Media Training

This piece is excerpted from Maura Fitzgerald’s article “Making the Most Out of Broadcast: Turning Your Exec Into a Media Star” in the PR News Media Training Guidebook, Volume 6. Dress: ■Dress conservatively. For men, a… Continued

This piece is excerpted from David Hlavac’s article “How to Take a ‘Playbook’ Approach to Messaging: 7 Tips for a Winning Strategy” in the PR News Media Training Guidebook, Volume 6. In order to make… Continued

This piece is excerpted from Andy Gilman’s article “Top Execs Don’t Have Much Time for Coaching: Focus on These 3 Tips” in the PR News Media Training Guidebook, Volume 6. Question: When is the best time… Continued

This piece is excerpted from Rosalyn Mandola’s article “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Volunteer Social Media Engagements” in the PR News Media Training Guidebook, Volume 6. DO – Provide guidelines with “must… Continued

Scenario: You’re a veteran PR pro leading communications for a suddenly hot start-up, and you’ve just gotten a request from a broadcast network for a live interview that day with your 22-year-old CEO. These tips for managing body language during a broadcast interview are going to come in might handy.

While broadcast interviews can make even the most sophisticated executives uneasy, they offer a unique opportunity to deliver messages to a wide audience quickly and simultaneously.

Even those PR pros who are experts at researching a particular journalist’s beat and outlet and successfully land an interview for their company’s lead spokesperson—say, a CEO—can aggravate time-strapped journalists if that spokesperson is ill-prepared or has a defensive attitude.

As a local and network news reporter, I conducted thousands of interviews over nearly two decades. Yet it was only after I made the leap into strategic and crisis communications that I fully appreciated the complex dynamic at play.

Going off script with journalists, in front of a live audience or on social media works just fine if, say, you’re a celebrity or politician (or both) who is expected to go off script and wing it, and you routinely benefit from making outrageous and provocative statements. How many senior executives, midlevel employees and new hires at brands fall into that category? One or two people, maybe, in the whole country. Everybody else needs media training in the workplace.

Conversing one-on-one reminds me of writing by hand—they’re both modes of communication that have been eroded by the electronic screens that are perpetually in front of our faces. There’s an important distinction to be made… Continued