Guy Clapperton, Author at Clapperton Media

Our lead trainer Guy was at a session yesterday in which there was a lot of focus on messaging. Yes, he was there to deliver input on delivery but understandably the client wanted to talk about what they were saying as well as the way they were saying it.

One notable area under discussion was the extent to which you believe you should tailor your message according to the medium. To paraphrase the client, he basically said:

If I’m talking to someone for broadcast then I keep it brief and factual. If it’s for a written piece then I take it as read that I can go on for longer.

Those weren’t his exact words. You get the idea though; he wanted to change his tone according to who he was speaking to.

This can be a good idea or it can be a disaster. It’s worth taking a look at some of the reasoning.

They have more space in written media

It’s often true that someone researching something to go and write about it will have more space. If they don’t have more space then they are likely to have more bandwidth in their heads to edit down your long(ish) statements into digestible chunks. So it’s OK to go on at some length, some might think.

Well, yes and no (we know that’s unhelpful). Depending on the broadcast you may well be right. If it’s news then they will indeed want to get the facts pretty quickly but that’s what they want.

What you want or need may be quite different.

Make sure you don’t sound shifty

You’re likely to have some messaging you want to get into an interview and the first thing you need to ask if you’re going to keep it factual is: how much of a message can you get into a one-word answer? Have a quick look at this interview if you have the time. If you don’t, it’s the then-chief executive of the British Dental Association answering the BBC’s queries about mercury in fillings. His first and third answers are the ones you’re looking for: he says “yes” and “mmhmm”.

Consider how much more value he could have added to that. He could have added “yes but” or my favourite, “yes and the reason for that is…” and continued into something that would have shared a lot more of his expertise. Later on in the interview, when they let him do his retake, he gets it right but the damage is done.

In his first take, he ignores the opportunity to put some messaging in place. His organisation gets no benefit and equally seriously in my independent view, the audience misses out as well. Those earlier monosyllabic answers sound more like evasions than anything else.

Transferring the messaging power

The flip side of the client’s view is his belief that you can speak at some length to the written media because they have more space or at least mental bandwidth. They can translate what you’re saying into journalese so why not let them?

In principle that’s fine as long as you have a completely trustworthy journalist who is not only on your side but also understands the exact point you want to make. Except it’s unlikely to be like that.

The first point to make is that a journalist should never be on your side, they should be independent. We always assure clients that if they make thirty-three trillion dollars in a week they will be reported accurately. They will be reported just the same if they lose the same amount. The journalist’s job is to report the facts.

Another issue is that if you offer the journalist a 100-word quote and they only need ten for their article, you’re handing them the power to choose whichever parts of your quote they want. It won’t be inaccurate but let’s say you wanted them to write about your new international expansion and you mention the investment you secured to make it happen. The journalist then goes away and writes about the investment while your priority was to make new markets aware of your presence.

Essentially if you want the press to focus on something then focus on it yourself while you’re speaking. They can only write what you’ve given them and if you give them a lot they’ll do their best to prioritise.

Messaging prep takes time

There are two more basic reasons to be consistent in messaging across the media, however:

Timing. Let’s be perfectly honest, if you’re managing a business that’s attracting media attention there’s a very good chance you’re quite busy. You have to ask yourself just how granular you want to go: short sentences for TV? Long ones for print? And if you’re doing an interview for a profile piece on TV or radio, then you’ll have to vary those rules anyway. Just how much time can you allocate to tailoring the length of your messages to every individual outlet, even if you had the aptitude to do it?
Consistency. Journalists and other media professionals do check each other’s work, it’s how they stay up to date. It’s therefore worth prioritising a consistent message and making sure you don’t trip over yourself trying to cater for different media the whole time.

This doesn’t mean you should never prepare for different media and different audiences. We always advise, however, that people should think about the audience rather than the medium. If you’re in business and you’re speaking to one of the financial press (the sort of thing we might have Pádraig help you with) then you might well be able to talk about EBITDA, P&L, all sorts of stuff like that. If you were speaking to the technical press, Guy or Chris might comment that the technologists who write it will know their bytes from their blockchain so you should be fine with a bit of jargon. If you were speaking to the Nationals or even mainstream international press you’d need to assume a bit less knowledge

Our client from yesterday is happy tailoring his message to the medium he’s addressing and we’re really fine with that. If you’re new to communicating with the media, though, we’d suggest your time is better spent thinking of who you need to talk to and what messaging they will take away from your words.

Crisis training, crisis management, call it what you want, a lot of people come to us and say they need it. If that’s you, you’ve probably had an issue that goes something like this. Your business has been around for a while. Your communications have been fine. Something goes wrong or is about to go wrong.

You call in the crisis training specialists, quickly. You need some help and you need it fast. You’re not trying to dodge the issue, far from it, but you need the right people to be commenting in the right places with the right messages.

So far so good. Only it may already be too late.

