Marketing Begins At Home - Latest Comments in The myth of media training

Re: The myth of media training

Piaras Kelly — Sat, 29 Oct 2005 09:11:23 -0000

Don't agree with this post, there's a difference between selling something for the sake of it and letting your client go on air and just gag.

It's one of the murkier aspects of PR, but a necessity in a lot of cases. Sure there's an element of spin, but more importantly you have to be familiar with the medium. There's no use saying 'Markets are conversations' if you can't hold a conversation.

It's also worth remembering that sometimes journalists have their own agenda.

Re: The myth of media training

John Wagner — Thu, 27 Oct 2005 16:29:47 -0000

Jeremy:

No doubt there is some training that is useful in terms of helping people be comfortable on camera, etc.

I once had to be interviewed for an employee video and I was perfectly comfortable until the red light went on ... kind of like Cindy Brady on that game show. :)

Re: The myth of media training

Jeremy Pepper — Wed, 26 Oct 2005 12:15:19 -0000

I think you are being a little too harsh on media training. Sometimes, it is to smooth out the rough corners, because during a television interview, do you really want to hear the vocal pauses - hmm, yeah, umm - throughout? It's about training the mind to think quietly, and then speaking. That is not all bad.

Of course, there is the flipside of someone being so polished, that they seem like they are a robot. Worked with someone like that, whose clips were never used because he had absolutely no vocal pauses. Then again, someone recently noted that when I speak, I tend not to use contractions - I just think it's because I'm odd.

Re: The myth of media training

John Wagner — Wed, 26 Oct 2005 10:22:51 -0000

David:

Great post and thanks for following up on my comments. I love the way you describe the media training "pitch" ... it's spot on.

In our training, we used to show clips of politicians bridging their way out of tough questions as an example of "the right way" to handle interviews. I'm a tad ashamed at that --now.

People are smart enough to figure out when someone is dodging or spinning, aren't they? That's not a new phenomenom ... they've always been smart enough, but they had no real voice to stand up and say so.

Now they do. And therein lies the conflict between our old-school approaches and the reality that's out "there."