Why You Need Media Training
Have you ever seen a media interview go completely off track? Maybe the chief executive stumbled over their words, refused to answer questions, or was defensive and secretive. Cringeworthy isn’t it? These faux pas tend to happen when company spokespeople go into media interviews without any preparation or media training.
As a busy entrepreneur, media training is probably low on your priority list. But knowing how to speak to the media is a skill that’s vastly different from addressing board members, colleagues or clients. And whether you like it or not, the time will come where you’ll have to face the media as part of your role — hopefully because a journalist wants to write about your ground-breaking product or new service, rather than report on a crisis your company is embroiled in. Either way, media training is a great way to help you develop the skills to get your key messages across succinctly and with impact.
If you’re not convinced, here are five compelling reasons to change your mind:
You’ll learn the difference between media channels
Newspapers, TV, radio and social media all deliver news and information, but they do so in different ways. If you know how the channels differ from one another, you’ll be ahead of the curve. For example, if you’re being interviewed on TV, you’ll need to communicate your key messages in short sound bites because you’ll have very limited airtime. Compare that to print interviews. A journalist writing a feature for a magazine may interview you for half an hour or more. You’ll have plenty of time to give them background information on your company, products or services. You’ll be able to wax lyrical about how great you and your business are.
If you understand the difference between the media channels, you’ll be more effective at communicating your messages. This is a skill media training will teach you.
You’ll learn to talk in sound bites
As I mentioned in the the last point, the key to effective TV interviews is being able to speak in sound bites. You may well be able to talk about your business and area of expertise ad infinitum, but this isn’t going to get you anywhere with TV and radio journalists. With them, less is more. If you lose an interviewer in a long-winded response, you could be cut short without getting your point across.
Media training will teach you to make your responses concise and give the media quotable nuggets of information.
You’ll learn to handle tough questions
The unfortunate reality is any media interview could contain at least one hairy question you don’t want to answer, or you didn’t see coming. A large part of any media training session will focus on helping you to navigate these situations by arming you with strategies to steer the interview away from the difficult questions and onto the topics you do want to talk about.
You’ll get comfortable with the environment
You may well be a seasoned public speaker and know everything there is to know about your company, but being grilled under bright lights, with cameras in your face is a different proposition to presenting to your colleagues at a conference. It can throw even the best speakers off.
Media training will prepare you for the environment, whether it’s a TV studio, radio station, or press conference. You’ll get familiar with the format and practice the various types of interviews, from telephone, to talk show, and be ready for any scenario.
Being familiar with the environment and prepared for a grilling will ensure you keep your cool and answer questions calmly and confidently.
You’ll be prepared to handle a crisis
Nothing sinks a media interview quicker than a spokesperson coming across badly during a crisis. Every PR pro in the country cringed when BP CEO Tony Hayward said in an interview during the oil spill crisis that he wanted his ‘life back’.
The last thing you want to do is make a bad situation worse by being tone-deaf. Media training can help with this. And it’s not just about what you say. What you wear, the inflections in your voice and your facial expressions all leave an impression. If you’re touting an initiative for the economically disadvantaged, leave the Hermès scarf at home. If you tend to pitch your voice higher when challenged on a point, you’ll come across as frustrated or combative rather than calm and collected.
Media training can help you identify and address these habits.
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This article was originally published on the PR Superstar website.