Crisis training and stable doors

Our lead trainer Guy was at a client site on Friday helping them with some crisis training. We’re absolutely not going to divulge the nature of the crisis because we assure everyone of confidentiality when we train them. They were in the middle of an issue that was going to end up in court. They had their own legal advice (take legal advice only from lawyers!) but they were wondering how to communicate in public.

They were pretty good as it happens, taking the issue seriously, bringing their empathy to the situation, keeping all stakeholders informed and ensuring they didn’t speculate about what the legal outcome might be. It was lucky they were a capable group of people. They employed hundreds if not thousands of people so there was always going to be an issue sometime.

Unfortunately they only asked for the training once the crisis was underway. This can be an error.

When do you take out life insurance?

The client is going to be fine, they were more than capable. The thing is, you’re better off making plans for a crisis when there is nothing going wrong. The best time to start planning for a decent pension is in your twenties, thirties at the latest; we know too many people who have reached their fifties and are suddenly thinking “I should do something about this” (which is easy to say when heating bills are going through the roof, we do get that). If you’re in danger of losing a loved one imminently nobody is going to insure you – you need that life assurance when you’re in good health, it’ll be cheaper and it’s easier to think about when it’s a far away prospect.

Ditto crisis training and, come to think of it, media training in general. We’ve had a lot of clients coming to us because they have a media engagement or presentation coming up the following week and they want to look professional. We can always help and ensure people improve but planning further in advance is going to leave you more confident when something crops up.

This is particularly important when a crisis comes up. You need to be ready before anything flares up and if it never does, fine. Just in case, it’s worth having a checklist.

Crisis training: some basics

We have a crisis management specialist on the books, Carl Courtney, who can offer chapter and verse on what needs to happen to be prepared for a crisis. Some basics might include:

A policy on exactly what happens when something bad takes place. This needs to be locked down and to take account of the unofficial as well as official approaches. You’ll want to start with a list of who us authorised and who is not authorised to speak to the press.
You’ll also need some guidance as to what happens, if your workplace is well known, when a journalist turns up and asks people questions as they arrive or leave their workplace, assuming you don’t have working from home as a universal policy.
Ideally everyone who isn’t authorised to speak to the press will point people towards the statement. Statement?
Preparing a statement: You need to decide who will prepare a statement and where you’ll put it so it’s accessible to everyone. Your website and social media channels are ideal. This gets your unauthorised people away from having to say “no comment”, when they’ll feel completely unsupported.
Train everyone not to say “no comment”. It sounds so much like a confirmation or evasion. “I’m not authorised to comment but we have a statement on the website which I hope will help” sounds much, much better even if it basically means the same thing.
If a situation is developing, frequent updates are better than a single bland statement and then leaving it at that. If journalists, bloggers and other influencers don’t hear an update from you, they may hear it from someone else.
Prepare all of this, other than the statement (of course), before there is a crisis. You’ll be able to address it more calmly and take more time, and yes we know you’re already busy!

The other thing we’d recommend, and this is of course where we have to declare a vested interest, is having someone else come in and have a look at your plan and maybe put you through your paces in an interview situation. Even in the presence of a very friendly camera operator (and ours are friendly and offer loads of pointers and advice!) the physical presence of proper camera equipment and lighting kit is a very different experience from any in-house run-throughs you might arrange.

The aim is never to gloss over a crisis. If you’re not taking the likelihood of a major issue sometime seriously that’s a serious error in its own right. The aim is to help you communicate your side of it, get away from defensiveness and ensure that your voice is heard and understood when any coverage looks as if it’s going to go against you.

Do you or your clients need help with your media engagements and interview and presentation skills, whether on-camera or not? We have experienced people who can help – contact our calendar supremo Lindsay in the first instance by clicking here and she will set up an initial conversation with Guy to find out how we can help.

Our lead trainer Guy Clapperton is very much active as a writer and a podcaster. His current podcast is the Near Futurist and it’s been running since October 2018.

“As a technology journalist of over 30 years’ standing I’ve seen a lot of futurist speakers,” Guy explains. “Many of them do excellent research and speak about the sort of thing that’s likely to happen in 40-50 years’ time. I can’t help but reflect that for many of their audience, including me, this isn’t going to be massively helpful because frankly, we’re unlikely to be around!”

Guy therefore interviews people who are influencing the way we’re going to live in a few years’ time. He’s covered going cashless, fighting fake news, big data and medical research and a great deal else. He hopes you’ll enjoy listening.

The Mediamentor Tips YouTube channel

Sometimes you don’t want to read yet more in terms of blogs. You want some quick media tips on how to cope with those difficult and searching questions but you’re concerned about eye strain and the writing on your phone or tablet is all blurring into one in spite of the care we’ve taken choosing fonts.

That’s fine – it’s exactly why we started offering video tips as well. The link above takes you to a playlist on Clapperton Media Training’s YouTube channel which is packed with over 50 one or two minute videos on something that’s struck us during media training sessions. We just like to share stuff as soon as it occurs to us.

Hosted primarily by lead trainer Guy Clapperton, we hope you’ll find the media tips on offer useful. Just help yourself – it’s what the videos are there for!