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Je Suis Brian Williams

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Jes suis Brian Williams Gerard BraudBy Gerard Braud

Amid the media stories and lingering crisis surrounding Brian Williams, I will raise these questions.

1. Was the story true to the teller?
2. Would others on that mission recall events differently?
3. When you recall an event and tell that story, is it true to you, while others might recall it differently?

Je suis Brian! When I tell stories, they are true to my recalling, yet others who were there may tell a completely different story. The stories you tell are based on variables, such as the information given to you by others, information heard or overheard by you, and the potential for you to have misunderstood or misinterpreted what you heard. There are distractions. There is background noise. There are many variables.

I don’t know Brian Williams but I wish I did and I wish we could talk on the phone… both because of our shared backgrounds in journalism, and our backgrounds as speakers and storytellers. I also wish I could speak with him because of my background in managing crisis communications, which is needed in this case.

Another variable could be classified as the fishing variable. On the day you catch that two-pound bass, the fish is two pounds. The more the story is told, does a wee bit of embellishing happen as the fish grows to be a six-pound bass?

Embellishment is part of human nature.

And then there is the tribute factor. Williams was GIVING tribute to a soldier in his telling of the story. He was not trying to take credit for anything that, from my perspective, was self-serving.

There are two ironies at play here, which has turned this into a crisis.

Irony #1

Brian Williams sells credibility for a living and now his credibility is being called into question. Not only is his credibility on this story being questioned, but others are raising questions about a variety of past stories. As a former journalist, there is never a day where the world agrees with your telling of any story. A reporter should provide perspective without bias.

Irony #2
The media are obsessed with reporting things from social media. It is social media that has fanned the flames enough to turn this small story into a bigger story. This social media smoldering crisis has become a raging wild fire.

Akin to this are some lessons in crisis communications that each of us can apply in our professional lives and in the organizations where we work.

1) Brian Williams did the right thing to apologize quickly. It takes a big man to say I made a mistake and especially to do it on national television. He did it with class and the appropriate amount of humility and empathy. I’ve seen many media outlets make far more egregious errors and never offer a retraction, correction, or apology for errors and omissions.

2) Support from others who were there and can support your story is important. Some members of the military have come forward to back-up portions of the story told by Williams, but now some are questioning their recollection of their position.

Lance Renolds3) If he has not done so already, Williams should personally call those who called him out to offer an apology and to listen to what they have to say. He must also listen for that which gives a clue as to the motivation of those who called him out. Were they truly offended? Were they angry and dealing with anger issues? Do they hate the media and hate Brian Williams? Is someone trying to gain their 15 minutes of fame? Is someone trying to sell a story or book? It is difficult in a crisis to communicate with your detractors if you don’t truly have insight as to their motives and emotions.

4) If Brian Williams plans to return to the air next Monday, then this Friday he should do an interview on the Today Show. At his side for the interview should be his detractors as well as the veterans who have come forward to support the essence of the story told by Williams.

5) NBC, as the employer, needs to issue a statement. It should neither be a statement that condemns him nor one that places him on a pedestal. The statement should express a degree of neutrality in supporting Williams for his decision to take time off away from the anchor desk so that he doesn’t detract from the news on which he reports.

I am concerned that it appears NBC and Brian Williams may take the same course of action that many corporations do, which is to hope this all blows over. As I tell my corporate clients, “Hope is not a crisis communications strategy.” Action is a strategy and swift action is the best strategy.

It is a common flaw that institutions and people focus on the problem. The focus should be not on the problem, but on the solution to the problem.

Will Williams recover from this?

In the grand scheme of things, the telling of the story reflected no bias. If there are errors and/or omissions, those did not affect the outcome of events nor did they cause physical or financial harm to others.

I don’t know all of the facts and don’t expect that anyone will know them all. I am, however, human and forgiving.

Je suis Brian.

Selecting the Right Spokesperson: Should it be Multiple People?

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DSC_0114Who should be your media spokesperson? In this series of blogs, we have reviewed the argument for the CEO serving as the spokesperson and the PR person serving as the media spokesperson.

Consider option 3: Should a Variety of People Should Serve as Your Media Spokespeople?

