Media training Archives - Page 4 of 9

Press releases have been very much on lead trainer Guy‘s mind as he is about to help a communications company with writing them. There will be elements in the course on targeting of course, and making sure you know who you’re talking to. There will also be a little bit on language and some of the rules.

Many of these are utter baloney. Let’s have a look at a few.

I before E except after C

Press releases need accurate spelling but is this one really a rule? We’ll be asking the younger delegates whether they still have to learn this nonsense. It was drummed into previous generations as a rule of spelling. Guy’s own teacher in the 1970s tried adding “I before E except after C and when the sound is ‘ee'” because some bright spark aged eight had pointed to the word “weird”.

Nobody should blame the teacher for trying to rearrange reality so that the rule still worked. There are indeed examples in which an “ei” construction is there and sounds like “ee”. The difficulty is that there are also words like “neighbour” and “feint”, and we are now (in the UK) living during Charless III’s “reign”.

There are too many exceptions to this rule for it to make sense. It’s suitable for the bin only.

-ize is an Americanism

A lot of press releases come from America and it’s reasonable that they have American spellings. The popular conception is that if a word finishes “ize” when it could finish “ise” then it’s an Americanism and should be changed.

Now check the Oxford English Dictionary. Both are acceptable. The trick is to be consistent. Also if your client has a particular take on this (and they should) then make it consistent. It’s technically wrong to suggest “-ize” is American only but it’s so ingrained by now it doesn’t matter, we just do what the client says.

You should never use a preposition to start or finish a sentence

Press releases need clarity. And that means listening rather than picking at every archaism. OK, you knew we were going to start a sentence with an “and” or “but” immediately you saw the sub-heading. But it works and makes sense. You knew we were going to start a sentence with “but”, too, didn’t you.

Companies are always referred to in the singular

In most cases this is true, although at the time Guy became a journalist the Wall Street journal would refer to IBM and others as “they”. That’s stopped now but it really doesn’t matter whether you refer to companies as singular or plural as long as you stick to a house style; the fact that we haven’t been able to find a major source that uses plural suggests you’re safer with singular.

EXCEPT when you’re referring to a sports team. Football commentators and journalists will always, at least in the UK, refer to “they” when talking about a team.

Never split an infinitive

That’s the “to do” bit of a verb. Of course you can, as Star Trek proved all those years ago – “To boldly go…” might have sounded neater as “To go boldly” but the writers wanted “boldly” closer to the beginning and it made the right impact. The trick is to ensure you don’t put too many words between the “to” and the “go” bit. “To boldly go” is fine; “To boldly, but not so urgently that you haven’t got time for a cheese sandwich to take the edge off, go” is deliberately terrible but you get the idea. The reader will have forgotten the “to” bit by the time they get to the main point of the sentence.

There are other examples of course. But those are a few Guy will be pointing to this afternoon.

Does your team need help with press release writing? We are available – drop Lindsay a note by clicking here and she’ll set up a time for an initial no-obligation conversation.

Newsjacking is something you’ll have seen. You might not be aware of the term but you’ll be familiar with the principle. You take a current event and you twist whatever announcement you want to make to fit it.

There was a lot of it about a couple of years ago. Journalists had press release after press release that would start “As we emerge from Covid…” or “In these difficult times”.

You can see why people do it. They want to seem current and relevant and newsjacking is a good way to do it. Today (Wednesday 19th July 2023 just to date this piece when you read it) we’ve read one person’s newsletter/tip sheet that includes leadership tips taken from Novak Djokovic’s tennis style. There are still a lot of people making tenuous links to Ukraine when they write about leadership or adversity.

Lighter examples might seem less risky. A few weeks back speakers were talking about wheeling out your best stories rather than relying on the new stuff and linking it to Glastonbury. We were almost tempted to suggest blur made quite a statement by kicking off their Wembley gigs (where our lead trainer Guy took the picture at the head of this blog, you might have wondered about its relevance) with a song from the new album rather than playing it safe.

There is a drawback to newsjacking though. It’s what stopped us.

Newsjacking needs to stand out

When we go into one of our regular clients to help with their new intake of PR people our focus is to help with pitching skills. One of the exercises we do is to get people to read out a pitch they’ve sent to journalists, which we then critique.

A year ago or so most of the pitches started off, as we’ve outlined above, with something about Covid.

This will have seemed an excellent idea when the writer was putting it together. It drew on shared experience. Everyone went through it. Everyone had a view. In the same way, maybe not everyone is a tennis fan but most people will have been aware of the Wimbledon tournament. So these young PR people set about relating their pitches to emerging from Covid…

…and in doing so threw all of their chances of standing out away with a few keystrokes. Sitting on the other side – and Guy still produces his podcast (relaunching in September, thanks for asking) so he does get pitches – we’d seen about five “Covid” pitches before we’d even come into the office.

