The COVID-19 coronavirus crisis has spawned new aspects of crisis communications and media interviews. Behold, the social distancing media interview done from your computer in your home.
What do you think about these interviews?
Your assignment for the day is to:
Watch TV
Take a photo of an interview being done from home
Critique how the interview looks
Send your image and your critique to me at any of my platforms, and feel free to include the hashtag #TVInterviews
Here are some criteria to look for and to comment on:
Camera angle
Lighting
Background
Glare
Distractions
Posture
…plus anything else that you observe that your
professional colleagues should either duplicate or avoid.
After you share your observations, I’ll share them back with
our community so you’ll be better prepared if you or one of your team members
is called upon to do a television interview via your computer from home.
Should you need in-depth training, we can provide you with remote media training for remote interviews as well as train-the-trainer remote training so you can coach your executives and subject matter experts. To learn more, schedule a call: https://calendly.com/braud/15min
Many of the techniques you have learned in traditional media training still apply. Yet, at the same time, there are some clear distinctions and additional burdens. Think of it this way: In a traditional television interview, the news crew is responsible for things you never need to think about, such as:
lighting
audio quality
the background view
background noise
the camera angle
and more
Whereas you traditionally needed to focus on:
what you were going to say
your wardrobe
your body language
and more
Suddenly, you have to do both your job and their job.
It isn’t easy. I’ll work on a checklist for all of you, but by all means, if you need professional training we’re here to be your training partner.
Crisis communications and media training expert Gerard Braud, CSP, Fellow IEC is based in New Orleans. Organizations on five continents have relied on him to write their crisis communications plans and to train their spokespeople. He is the author of “Don’t Talk to the Media Until…”
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The ability for the global community to post online comments in countless ways and forums makes the world even more frightening for those trying to manage their reputation. For the sake of discussion here, when I use the term social media, I’m talking about all postings to the internet that allow your reputation to be improved or destroyed, as well as the gadgets that make it all possible. There are
3 ways you can get hurt in the world of social media:
When your public actions are photographed or video taped, then posted to the web
When your reputation is attacked on social sites and blogs
When you willingly participate in on-line discussions and do a poor job communicating
For example, there is a video posted to the web of a county commissioner being hounded by a television reporter. When asked after a public meeting to justify the delay in opening a new county juvenile justice center, the commissioner asks the reporter, “Elliot, do you know that Jesus loves you?” The commissioner then dodges every one of the reporter’s subsequent questions by trying to engage in a discussion about why the reporter should accept Jesus as his personal savior. Regardless of your religious beliefs, the answer is inappropriate because it is not germane to the news report, and by repeating a variation of it as the answer to every question, it only makes the official look more like he is guilty of hiding something.
Prior to the advent of social media tools such as Twitter, Facebook.com and YouTube.com, such buffoonery would have been seen once or twice on the local evening news, the commissioner would have become the butt of some brief local mockery and embarrassment, but within a few days it would all pass.
But in the age of social media, millions of people around the world are able to watch the video and laugh at its absurdity on a daily basis. Some will post a link to their own website, or forward a link via e-mails to friends. This is what viral and social media is all about. This video lives forever on the world wide web and so does the commissioner’s embarrassment, mockery and humiliation, as people perpetually forward the video to their network of real friends and online acquaintances.
Issues like this are one of the reasons you should consider Social Media Training. Social Media Training is a program I pioneered to teach communicators and executives the realities and how their reputations can be damaged by public actions that are either voluntarily, or involuntarily captured, and posted to the web.
Numerous reputations and careers have been destroyed because of what someone says in a presentation to what is perceived as a friendly group. Inevitably, an audience member records the speech or presentation, then either posts a portion of it to the web or gives it directly to the media.
Cloaked with an audience of perceived friends, speakers often “cross the line” by their comments, only to face humiliation, embarrassment, and in many cases a long list of apologies and even the loss of their jobs because they thought their comments were made in private and off the record. If you are hosting a social media training class, you may wish to combine it with a presentation skills class.
Social Media Training is also needed before communicators and executives voluntarily attempt to participate in online communities. This is true whether one is responding to a posting made by someone else, or whether you are the one posting to a personal or corporate blog for your organization.