A subject matter expert, with proper media training, can be a great spokesperson. In fact, an expert in the subject is often the most credible with the media and the audience.

Numerous people should be media trained as spokespeople, with each ready to go when called upon.

In a crisis, the PR person should speak during the first hour of the crisis, as explained in our previous article. By the end of the second hour of the crisis, a subject matter expert should serve as the spokesperson. If needed, the subject matter expert can remain the spokesperson if the crisis is ongoing. The final news briefing of the day may be the best time to feature the CEO as spokesperson, as explained in our previous article.

Think of your spokesperson selection process the way sports teams operate. You have stars and strong people on the bench, ready to step in as needed.

Media training helps identify your star players and secondary players. Most of all, never let anyone speak without intense training. Media play hardball. Don’t send out an untrained person with little league skills.

Train your CEO. Train your PR expert. Train multiple subject matter experts. The number of experts you train is based on the type of organization you represent. A hospital, for example, could have multiple doctors from multiple fields, as well as one or two nurses. An electric company could train multiple supervisors and line workers, as well as someone who is an energy conservation expert.

The key to effective media training is to help these subject matter experts learn to put their daily jargon aside and learn to speak at a level that a sixth grader could understand. This is especially true for persons with an analytical mind, who have a propensity to focus on tiny, technical details, rather than focusing on the big pictures.

Who will be your media spokesperson?

About the author: Gerard Braud, CSP, Fellow IEC (Jared Bro) is a media training and crisis communications plan expert. He has helped organizations on 5 continents. Braud is the author of Don’t Talk to the Media Until… 29 Secrets You Need to Know Before You Open Your Mouth to a Reporter. www.braudcommunications.com

How to Select the Right Spokesperson? Should it be the PR person?

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CrisisDrillGerardBraudWho should be your media spokesperson in a crisis?

In a recent blog, we reviewed Argument #1: The CEO Should Always Be the Spokesperson.

Now we can review Argument #2: When Should the PR Person Be the Spokesperson?

The public relations person is an excellent choice as a spokesperson in the first hour of the crisis when media might be just arriving. But your PR guy or gal doesn’t need to be the spokesperson throughout an entire crisis, nor would I suggest they be your only long term spokesperson.

The best argument for using your public relations expert in the early hours of a crisis is because other members of the crisis management team are likely responding to and managing the crisis. Also, those other experts will rely on the PR team to provide them with the words, talking points, and key messages that need to be communicated.

In most cases, your public relations person has a natural gift for words, both spoken and written. These are usually natural gifts that other members of the crisis management team do not have. Usually the C-Suite is heavy on analytical thinkers who are better with numbers, facts, and figures than with words.

If you weigh your options and look at the variables, the senior member of your public relations team is a perfect first choice, especially when a spokesperson is needed in the first hour of the crisis.

Also, always make sure a PR person is on the crisis management team. Additionally, they should serve as leader of the crisis communications team.

Many companies are slow to communicate in a crisis because:

1) they wait until they know everything before they say anything

2) they are waiting for the CEO or a senior manager to free up long enough to speak

My best recommendation is that you should speak within the first hour of a crisis, even when only a few facts are known. You can tell the media what you know now and add more details later.  A “First Critical Statement” is the document that I use in every crisis communications plan I write. It should be in your crisis communications plan also. To download your free copy of my First Critical Statement, use the coupon code CRISISCOMPLAN when you select the item from my shopping cart.

When few facts are known, it allows the PR person to:

1) Acknowledge the crisis

2) Provide basic facts

3) Say something quotable, while promising more information at a future briefing

Our previous blog about speaking with one voice and relying on the CEO explains my belief that multiple spokespeople can speak on behalf of the company and SHOULD speak with one voice.

In our next blog on this topic, I’ll give you a third option as you decide how best to select the right spokesperson for your company.

By Gerard Braud

Crisis Communication Lessons for the Super Bowl Bound New England Patriots

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deflated foot ball gerard braudWhy are we still talking about deflated footballs days before the Super Bowl? Best in class public relations, expert crisis communications, and expert media relations can be personified by not letting a little issue grow into a big issue.

