking control of the interview from the journalist. There are many ways […]
Media training lesson: when are you ‘on the record’?
At a recent media training course, one of the trainees had learnt a hard lesson about being ‘on the record’. He’d sat next to a trade journalist at a dinner. He’d had a glass or two of wine. He’s told her a little more than he ought about a project his multi-national company was developing. […]
Interviews with journalists: not a conversation
We delivered three media training courses last week (in fact over two days). One was a refresher for a regular client in which we developed and rehearsed key messages to prepare the three spokespeople for interviews with journalists. The other two were for two different clients, with nine trainees in all, none of whom had […]
5 reasons to avoid jargon in media interviews
I like jargon. Let me state that right up front. When I’m talking journalism or TV production there’s nothing I like more than a bit of: “It’ll be a 3 + 1 in the studio plus one person down the line from Washington.” or “We’ll need three incoming feeds, reverse vision and 2-way talkback.” That may […]
Six golden rules of successful media interviews
What is the secret of successful media interviews? How do you ensure that you make the points you want to – without hesitation, deviation or repetition? (well, maybe strike that last one!) Well, here are our six golden rules of successful media interviews. We give these to our delegates during media training courses. 1. Preparation Never […]
What to expect: TV documentary interview
We recently ran a one-to-one training course for a charity which was highly likely to be featured in documentaries and longer TV and radio items, rather than just in news stories. Of course TV documentary interviews are somewhat different to news interviews, so the head of PR wanted us to give our trainee some pointers […]
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