For instance, I found a random blog entry one day as I prepared to teach a Social Media Seminar. The blog entry was from a top executive from General Motors. The blog entry, posted on an official GM site, featured a photo of the executive. The guy in the photo looked like he was delivering an angry rant on stage at a corporate meeting. His blog entry, likewise, took an angry, rant style with a tone that personified, “I know better than you.”
His comment was a reply to a blog posting critical of GM’s poor gasoline mileage in its SUV’s. Because of how the executive worded his rather pompous response, many more participants in the blog criticized his parsed words and reply, which reflected the official corporate line.
In short, the executive’s poor choice of words was like throwing gasoline on a small fire, turning it into a bigger fire. It didn’t need to be that way.
CEO’s and executives need to think carefully before they participate in social media and corporate communicators need to think carefully before asking or allowing executives to actively participate in social media.
There are a few basic things communicators and executives should consider in the world of social media:
1. Are you good with traditional media? If you are not good with traditional media, what makes you think you can handle social media?
2. How do you behave in public? Do you realize that every public moment of your life is potentially being photographed or recorded? Your public behavior, what you do and say, who you associate with, and where you are seen in public, can all be posted to the web for the entire world to see.
My 5 basic rules for social media:
1) Every rule of media training applies to social media. Every word and how those words are phrased will be carefully scrutinized.
2) Edit what you say constantly to avoid having your comments taken out of context.
3) The rule of ethics is to ask whether you behavior in private is the same as the way you would behave if people were watching you. Congruency of behavior is important.
4) Before jumping into an online blog type discussion, you need to be prepared to use key messages and making sure those key messages have been run through the cynic filter. Bloggers are cynical and brutal.
5) Sometimes the best response to a blog posting is to ask a question. Rather than attacking a blogger for their point of view, simply ask them to further explain their point of view. Sometimes a blogger will back down as they are unable to defend their position. Sometimes other bloggers will come to your rescue with responses that match your point of view.
Crisis communications and media training expert Gerard Braud, CSP, Fellow IEC is based in New Orleans. Organizations on five continents have relied on him to write their crisis communications plans and to train their spokespeople. He is the author of “Don’t Talk to the Media Until…”
https://braudcommunications.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/hermes-rivera-AaqcxqvI08I-unsplash-scaled.jpg15142560gbraudhttps://braudcommunications.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Logo-white-01-300x138.pnggbraud2019-11-14 10:12:342021-05-18 22:07:32You’re Ruining Your Reputation on Social Media: Use 5 Basic Rules
In the world of media training and media interviews, there are some serious flaws that you should avoid. These are especially true when you have to do a media interview during a crisis.
Here are a few:
Media training is not about how to be fast on your feet; it is about how to be prepared so there are no surprise questions.
Your goal is not to answer every question. Your goal should be to control the questions you get asked, the answers you give, and ultimately, to control the final edit of the news stories about your crisis.
Three key messages based on bullet points is an asinine concept and needs to be eradicated. Well-worded, internalized, verbatim sentences and quotes must be your spokesperson’s secret weapon.
Your best bet for your spokesperson? Read from a script.
The pre-written news release we spoke of in yesterday’s blog should be your script for your news conference.
In addition to the tips we offered on how to write a great
crisis news release, here is one more: Your news release, and ultimately that
news release as the script you will read, should pro-actively answer every
question you are going to be asked in the news conference.
“That’s impossible,” you say?
“How can that be done,” you ask?
I bet you are thinking, “No one knows every question you are going to be asked in a news conference.”
Surprise. There are only two types of questions that get
asked in a news conference.
News conference question type #1: Factual based
questions, such as who, what, when, where.
News conference question type #2: Speculation
based questions, such as how and why.
Put the facts in your news release. Read the facts in your news conference from your script. Next, deflect speculative questions with pre-written answers such as,
Regarding the exact cause of the explosion, at this time it would be inappropriate for us to speculate on the cause. We will have to wait for an investigation to tell us what happened, how it happened, and how we might keep it from happening again.
In media training for a crisis, your spokesperson must be
trained to internalize the sentence that deflects speculations. In media
training, your spokesperson must be given permission to say that line multiple
times, until the reporters understand that despite rephrasing the question many
times, the answer is still the same.
Also in media training for a crisis, your spokesperson needs
to internalize the above sentence so that it sounds thoughtful and spontaneous.
You don’t want your spokesperson delivering the line with anger or frustration.
As for reading from a script, recognize that it isn’t easy. Remember:
There is an art to reading slow.