If a small weed grows in my garden, I pull it right away so it doesn’t grow into a bigger weed with deep roots that sucks the life out of everything around it. Corporations and football teams alike need to wake up and realize that same metaphor applies to nipping a small crisis in the bud rather than letting it grow.

Deflate Gate started on Sunday, January 18, 2015. Here we are 10 + days later still talking about it.

The reason the crisis lingers is because days passed before coach Bill Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady even spoke about this little crisis that has grown into a public relations black eye. This isn’t surprising, but it is bush league. We see corporations do it all the time. We’ve seen the NFL do it all season. Usually, behind the scene there are lawyers who presumably believe they are protecting their clients. Meanwhile, the court of public opinion is convicting their client, damaging both reputation and revenue.

The sooner you address a small crisis, the sooner it goes away so you can focus on what is most important.

The longer you let a crisis go unaddressed, the more it becomes a distraction to the things that are important.

Geeze. Some people never learn.

By Gerard Braud

The Fog of Decision Paralysis: A Lesson in Crisis Behavior

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Fog_CrashYou should know it is fog season in New Orleans. With fog season comes some significant lessons about human behavior in a crisis.

Dive in with me, if you will, on an incredibly foggy morning. We are crossing a 12 mile long bridge over Lake Pontchartrain from Mandeville, Louisiana to New Orleans. We’re on this 12 mile bridge because the 24-mile long Lake Pontchartrain Causeway bridge is closed because of zero visibility.

The fog is so thick it’s as though our headlights are reflecting off of a bright, white wall.

Our forward visibility is at most three to four feet.

If you were in this situation, what would you do?

What would you foresee happening?

I was actually in that situation on December 31, 1996. I was still asking myself this question and preparing for a possible crisis, when a white, Ford F-150 pickup truck swept by me. He was in the left lane driving far too fast. It took only a flash for him to disappear into the fog.

Within an instant I saw his taillights bounce high into the air. He had rear-ended a slower moving car. The two cars were then faced sideways blocking both lanes of the interstate.

Because I was driving slow… I was able to stop short of making impact. But then I heard the horrendous sounds of screeching brakes behind me.

As I looked in my rear view mirror. I could see headlights closing in on me rapidly.

I steered slightly to the left; the lights veered to my right and smashed into the truck.

I was witnessing the beginning of what would soon be a 70 car pile-up.

There were more screeching brakes… more headlights… more crunching metal.

I continued to steer slightly more to the left and out of the way with each continuing wave of arriving headlines. Each cluster of cars piled into the debris field in front of them.

Soon a green minivan hit the pile and flew in the air tumbling end over end. It landed upside down. Soon a small white pick-up was being crushed like an accordion.

The sounds of crashes seem unending. By now I had inched from the right lane, across the left lane, and onto the shoulder of the bridge. I was making spit-second decisions. I was taking action based on the events around me.

Then there was a brief lull. I reached my left hand slowly across my body and unbuckled my seat belt so I could help rescue those in need. I suspected some are likely dead. The lady in the flipped minivan was first on my mind, followed by the guy in the truck that was squished like an accordion.

But before reaching for the door handle I glanced in the rear view mirror one last time.

And as I looked up into my rear view mirror, all I could see were these letters. They were backwards: G- r- e-y-h-o-oohhhhhhhhh…greyhound-braud

I jerked the car one last time to the left until my rims were grinding against the curb. And by some miracle… the bus slipped by me in slow motion.

And as I followed the bus with my eyes, there in front of it was the first car to have been hit. It was still blocking the highway. The woman driving the car had been frozen in panic. All this time she had done nothing. All the while I was making spit-second decisions and taking action to avoid being hit. Meanwhile she was just sitting in her car, sideways across the left lane of traffic; the left lane now occupied by the Greyhound bus that was sliding past me in slow motion as the bus driver stood on his breaks. And the woman in the car… I watched the horror on her face… she raised both of her hands across her face. I watched as she screamed…

…and the Greyhound plowed into her car door. He windows shattered into a thousand shards of glass. Her car crumpled like a tin can, spinning down the bridge the way a tin can spins when kicked down the street by a child.

Then there was silence.

I exited my car. I crawled out onto the railing of the bridge.

