Expert Advice for Media Training Key Messages

By Gerard Braud

Can we have an intimate, professional conversation? The presumption is you are an expert in public relations and that the executives and leaders where you work need expert key messages for media training, to be an expert spokesperson. Here we go:

• Good looking
• Intelligent
• Public relations professional
• Mistakes of the past
• Bullet points bad

Did we just have a conversation? I don’t think so.

Why?

Because I used bullet points and bullet points are not a conversation. Bullet points are phrases. Bullet points are not sentences.

So, should it then also be true that bullet points are not key messages?

Consider this: If you are training someone for a media interview, and you’ve given them nothing but bullet points, you have only given them an outline from which you now want them to ad lib.

Have you ever noticed that the most embarrassing interviews with reporters are the ones with bad ad-libs?

Have you ever noticed that the media crave a well-worded quote?

This is your call to action to stop believing that key messages should be bullet points. Key messages for media training should consist of well-worded, quotable sentences. Expert spokespeople speak in great, well-worded quotes and not in bullet points.

You are a good looking, intelligent, public relations professional who should stop repeating the mistakes of your public relations forefathers or foremothers, who believe bullet points are sufficient as key messages.