There is an art to being able to read and look
up to make eye contact with the audience.
There is an art to being able to look back at
your script when the questions start coming, so you can repeat an answer that
you’ve used before.
Lastly, media training for a crisis is something that every spokesperson should do at least once a year. Media training is not a bucket-list item that you do once in life. Media training is a skill-set that requires regular practice with a great coach who will be brutally honest with you and perpetually challenge you to be a crisis communications expert.
Crisis communications and media training expert Gerard Braud, CSP, Fellow IEC is based in New Orleans. Organizations on five continents have relied on him to write their crisis communications plans and to train their spokespeople. He is the author of “Don’t Talk to the Media Until…”
https://braudcommunications.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Gerard-Braud-Crisis-Expert-4-e1567101799404.jpg480640gbraudhttps://braudcommunications.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Logo-white-01-300x138.pnggbraud2019-08-29 12:03:452021-05-18 22:40:41How to Media Train a Spokesperson for a Crisis?
When I was a reporter, I was always joking around in the newsroom. One day, I declared,
“Don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story.”
We all laughed. A colleague was pushing for a story to make the evening news, but there were lots of holes in the story and I wanted my story to be the lead story. I won and got the lead story. The colleague’s story was killed.
Over the years we used the joke here and there, but then we began to realize that way too much of what made the news at our TV station and at those of our competitors, made the news regardless of the facts. In the end, it was one of the reasons I left the news business after a great 15-year ride.
But let’s be honest. How many news stories are filled with facts? The truth is, not a lot. Newspaper stories will always have more details than TV and radio news reports. But TV stories, especially, are driven byvisual images. The example that I always use is that if the story is about a brown cow, I need video of a brown cow. If I have no video of a brown cow, I can’t put the story on the evening news.
Another example I always use is the mixed metaphor that says,
“If a tree falls in the woods and it is not on video, is it news?”
When I used to cover hurricanes in the ‘80s and ‘90s I was always upset when I didn’t have video of something blowing away. I needed the visual on video to tell the story.
A print reporter will likely write only a 12-20 sentence synopsis, a radio reporter is only writing 6-8 sentences and a TV reporter is only writing 10-12 sentences.
The average person tries to give way, way, way too many facts in a news interview.
Take this comment with a grain of salt, but the reporter doesn’t really care about you or the facts. Sure, they seem interested in you, but their report is more important to them personally than your facts.
A news report is a puzzle. Certain pieces must fit exactly together. In a TV report, quotes make up one-third of the story. The lead and the conclusion together make up one-third of the story. I don’t want to burst your bubble, but can you guess how much room we have in the story for your facts? In a TV news report, that equals 4 sentences. In a print report that equals 8-12 sentences.
If there is no room in the story for a bunch of facts, why would you spend so much time giving lots of facts to the reporter? Don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story.
Crisis communications and media training expert Gerard Braud, CSP, Fellow IEC is based in New Orleans. Organizations on five continents have relied on him to write their crisis communications plans and to train their spokespeople. He is the author of “Don’t Talk to the Media Until…”
https://braudcommunications.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/sam-mcghee-KieCLNzKoBo-unsplash-scaled.jpg14402560gbraudhttps://braudcommunications.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Logo-white-01-300x138.pnggbraud2019-07-09 14:59:502021-05-18 22:56:42There’s No Room for Your Facts in a Media Interview
Today’s crisis communication question is, what would you do if there was a fire and explosion where you work?
How long would it take before someone in your company could gather the facts, write a crisis communications news release, get the news release approved by the crisis management team, then released to the media, your employees, your customers, and your community?
One hour? Two hours? Three hours, or more?
The crisis communication case studies I’ve reviewed indicates many companies still take in excess of three hours to issue a statement. That is far too long and frankly, unacceptable.
If your company can’t release at least a basic statement in less than one hour of the onset of the crisis, you are failing.
Let me add a layer of crisis communications reality. There is a chance that a member of the public is instantly posting pictures and videos to social media within minutes of the explosion.
With each passing minute that social media is telling your story, you are losing control of the narrative and increasing the potential damage to your company’s reputation and revenue.
The best way to communicate quickly is to
Follow the 5 Steps to Effective Crisis Communications
To learn more about the 5 Steps to Effective Crisis Communication, use this link to get access to a free 5-part video series that explores best practices in crisis communication. This series takes you into a deeper dive than we have time for here.
