Posts Tagged ‘media training’

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Media Training In British Columbia: 14 Questions For Businesses Before Bracing For Breaking News

Monday, May 13th, 2013
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In Victoria, British Columbia, safety expert Steven Adelman and I visit the Parliament Buildings. I later spoke about the media at the International Association of Venue Managers regional conference. One of the first issues I discussed with the audience was bracing for breaking news. I explained how I once covered an accidental shooting at a gun show. That story raises the following questions for business owners to consider before news breaks:

  1. If news breaks at your business and you’re not there, how quickly can someone contact you even on weekends? The accidental gun show shooting happened on a Saturday.
  2. Where will the media park their vehicles? We parked our vehicles wherever we could find a space. Would you corral the media into a specific location?
  3. How will the general feelings of your staff or clientele toward the media impact how you handle reporters? Most people I met at the gun show were suspicious of the media. However, some were more accommodating toward me because I worked at a Fox TV station.
  4. Will you or someone on your behalf answer questions from the media about the breaking news?
  5. How would you handle questions about information you don’t have or are not ready to give out?
  6. Will you be able to answer questions in plain English without sounding like a stiff spokesman obviously choosing every word carefully?
  7. Will you use the phrase “no comment”?
  8. Will you present yourself and deliver your words calmly or get caught up in the adrenaline of the moment?
  9. Will what clothes you wear matter? Should you dress like an executive or roll up your sleeves like someone hard at work gathering information? Will you wear jeans if news breaks on the weekends?
  10. How will you handle social media?
  11. How will you handle reporters who want to walk onto private property and interview witnesses and bystanders? The accidental shooting happened at a convention center. Do you clearly understand which areas are public and which are private? What authority do you have in this situation?
  12. How will you handle photographers who want to walk onto private property to shoot video related to the breaking news?
  13. How will you handle media who request to enter your business to shoot video inside related to the breaking news?
  14. Do you need media training or to put together a plan for your staff to prepare for any of these possibilities?

 

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Media Training In British Columbia: You Got Served

Tuesday, May 7th, 2013
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Erandi had both perfect and imperfect timing.

Venue safety expert Steven Adelman and I had just ended our journey to Victoria, British Columbia to speak at a conference. After two flights and a long taxi ride, a hotel clerk directed us down Government Street for food. We passed a fudge place, promising to return, and entered Bard and Banker Public House on a corner.

At the risk of drawing attention to ourselves, I placed my camera on the bar and set the timer. Erandi, one of the resturant’s servers, did not see my set-up and walked in frame at the precise moment the camera clicked twice.

“Ohhh,” Steve and I shouted simultaneously like when a sports fan’s favorite team just misses a big play. Steve wanted to see the shot immediately. It ended up our favorite photo of the trip, which probably isn’t saying much. Steve started explaining to Erandi the virtues of the candid shot and I announced aloud she probably regretted even passing our table. But she appeared genuinely interested and stood patiently for a while by our table. A man wearing a military ballcap one booth over smiled in amusement.

I ate a turkey sandwhich and we forgot to return for the fudge. The whole trip happened very fast and Erandi was part of the blur.

 

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Media Training: Man In Black

Wednesday, May 1st, 2013

At a Scottsdale resort, we conduct media training with a national organization.

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Media Training: The Big Bag Theory

Friday, April 26th, 2013

I was picking up the cleaners when a TV on the business’ wall showed my former colleague and arch nemesis Fox10 weatherman Cory McCloskey wearing a hairnet. Cory often took any opportunity he had to poke fun of me during his weather segments on the air. He once enlarged a picture of my head and had people fire tomatoes at it on a farm. (It was all in good fun.) On this morning, Cory wore a hairnet while giving us a live tour of a factory that makes tortilla chips. If anyone can wear a hairnet and have it fit in with his shtick, Cory can.