Likewise if you scan Linkedin from the last couple of days you’ll find quite a bit on tennis. In a few weeks’ time as the women’s football world cup enters the more advanced stages you can expect to see a lot about teamwork. Extended cricketing metaphors are going to abound over the next few days.

And from the journalist’s point of view all of these pitches are going to look the same. None will stand out.

It’s like a game of chess (we are enjoying our tenuously-linked images today). You might think of a move that looks good to you. You might think “That’s good enough, it’ll do”. Only…everyone else will have anticipated it. Your story, no matter how good, is just going to look like one of the many. So, as you might if you wanted to improve your chess, look critically at your first move or first draft of your pitch – and if it looks too samey, see if there’s a better one.

Details of our pitching masterclass for public relations executives are on this link.

On-camera confidence can be difficult to acquire. This isn’t because the camera or the TV journalist is out to get you; this is often far from the case. The camera professional will want to make their work look excellent and they’re not going to do that by making you look foolish.

Indeed, part of the trick is to make you look even better than you are. Some people still find it intimidating, though and this is a pity. So many media outlets now incorporate video into their offerings that if you’re a spokesperson, whether a chief executive or a manager, someone is going to ask you to go on screen very soon.

Here are some ideas to help you overcome your fears.

On-camera confidence on Zoom

If you’re hosting a video conference you need to look attentive. This can mean doing the counter-intuitive thing of not looking at the faces of the people on the screen but at the camera. It will then look to the listeners as if you’re looking them in the eye. You can buy a camera that sticks to the screen so the eye line is right – our lead trainer Guy has one – but make sure it’s stuck on properly before you start. If it falls off half way through then you will look as if you’re in the middle of an earthquake!

Think also about livening up any Powerpoint or similar presentations without going berserk. Making individual bullet points on a slide appear individually rather than all at once can be a subtle way of making it more engaging. You might consider putting animations in. Bear in mind that people on slower connections might see them looking very jerky. Also if you’re going to use stock images make sure they’re good ones. The same old image of people shaking hands is dull, dull, dull!

On-camera confidence in a studio

Our main camera operator Paul offers a couple of good tips in our promotional video:

If you don’t have time to watch it, the first thing he says is that if you talk with your hands then tell the camera operator – you’ll look better if they line up a shot with your hands in it properly rather than a tighter shot in which the focus is on your face alone with the odd thumb wafting into view.

We offer media training sessions both with and without a professional camera rig. Each of our camera experts offers so much more than pressing the buttons and operating the equipment; there is no substitute, if you’re likely to go out on video, for sitting under proper lighting in front of a professional-standard rig with an award-winning documentary maker like Paul offering counsel.

More basics

There are other basics to learn as well:

Paul Angell and Sophie Aldred at a Clapperton Media Training session

Look at the interviewer rather than the camera. It always looks more sincere and you’ll find it easier to talk to a single person rather than thinking there are thousands watching on the other side of the lens. If the interviewer is elsewhere and you’re doing “down the line” then you look at the camera.
Do as the camera operator suggests – they know what they’re doing. If they make you uncomfortable, though, maybe getting you to perch on a desk when you’d be happier standing or on a proper chair, say so. It’s your interview.
That said, if you’re in a studio and someone advances upon you with make-up, let them do their job.
If you’re going to be seated, avoid swivel chairs – you’ll spend too much time concentrating on not swiveling.
Also on chairs: if you can avoid chairs with arms, so much the better, you don’t want to look hunched on the TV.
Remember people’s attention more or less falls off a cliff when you’re on video. If you can get your points in quickly, even if you have to say “I’ll get to that question in a second” and get them in first (but do come back to the question), you’ll be sure to get your points in.
Remember that a good soundbite will be played over and over again. So will a bad one!

That last point is a good cue to remind yourself that the basics count for a lot whichever medium your interview is for:

Prepare – you’re allowed to forget a figure or not have a fact to hand but make sure you know your stuff.
Try not to be too salesy. If the audience feels you’re just after their money they won’t like it.
If a journalist is unusually aggressive or insistent when you can’t answer a question, be polite. The viewers will see you’re being reasonable.
Be succinct and keep it as simple as you can. The more brief and memorable your point, the less likely it is to become confused later on.

Finally remember one thing. In spite of all of the horror stories you hear, journalists are unlikely to be out to get you. Unless there’s something seriously wrong (and crisis management is something else), the audience will listen with interest

Do you or your clients need help with your media interactions? Our team is here to help. Contact Lindsay or Guy to arrange an initial chat.

We’ve all seen poor interviewees in the media and let’s be honest, most people won’t be all that terrible. You’re more likely to be indifferent than actively bad.