Step 1 Conduct a vulnerability assessment
The assessment, done on a clear sunny day, identifies everything that could potentially damage your company’s reputation and revenue. This must include sudden crises such as fires and explosions, as well as smoldering crises such as sexual harassment or a social media post gone wrong.
Step 2 Write an effective crisis communications plan
This should not be just a checklist of standard operating procedures. It should be specific, sequential instructions for gathering information, confirming it with your crisis management team, then disseminating one message to all audiences. Those audiences must include the media, your employees, your customers, and your community. The plans I license to my clients have a provision that they must communicate to their audiences within one hour or less of the onset of the crisis. You can learn more details by signing up for the 5-part video series. You’ll also be given an option to download a PDF of a First Critical Statement that is perfect for every crisis.
Step 3 Have a library of pre-written news releases
Each of my clients receives a base set of 100 pre-written news releases with their crisis communications plan. Each news release is methodically written to have multiple choice and fill-in-the-blank options that allow the statement to be modified in about 10 minutes. The statements read less like a traditional news release and more like a well-written news story. This one statement goes to all audiences and stakeholders.
Step 4 Provide Media Training
In crisis communication media training, all of your potential spokespeople learn to deliver their statements by using the pre-written news releases in Step 3. They also learn the secrets to answering tough follow-up questions. A primary purpose of media training is to allow your spokespeople to make mistakes in private so that they do not make mistakes in public. In media training, it is also critical that each participant gets videotaped and evaluated multiple times during the day.
Step 5 Hold a Crisis Communication Drill
Like media training, the drill is designed to allow participants to make mistakes in private so that they do not make mistakes during a real crisis. A good crisis communications drill must have misdirection, injections of social media and mainstream media activities, plus at least two full-blown mock news conferences. Generally, the drills I conduct last about three hours, followed by a 90-minute evaluation. Team members can know the day of the drill and the time, but the drill scenario should be a secret.
The bottom line is that the traditional speed of communications from companies is far too slow in the age of social media. Many executives seem oblivious to the speed of social media, in part, because so many executives are not personally on social media. That must change if you want to protect your organization’s reputation and revenue in a crisis.
If you need to know more, please contact us. For a deeper dive, make sure you sign up for the free 5-part video series on the 5 Steps to Effective Crisis Communications.
Crisis communications and media training expert Gerard Braud, CSP, Fellow IEC is based in New Orleans. Organizations on five continents have relied on him to write their crisis communications plans and to train their spokespeople. He is the author of “Don’t Talk to the Media Until…”
https://braudcommunications.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Photo-on-10-29-18-at-4.23-PM-1.jpeg427640gbraudhttps://braudcommunications.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Logo-white-01-300x138.pnggbraud2018-10-31 12:36:492021-05-19 00:27:35Crisis Communication Question: What Would You Do?
Health, safety, and environmental (HSE) best practices are expanding beyond emergency management and disaster recovery. An increasing number of occupational safety experts are recognizing that their crisis management duties must now include best practices in crisis communications.
Many HSE experts work in smaller companies without a public relations professional, so CEO’s and managers are tasking their HSE experts with managing communications during a crisis event.
To learn more about the 5 Steps to Effective Crisis Communication, use this link to get access to a free 5-part video series that explores best practices in crisis communication. This series takes you into a deeper dive than we have time for here.
Not only are members of your community getting information from social media eyewitnesses, but so are the mainstream media who often republish and rebroadcast social media pictures and videos. We have some great crisis communication social media case studies in the 5-part video series.
Respectable companies are seeing their reputation and revenue destroyed because of negative publicity on both social media and mainstream media.
How do you deal with social media in a crisis?
You must adopt new best practices for crisis communications so that you can be communicating with the media, your employees, your customers, and your community faster than ever before. Faster crisis communications helps you control the narrative of the story. Fast and accurate crisis communications also ends speculation found on both social media and mainstream media.
How do you master fast and accurate crisis communications?
Step 2 of the 5 steps to effective crisis communications is to have a library of pre-written news releases that can be edited in record time and distributed to all audiences, including the media, your employees, your customers, and your community. Each of my clients receives a base set of 100 pre-written news releases with their crisis communications plan. Each news release is methodically written to have multiple choice and fill-in-the-blank options that allow the statement to be modified in about ten minutes.