I walked around the back of my car into the piles of crumpled cars and dazed drivers. The space between my car’s right side and the side of the bus was approximately eight inches. I eased between my back bumper and the bus so I could go check on the lady in the first car.

Out of 70 cars, my car was the only one without a scratch. No one had hit me.

It was a miracle. But I also did something the driver hit by the bus did not do: I took action.

In this world… there are some people who react and respond… and there are some who fall into fog of decision paralysis.

The fog of decision paralysis often strikes people in public relations, the men and women in the c-suite, and the leadership positions in the corporate world. When faced with a crisis, they often do nothing to effectively communicate to key audiences, as if they are paralyzed with fear.

Sure, fire crews are authorized to fight their fire without approval. But it often takes 4-8 hours for a news release to be written, approved and released, following the onset of a crisis.

Doing nothing is unacceptable. Doing nothing makes things worse.

In the age of Twitter, you must decide today how you will communicate at the speed of Twitter when a crisis strikes.

If the answer eludes you, call me at 985-624-9976. Your answer awaits.

 

by, Gerard Braud

 

 

Public Relations Help for the Asking

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Gerard Braud PR HelpToday’s public relations epiphany is that too many people in public relations fail to ask for help when they need it. There are many sources for expert help and advice. There are great professional organizations like the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC), the Canadian Public Relations Society (CPRA), and the Southern Public Relations Association (SPRF).

Many members of these associations are willing to pick up the phone for free to answer a simple question. If most don’t know the answer to your question, they’ll gladly refer you to a colleague who is an expert.

One of my greatest epiphany moments is that public relations folks cause greater problems for themselves by trying to tackle tasks that they are not good at or for which they have no professional passion. In my own career, my passion for dealing with the media and crisis communications lead me to develop a niche’, rather than opening a full service PR agency. If I need other aspects of PR, I call other experts who have PR agencies in New Orleans, New York, Toronto or other cities around the world.

Trying to do what you don’t know how to do is noble. Trying, learning, and achieving great things are commendable. But reaching beyond your capabilities often leads to failure, which then leads to you being further undervalued by your employer, as we discussed yesterday. Sometimes you get fired when the failure is too big. Often the difference between success and failure is simply asking for professional help.

And based on the personality type epiphanies that we discussed two days ago in the blog, you need to realize that most of your employers do not understand your craft or your profession. They think it is easy. Business leaders think you can work miracles. CEOs expect you to create magic on a shoestring budget. And often you do create magic with no budget and it feels great when you do. But when you do, you reinforce the notion of every CFO that you don’t need a bigger budget to do what you do. In reality, often you need to push back and say, “No, we need an outside expert to help us with that because the value of success is important and a potential failure would be more costly.”

Some of you are blessed to be in organizations with a huge PR team with experts in many areas of social media, internal communications, employee engagement, corporate social responsibility, and media relations. Some of you wear too many hats and do it all by yourself, including marketing, branding, advertising, and customer service.

Before you reach too far and fail, consider picking up the phone and reaching out to a professional colleague to ask for advice, help, and mentorship.

 

By Gerard Braud

A PR Epiphany About Your Value As a Public Relations Expert

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Gerard Braud Epiphany PR

Watch today’s video about Gerard’s latest public relations epiphany. http://youtu.be/XpMAsRLXoSY

Did you find your moment of public relations epiphany following yesterday’s blog and BraudCast video? I’d love for you to write me at gerard@braudcommunications.com and tell me what it is.

In addition to yesterday’s epiphany, there are several others I’d like to share with you as we all work together as communications professionals seeking to achieve effective communications in good times and in bad.

I had a huge epiphany when I realized how undervalued communications is in most institutions and companies. You are an expert at what you do, but you are undervalued in your workplace. Yet in your heart, in your head and in your gut you know there is a high value to effective communications.

While many of you can be considered an expert in the broad areas of public relations, my area of expertise is narrowly defined in crisis communications plans and media interview skills. Crisis communications and media interviews are even more undervalued than broader areas of public relations that the vast majority of you practice. And while strides have been made to measure the effectiveness and ROI of public relations to a brand, the reality is it is still undervalued. Many companies don’t want to spend the money to measure something they don’t believe in anyway.

