Media Skills Training

Media Skills Training

Develop the power to communicate effectively with the public under high-stress circumstances. Executives owe it to their organizations to spend time preparing for the Anderson Coopers of the broadcast business. Cooper’s response to this? “It makes perfect sense to me because business people should have every opportunity to make the best case they can for themselves.”

Preparation cannot be overemphasized. Irving Shapiro, CEO of DuPont, had this to say: “You wouldn’t drive a car without practicing, and when you go into the world of professional TV, you ought to know what the experience is like. If you don’t know that, you are at a huge disadvantage.”

Learn how to remain calm, focused and on-point while surrounded by bright lights, cameras, an array of recording equipment, and a phalanx of reporters, producers and staff scurrying around you.

Handle difficult media questions with grace, ease, and respect for your interviewer

What to expect

• Develop skill handling difficult media questions with grace, ease, and respect for your interviewer
• Learn how to prepare for all contingencies in a media interview, from audience
  surprises to technical glitches.
• Strategize which media events will be beneficial to your needs, and learn how to
  gracefully decline interviews that don’t serve your needs.
• Learn how requesting an interviewer’s credentials (and finding out who they represent) before consenting to an interview builds your own credibility.
• Leverage your experience and knowledge of the issue at hand to learn how to conduct a cordial “preliminary interview” of the media.
• Build a checklist of advance tasks and ground rules to ensure you remain in charge of the interview’s direction.
• Master conveying your message, even when the media steers the interview in another direction.
• Perfect the art of remaining friendly with the media — even in difficult situations.