Step 3 of the 5 steps to effective crisis communications is to have a crisis communications plan that sequentially guides the HSE professional through gathering facts about the incident, confirming it with the crisis management team, then using a pre-written news release to communicate with all of your stakeholders. A good crisis communication plan must take into account that the HSE team is not necessarily schooled in the best practices of public relations. Therefore, the best PR and crisis communication practices must be baked into the sequential instructions of the crisis communications plan.
HSE professionals are often becoming the spokesperson in a crisis. Hence, Step 4 in the 5 steps to effective crisis communications is to schedule crisis media training. A pre-written news release makes a perfect news conference script to read. Media training helps you learn to deliver the statement well. It also helps you respond to difficult questions.
To go deeper, register for the 5 Steps to Effective Crisis Communications. If you are ready to move forward, phone us at 985-624-9976.
Crisis communications and media training expert Gerard Braud, CSP, Fellow IEC is based in New Orleans. Organizations on five continents have relied on him to write their crisis communications plans and to train their spokespeople. He is the author of “Don’t Talk to the Media Until…”
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You are going to learn about Bubba in today’s BraudCast video. But first, put yourself in this situation and then answer the questions below:
Imagine there is an explosion where you work. The community is rattled by the blast. The community can see black smoke billowing. Police, firefighters, and EMS are responding. Now answer these three questions:
1) How long will it be before eyewitnesses begin posting pictures, video, or comments about the incident to social media?
2) How long will it take before the media either arrive to report on your event or how long before the media begin to tell the story with social media accounts from eyewitnesses?
3) How long will it take before you are able to draft a news release, get it approved, and get it released?
Please post your answer below or Tweet it to me @gbraud
So who is Bubba and why should you care? Bubba was the guy who stood outside of his house trailer and told me, “It blow’d up real good,” when I was a TV reporter and asked him about an explosion at a nearby chemical plant. I then put Bubba on the news. You can get the fun, juicy version of the story by watching the video featured above.
By default, Bubba inadvertently became the company’s de facto spokesperson because the company was slow to issue a media statement to me as the television reporter covering this breaking news story.
Bubba was both a spokesperson’s worst nightmare, as well as one of my greatest inspirations for the 5 Steps to Effective Crisis Communications system that I have followed for more than 20 years. To get the juicy version of the Bubba story, and to meet Bubba’s modern day social media counterparts, please watch the video. I promise you’ll love it and you’ll want to share the lesson with co-workers and colleagues.
With every passing minute that there is no official statement from your organization, the narrative of the story is controlled by eyewitness accounts, as well as by speculation from the media. You and the company you work for are unintentionally making eyewitnesses your de facto spokespeople if you fail to issue at least a very basic statement within one hour of the onset of the crisis. (You can get a free copy of a basic statement by registering for my free 5-part video series on the 5 Steps to Effective Crisis Communications here.)
As you watch the video, you will learn that Bubba set the narrative for my news report about the explosion and fire. His soundbite controlled the narrative of the news story because the paid spokesperson for the company failed to respond to my request for an interview. The public relations spokesperson had a chance to be on live reports at 10 a.m., 11 a.m. and noon. Bubba would have never had a chance to say, “It blow’d up real good,” nearly two and a half hours into this crisis, if an official spokesperson agreed to do an interview. I only interviewed Bubba because I needed a soundbite to complete the aesthetics for my noon news report.
Bubba was made the de facto spokesperson not by me, but technically by the company and its paid spokesperson, when the spokesperson elected not to give me an interview.
According to Step 2 of the 5 Steps to Effective Crisis Communications, a company’s crisis communications plan should dictate that a spokesperson and statement should be available to the media, employees, the community, and other stakeholders, within one hour of the onset of the crisis.
According to Step 3 of the 5 Steps to Effective Crisis Communications, a company spokesperson should be able to meet that deadline by using a fill-in-the-blank pre-written news release.
According to Step 4 of the 5 Steps to Effective Crisis Communications, a company spokesperson should have undergone sufficient media training, such that they can effectively deliver the pre-written news release to reporters, without fearing that the interview will go badly.
The takeaway: Don’t let Bubba be your de facto spokesperson.
Learn more about the 5 Steps to Effective Crisis Communications by watching our free 5-Part video tutorial. Register here.