After Cory’s live shot, my other old friend anchorman Ron Hoon delivered a report from the newsroom. But a big, white plastic bag on a desk behind him grabbed my attention. The bag reminded me of one of those you pick up after shopping at the grocery store. A lot of similar plastic bags are stuffed in our kitchen closet. We save them as a backup plan to pick up after our dog Molly. You can see now how one stupid item in the background of your shot can get someone daydreaming. It would disappoint me when I aired what I considered to be an interesting interview and colleagues in the newsroom focused more on the person’s hair, clothes or the fact he or she was not even wearing a shirt. People notice crazy stuff.

I mentioned that paper bag to someone in the newsroom and he texted me back saying, “Keith … those are the homespun touches that make the Hooner so endearing. You know that.”

Not everyone is so endearing. When appearing on camera, clear your background of distractions. Don’t give viewers a reason not to hear your words. I have no idea what Ron Hoon was saying. But I’m sure it was important.

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Media Training: How To Lose A Reporter In 10 Minutes

Tuesday, April 23rd, 2013

Ramble on and on and on without taking a breath.

Use lots of industry acronyms.

Top your acronyms with some lingo.

Give reporters, without them requesting it, a pile of paperwork because you can’t explain the issue yourself in a few sentences.

Insist how horrible something is when you haven’t even explained in simple terms what the heck you are talking about.

Mix together rumors and facts.

Overdramatize the impact of an issue to such an extent that you lose credibility.

Include statistics without a source to back them up.

Explain yourself in such complicated terms that reporters feel like they’re trying to unravel Watergate.

Do a lot of “blah, blah, blah” while actually saying very little.

Insisting the issue is hurting consumers without having a consumer for anyone to interview.

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Media Training: Nothing Personal

Monday, April 15th, 2013
nothing-personal

I believe as a reporter it was my responsibility to ask tough questions or at least ones that viewers at home were mumbling to themselves while watching the news. Some people thought these questions reflected my personal views. The fact that my last reporting job was at a Fox station compounded some people’s perceptions.

In today’s environment of partisan journalism, some questions actually reflect the journalist’s personal views. (I hesitate to use the word journalist in the previous sentence because a journalist in reality should be objective.) However I want to believe most partisan journalism is confined to the cable news networks with some exceptions outside that arena. I want to believe most journalists are just asking tough questions because that is their legitimate job.

Don’t take it personally when reporters ask tough questions. Few reporters want anyone to mistake them as a member of a public relations team. Some reporters go overboard and feel obligated to ask tough questions, to dig deeper into a story, even if they’re covering a bake sale.

First, try to learn what reporter will be interviewing you, limiting the chances someone will catch you off guard. Second, understand most journalists are covering news, not conducting an interview for the yearbook. Expect tough questioning and practice for it. Don’t let them see you sweat. Don’t say something sarcastic about the questions. Some journalists are looking for such a reaction. Don’t give it to them. It’s not personal. It’s business, the business of journalism.

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We Loved Pat Riley Breaking Our Media Training Rules

Monday, April 1st, 2013

Media Training

The Chicago Bulls break the Miami Heat’s winning streak. LeBron James raises questions about how the Bulls played. The Boston Celtics’ President of Basketball Operations Danny Ainge criticizes LeBron for his comments. Heat President Pat Riley then issues the following statement:

“Danny Ainge needs to shut the f— up and manage his own team. He was the biggest whiner going when he was playing and I know that because I coached against him.”

I’m not checking my notes, but that statement likely breaks several rules we teach during media training. However, it is possible we’ve never told someone to specifically not include the word “f—“ in a sound bite. That was an oversight.

Despite conventional wisdom, I liked what Riley said. I actually loved it. First, I’m a Heat fan, so I’ve spent several days receiving texts from a Bulls fan telling me everything wrong with the Heat. I never responded by saying, “Shut the f— up.” But I reminded him he sounded like a jilted boyfriend or girlfriend and that he roots for a baseball team which hasn’t won the World Series since 1908.

Second, I liked what Riley said because it blows back with such harshness the rules of corporate speak. Long ago, I tired of the B.S. language some corner office executives employ when speaking to their underlings. I learned when some managers complimented me, their strategy was simply to soften me up for a request they figured I wouldn’t like. Managers often meant to say, “Shut the f— up,” but they used carefully chosen language that anyone could easily misinterpret as, “Those are very pretty flowers on your dress.”