The reason in part goes back to yesterday’s epiphany based on personality types and personality profiles. Many people who hold executive positions in companies come from an analytical and process oriented background, such as accounting or engineering. These personality types want everything quantified. But the reality is that in public relations many of you have seen enough case studies to know how to do what we do, the right way.

Yesterday I introduced you to the King’s Cake, so let’s use this as a metaphor. The cake has a small plastic baby. You hide the baby in the cake. Then people in the office cut slices. If your slice has the doll then you must buy a cake and bring it to the office tomorrow. Based on my experience as a New Orleanian, I can safely predict that someone will get the doll. For me, previous case studies are proof enough.

But an analytical person may undervalue my base assumption and want to have statistics to back up my belief. They may even want to establish probabilities of which color icing is most frequently sliced first, or whether people most frequently cut in a clockwise or counterclockwise direction, or even whether the baby is most frequently hidden under a specific color of icing. And the people who think like that will completely undervalue my assumptions, regardless of my vast experience as a King’s Cake expert.

Everyday you fight a battle against executives who will spend money to promote and market a brand because they expect it to achieve a return on investment for both reputation and revenue. Yet most are in denial about how quickly they can see their brand reputation and revenue destroyed by a crisis or even a poorly worded quote to a reporter.

Today’s revelation is that we are undervalued and I don’t see it changing anytime soon. Yet your job is to do your best and keep striving to make your case that PR on a good day and PR on a bad day are great ways to protect the brand’s reputation and revenue.

I value what you do. Keep doing it and do it well.

By Gerard Braud

(To order a King Cake for your office, visit Haydel’s Bakery online.)

 

 

 

What is Your Public Relations & Personal Epiphany?

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Gerard Braud Epiphany

View this and subscribe to this channel http://youtu.be/ZeNyTcoQX3k

I’d like you to stop for a moment as you plan for the New Year and your public relations goals. Reflect if you will, on the year that just ended, as well as the years before.

Today is the Day of Epiphany, and I’d like to challenge you to identify moments of epiphany in your own life and in your own career. I’m even going to share with you some of my own moments of revelation and epiphany in order to help you out. We’ll get to that in just a moment, but you’ll do better if you understand why today’s focus is on moments of epiphany.

photo(2)January 6th is the Feast of the Epiphany (and it is my favorite day of the year). Here in New Orleans we celebrate it in multiple ways. Today is the last day of the Christmas season. It is the 12th day of Christmas that you’ve probably sung about. According to Christian tradition, this is the day the Magi – or three kings – reached the baby Jesus in the manger.

 

King_Gerard_Allen

Gerard Braud as King of the Krewe of Mid-City with his father Allen Braud in 2001.

In New Orleans, this is also known as King’s Day. It begins our Carnival season leading up to Mardi Gras. This is also the day that many of the King’s are chosen for the various Carnival and Mardi Gras parades. In 2001 I was one of those King’s.

So, here is your assignment or challenge… Today is a natural day for you to go beyond setting goals and making New Year resolutions. Your ability to achieve those goals and keep your resolutions is directly tied to who you are and the revelations or moments of epiphanies that you have had.

For example, some of my greatest revelations have come when I have taken various personality profile tests over the past 20 years. These tests can be a window into your DNA and can affect your career and life positively or negatively.

I’m labeled as a Maverick Leader by Sally Hogshead’s How You Fascinate test. Sally will be speaking at the IABC World Conference this year.

I’m labeled as an Activator and Maximizer with high ethics by Marcus Buckingham’s Strength Finders.

Myers & Briggs confirmed I’m an ENTP – An extravert, dreamer, with opinions who values fairness.

True Colors indicated I’m an extravert who values fun more than money.

This means not everyone is going to like me. Highly emotional people and introverts are repulsed by me. My maverick approach to crisis communications plans is to get finished in two days, but analytical people who value a longer process and a series of deadlines may reject my maverick approach.

On the flip side, if you are a fun-loving, extravert who wants to get in, get out and get done with a crisis communications plan, then we are soul-mates, according to the epiphany presented by these tests.

My challenge to you is to dig up your old personality profiles or take a new test and see what moments of epiphany you have. It could help you know who your allies and enemies will be at work. Like-minded people give you permission to proceed in attaining your goals. Like-minded people are your advocates and will help you get the money or resources needed to achieve your goals. Conversely, those not like you may shoot down your great ideas or setup roadblocks to derail your efforts and ideas.