Crisis communications and media training expert Gerard Braud, CSP, Fellow IEC is based in New Orleans. Organizations on five continents have relied on him to write their crisis communications plans and to train their spokespeople. He is the author of “Don’t Talk to the Media Until…”
https://braudcommunications.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Photo-on-10-17-18-at-5.57-PM.jpeg427640gbraudhttps://braudcommunications.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Logo-white-01-300x138.pnggbraud2018-10-30 11:39:122021-05-19 00:28:50Crisis Communications Tip: Don’t Let Bubba Be Your De facto Spokesperson
As a meetings industry professional, you dread when you get pulled aside at an event, by a colleague who whispers, “We have a situation.”
You feel a rush of panic; an air of dread; a feeling of confusion.
How you deal with a “situation” today is different than how you would have addressed the same situation five to ten years ago. Why? Because your attendees are changing.
Highly sensitive attendees can turn a small situation into a big crisis. Meeting professionals are finding that often it happens when an attendee is critical of a single word, story, or example shared by one of those speakers you worked so hard to vet. If you read evaluations, chances are you are noticing that they are far more snarky and mean-spirited than in years past. Many speakers will tell you that it is not uncommon for their best tried-and-true stories, case studies, and hilarious punch lines to become criticized on social media during your event and often while the speaker is still on stage.
Think of it like this – ten years ago we were told that a happy customer tells three people and an angry customer tells 10-12 people. Today, an angry, dissatisfied attendee simply tweets their displeasure with the hashtag of #YourEvent and everyone knows about it. This triggers a situation.
Left unchecked, the situation smolders and has a real potential to reach a flash point. An ugly flashpoint can damage the reputation of the event and the sponsoring organization. That reputational damage is then converted into a negative revenue impact in the months and years that follow, such as if people decide not to attend the event or to renew their association membership.
Your situation can easily ignite into a financial crisis and a membership crisis.
What should you do?
Below we outline a formal 5-step process you should follow.
1) Start by conducting a Vulnerability Assessment.
This is where you identify all of the things that could damage your reputation and revenue. It ranges from the sudden things like a natural disaster or a mass casualty shooting, to those smoldering things such as sexual harassment, or an ugly social media post that goes viral.
In your assessment, you should examine the double-edged sword nature of social media. Every conference urges attendees to post comments to social media. But if you evaluated those posts, you would find an overwhelming number of participants posting or only a few who seek to be role models.
As most events transition to have their own event app, examine whether that app pays for itself or whether it expedites posts to social media that can do more harm than good.
2) Develop a Crisis Communications Plan.
This must be a thorough, step-by-step document that guides you through the process of gathering information about your situation, confirming it, then disseminating an appropriate statement to all who need to receive an explanation.
Built into those five steps would be a predetermined process. Strategically and relentlessly monitoring social media at an event needs to be a 24/7 job assigned to up to three people. Should your listening team detect a potential situation, a key component is to find the individuals at the heart of the situation. You have to privately and separately speak to the accused and the accuser. Time is of the essence. Your initial goal is to listen in-person so the “situation” doesn’t play out on social media. Engaging on social media can amplify and magnify the situation.
In some situations, a formal statement must be made from the main stage of the event, with a possible mass email going out to all attendees, and in the case of associations, an email to all members. These actions are covered in steps three, four, and five.
3) Write out Pre-Written Statements.
Prepare these statements now, that you would use if and when they are needed. Start with the most troublesome and likely issues identified in your Vulnerability Assessment. Your statements must use fill-in-the-blank and multiple-choice options in order to remain timely. Because the speed of social media controls the initial narrative, these pre-written statements are three to six hours faster than if you tried to craft a perfect statement in the midst of your crisis and while still trying to run a successful event.
4) Train your spokesperson.
Someone has to be prepared to read the pre-written statement to your audience and then respond to tough questions. Essentially, you need to go through the same type of Media Training that corporate spokespeople go through. Many associations provide Media Training to their board members before the event.
5) Conduct a Crisis Communications Drill.
Test your team members, test your Crisis Communications Plan, test your Pre-Written Statements, and test your spokesperson.
Is all of this really necessary? Is it overkill? The answer lies in a simple mathematical formula in which you begin by calculating the financial damage one situation could cost your organization. Chances are the time and money you put into the five steps will be far less than the cost of letting a situation turn into a crisis.