Few people say what they mean. And we certainly can’t start teaching executives, when confronted by a hard-charging reporter, to respond with, “Shut the f— up you whiny member of the media.”

But in a world in which people are so scared to say “no” that they instead tell us they’ll keep our information on file, I appreciate when someone, every once in a while, breaks the rules in such a blatant way. It sometimes just feels so good to hear. You feel like you are dancing, exhaling freedom, like Steve Carell at the end of “The 40 Year-Old Virgin.”

Don’t like it. Then you can … I appreciate your opinion and respectfully disagree.

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Media Training: Prepare For A Quickie

Tuesday, March 5th, 2013

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The TV anchor’s last question during our client’s live interview was a complicated one. And the anchor’s body language indicated to me time was running out almost immediately after he asked the question.

Our client texted me, “I told him off air that it was kind of boring and technical. Evidently he still wanted to ask, even though there wasn’t much time. I couldn’t stop midway through my answer or it wouldn’t have made sense.”

Toward the top of his answer on air, he said, “Very briefly …” Those words indicated he understood time was tight.

The anchor even raised his pen, reinforcing what I might as well translate as, “I know I just asked you the most complicated question of this interview, but it is time to wrap things up buddy.”

Our client: “I saw him raise his pen so I knew we were out of time.”

The entire answer to a complex question was about 20 seconds. Sometimes you unexpectedly need a quickie.

 

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Media Training: Handling Interviews Without Questions

Wednesday, February 27th, 2013

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That title sounds silly. But some interviews lack questions.

A TV anchor recently interviewed one of our clients live. Our client provided five answers during the interview. But all five answers were responses to statements not questions by the anchor. The anchor made statements, in a sense providing his own analysis, and then paused for our client to respond with answers.

I know firsthand these types of interviews can feel awkward. After I finished a live shot, anchors sometimes made statements expecting me to respond with answers. In those situations, the anchors did not actually ask questions.

This form of communication seems easy in everyday life. We have back and forth conversations without questions necessarily prompting the discussion to move forward. But this can throw some people off especially during live interviews in which you expect naturally to be asked questions.

Practice handling these interviews before the real thing. Respond to these statements in the same way you might if they were slightly reorganized into questions. And keep some extra facts and information in your back pocket to use in these very circumstances. If no one asked you a question and there is no obvious way to respond, use these opportunities to provide additional information you might otherwise not have an opportunity to share.

Hopefully you will not face these interviews often. But some journalists, TV hosts and other on air personalities like this style of interview.

In an ideal world, if reporters didn’t ask you questions, you wouldn’t need to provide answers. But just sitting there, saying nothing and staring back would truly look silly.

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Media Training: Lost For Words? So Turn It On And Watch

Thursday, February 21st, 2013
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A TV station asked one of our clients to provide live analysis on the phone as soon as possible about breaking news. We didn’t know about the breaking news before the station called. And part of his analysis depended on seeing the scene. But driving to the scene was not a practical option. TV stations often want to show live video of big breaking news as much as possible. Not having much information won’t stop the live coverage. So TV stations often need witnesses and experts to provide analysis to fill airtime.

For his live phone interview, our client used the TV station as his eyes from afar. He turned on the TV station, which sent its chopper above the scene to provide live pictures. He provided analysis on the phone while staying in front of a TV and watching what the station was showing viewers. This idea seems simple. But some people, in the rush to prepare themselves to unexpectedly talk on live TV, may not immediately consider to actually turn on the TV (and turn down the volume) while speaking.

It wasn’t uncommon for TV stations to send me to breaking news and ask us to provide a live report as soon as we arrived. This allowed me little time to gather information. The stations wanted me live. They wanted live pictures. Whether or not I had concrete details to discuss wasn’t going to stop a live shot. In these situations, some reporters dig themselves into a hole by attempting to relay facts they don’t have. I would point and describe the scene. Maybe I didn’t have sufficient information, but I could describe what I was witnessing. And that was good enough to go along with live video.

You’ve heard of walk and talk. Consider this watch and talk.

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