An indifferent interview, though, is still going to serve you poorly. So here we’ll go through ten tips to make sure you perform better.

Interviewees’ attitudes

It’s worth beginning by checking your view on your interview before you go in. So many of our clients feel they need to answer all of the questions and do nothing else. It’s true that this can be a cultural issue; some of our clients in Eastern Europe get mightily irritated by displays of interviewees changing the subject or moving to a topic that suits them better. Only recently we had an engineer who felt doing anything like that would affect his reputation.

Every rule is going to have its exceptions. Ask yourself this, though: if you’re being paid for your time, your media interview is a business conversation. In any other meeting you’d feel entitled to put your view forward – so why should this change in a press interview?

Trust your expertise and research

You’ll have seen interviews in which the interviewees fluff, dodge a question, are looking for an agenda from the journalist. First, the big secret: the vast majority of journalists are there to tell a perfectly straightforward story. Second, the flustering tends to come out because people may have prepared but they don’t trust their preparation. If you use a PR company (and Clapperton Media Training often works in tandem with such organisations) they will furnish you with information on the journalists, bloggers and other media figures you’re likely to meet; they will anticipate the likely lines of questioning and offer possible answers. Take those elements seriously – they are there to help. Give it only a cursory read-through and you’ll struggle to remember, appearing not to know your stuff.

A related point is that you’re the expert in your topic, you’re close to the market, not the journalist. If the interviewer happens not to know the question that will elicit the most useful fact for the reader, it’s down to you to bring it up.

Know where you’re going

We often use the image of a satnav in our media training as well as our presentation training. The thing about a satnav is that you tell it where you want to go and it doesn’t take you anywhere that isn’t part of the way to your destination.

Interviews will work best for you if you have a destination or aim in mind. Not that we’re suggesting you ride roughshod over the questions you’re being asked; if you get that reputation journalists will simply speak to someone else next time. However, if you have an aim in mind then just as in any other business conversation you’ll find the result will be better when it’s published. Plus you’ll have an idea of whether it’s been a success or not, depending on what you were aiming for.

Slow down

Several times this month we’ve been training in different places, asked practice questions and found people getting lost in the middle of their answers. We believe this is due to two things. First people think they have to speak immediately a question has been asked. This isn’t the case. The journalist or blogger might want an answer quickly but you don’t work for them, you work for your business. Second this leads to the interviewee beginning to speak immediately rather than thinking about where they’re going to finish.

Slow down. Take a breath. It’s your interview. If a journalist doesn’t like that, tough, Tell them you need to think for a second – what are they going to do, get distressed at asking you a question that provoked some thought? If they really press, tell them you don’t want to mislead their reader/listener/viewer. There’s no comeback from that.

Tell the truth…

Yes we know what a lot of people think of media trainers. But no, we won’t train you to lie. It’s a terrible idea; you have to remember which untruth you’ve told to which journalist for consistency. If you’ve told the truth in the first place it’s never going to turn around and catch up with you. The best interviewees are honest but focused.

…but select the relevant bits

Something a lot of our clients try to do in the practice sessions is to share all of their expertise in a short interview. That’s right, they’ve worked in an industry for ten years and they want to share all of that in a five minute warm-up interview.

They do it because they want to help but the more densely-packed an interview is, the more likely a journalist is to lose the thread and do that human thing of making mistakes. Try finding out about the readership and what they’re likely to need, pick a few vital things and focus on those.

Work up some soundbites

At the risk of sounding fake, soundbites can be really useful when it comes to getting a message understood and shared. If you have a memorable phrase, use it and don’t worry about repeating it once or twice.

Tell stories. About people.

People buy from people and they listen to people. Years ago when lead trainer Guy was working with the Guardian’s “Business Sense” supplement, an offshoot of the technology section and focused on small businesses, he was writing about some software aimed at farmers. The Guardian asked what they could use to illustrate the piece and put on the supplement’s cover and Guy said he could get shots of the software’s box or of the screens while it was being used. The design people rightly asked if they could send a photographer up to one of the customers and get a picture of them; the cover just consisted of two people Guy had interviewed looking at the camera and it was infinitely better than a yawn-inducing box of software.

Watch out for silences

You know that trick you use in interviews when you’re recruiting people? You ask a question, they answer and you smile at them, they feel they have to say a bit more and they end up telling you a lot more than they’d intended? Well, journalists are wise to that one too. If a journalist is playing the old silence trick on you, a simple “Does that answer the question?” will force them either to ask something specific or to move on to something else. Don’t feel you have to “fill”!

Get media training

Oh come on, it’s us, you knew that was coming! Lindsay will be pleased to set up an initial chat with Guy if you click here and we’ll find out which of our trainers is best suited to your needs.