Crisis communications and media training expert Gerard Braud, CSP, Fellow IEC is based in New Orleans. Organizations on five continents have relied on him to write their crisis communications plans and to train their spokespeople. He is the author of “Don’t Talk to the Media Until…”
https://braudcommunications.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Photo-on-10-18-18-at-3.11-PM-2.jpeg427640gbraudhttps://braudcommunications.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Logo-white-01-300x138.pnggbraud2018-10-25 09:01:472021-05-19 00:30:125 Steps to Keep a Situation from Becoming a Crisis at Your Next Meeting
Your spokespeople need media training and I’d like to be your media trainer. There. I said it. I’m asking you to please consider me.
Below are three reasons why my training can offer you techniques that other trainers don’t offer. Plus – if you book your training in November and December 2018, I’ll let you add one extra person to the media training class at no extra charge. Many of you have money in your budget that you either have to spend or you will lose it. So act fast to get your training on the calendar now.
To make the case of why you and your spokespeople can achieve greater results from my media training programs, here are three things to consider.
Consideration #1: Mobile Device News Readers
I’ve adjusted my training to coincide with how people read news on their mobile devices. PEW Research says 85% of older adults read their news on a mobile device. Most people will tell you they only read the headline, the first paragraph, and the first quote, before they move onto something else. In other words, their perception about the news story that might involve your organization is derived from the headline, the lead sentence, and the quote. That is one of my primary points of focus, because it is the essence of a reporter’s inverted pyramid writing style.
More then 15 years ago I pioneered the preamble technique. Initially the preamble was developed to add context to a media interview. Because most reporters ask direct questions and most spokespeople try to respond with a direct answer, often the answer is taken out of context because the spokesperson is never taught to add context. A well-worded, profound, overarching sentence, spoken by the spokesperson as a preamble to their first answer provides context.
Consideration #2: Controlling the Edit
As this preamble technique has evolved, an increasing number of reporters are using the preamble to make up the essence of their lead sentence. And if you know anything about the newsroom, you know that the headline is written by a copy-editor who reads the lead. Hence, if your preamble controls the lead, then your preamble also controls the headline. If you control both of these, you control the perception of the mobile device reader and you control the edit of the news story.
Consideration #3: Strong Quotes
A compelling quote compels a good reporter to put the quote in their news report, as well as to use it early in their report. I promise you that I can help your spokespeople land some amazing quotes. Preamble + Quote = Controlling the edit + Controlling the perception.
Time for a change?
Most media trainers are still teaching spokespeople to focus on three bullet points as their key messages, which leads to bad ad-libs. Most trainers are teaching bad techniques such as telling people to only talk about what you want to talk about, combined with bad avoidance techniques, bad pivots, and bad spin. Guess what? The audience is wise to this and rejects it, just as the media are wise to this and reject it.
What might have worked in the past doesn’t work today. Times are changing. Are you changing with the times? Is your media trainer changing with the times?
If you love your media trainer, please stay with them. If it is time to hire your first media trainer or change to a new media trainer, it would be my honor to talk with you. Please phone me at 985-624-9976 or email me at Gerard@BraudCommunications.com
And remember, if you book in November or December of 2018, when you book a class for four spokespeople I will let you add a fifth person at no additional charge.
Thank you for your consideration.
Crisis communications and media training expert Gerard Braud, CSP, Fellow IEC is based in New Orleans. Organizations on five continents have relied on him to write their crisis communications plans and to train their spokespeople. He is the author of “Don’t Talk to the Media Until…”
https://braudcommunications.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Photo-on-10-17-18-at-4.03-PM-2.jpeg427640gbraudhttps://braudcommunications.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Logo-white-01-300x138.pnggbraud2018-10-18 14:06:402021-05-19 00:31:06Please Pick Me to be Your Media Trainer
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Crisis communications and media training expert Gerard Braud, CSP, Fellow IEC is based in New Orleans. Organizations on five continents have relied on him to write their crisis communications plans and to train their spokespeople. He is the author of “Don’t Talk to the Media Until…”
https://braudcommunications.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/tartan-track-2678543_1920.jpg4951920gbraudhttps://braudcommunications.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Logo-white-01-300x138.pnggbraud2018-10-08 11:45:082021-05-19 00:31:265 Steps Toward the BEST Crisis Communications Plan