Who you approach for help will determine if your goals are achieved. Even the best ideas, presented to the wrong person at work, can go down in flames, ruining your year.

Happy King’s Day. I hope you rule your entire year.

By Gerard Braud

Media Training 23: Selecting the Right Spokesperson

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By Gerard Braud

www.braudcommunications.com

Picking the right spokesperson really depends upon the situation.

Many organizations tend to have two extremes in selecting spokespeople. Some organizations always send out their top PR person while other organizations insist that only the CEO speak.

I endorse neither of these approaches as perfect and will suggest that sometimes the top PR person is a great choice and likewise in some cases the CEO is a great choice.

But in many cases, neither of these people is a good choice.

In fact, if you think back to lesson 12 in which we talk about passing the cynic test, many reporters cynically will think that the PR spokesperson will be too polished, slick and rehearsed, and is therefore serving as a buffer to protect executives who are afraid to talk and who are vulnerable to difficult questions. Conversely, if the cynics see the CEO out front as the spokesperson for certain events, they will assume that the event is more serious because the CEO is having to handle the situation.

As a reporter, I generally wanted to talk to the person closest to the story or issue I was covering. If a hospital has a new procedure to announce, I’d rather speak to a front line doctor than either the PR person or the CEO. If the news report is about a non-profit agency, the best spokesperson for the story might likely be a volunteer. If a company is accused of wrong doing, I’d like to interview the manager who is closet to the issue at hand. If there is a fire and explosion, I’d rather speak to an eye witness or line supervisor.

The closer you can get the reporter to the person closest to the issue or event, the happier they will be.

Of course, this means that when it comes to media training, you need to use the same principle that a great sports team uses. You must train lots of people and build bench strength.

Training deep means managing budgets and calendars such that you can do both primary training and refresher training on a regular budget. Usually, budgeting time and funds is proportionate to the size of your organization. In proposing deep training and budgeting, just remember that the value of a single news story can easily pay for a single media training session. In fact, in most cases, the relative ad value of a single news story is 3 to 9 times greater than the cost of a media training class.

As an example, a 30-second TV commercial during a newscast may cost $4,000 to $5,000, which might also be the cost of a single media training class. However, according to the rules of relative ad value, a 30 second TV news story is considered 3 times more believable than a 30 second advertisement, hence the relative ad value of a 30 second news story could be $12,000 to $15,000. Most news stories run 90 seconds, which could increase the relative ad value of a single TV news story to $36,000 to $45,000 dollars or more. To take it one step further, most towns have one newspaper, 3-5 television stations and multiple news radio stations. Hence, the relative ad value of a news event could easily be worth $300,000 or more, depending upon which city you live in and the price of a 30 second commercial. More modern measurement methods can be even more precise in measuring relative ad value because they calculate the positive and negative nature of the story. The bottom line is that you can easily justify investing funds to train multiple spokespeople based on the positive financial impact it may have. Remember our rule about, “if you could attach a dollar to every word you say, would you make money or lose money.”

Hence, develop bench strength so you can have a large number of spokespeople to send forth and not just the head of PR or the CEO.

As for using the PR person, in Don Henley’s song, “Dirty Laundry,” he speaks of the bubble headed bleach blonde news anchor who comes on at 5 p.m. and how she can tell you about the plane crash with a gleam in her eye. Well the same is true of many PR spokespeople, which makes them not my choice on many occasions as spokespeople.

Regardless of whether news is good or bad, some spokespeople are able to stand before reporters and maintain a bubbly persona as though all is well, even when it isn’t. Their answers are often glib, superficial and poorly rehearsed. I hate that and so do most reporters and that is why many times I don’t want a PR person to be the spokesperson.

At the same time, many CEOs attempt to be too serious, attempt to communicate way too many details and generally look like the world’s biggest grump. I hate spokespeople like that.

The one time when I always want the PR person and the CEO ready to both act as spokespeople is when I write a crisis communications plan for an organization. I generally ask that the PR spokesperson and CEO both be included as spokespeople, along with a host of other executives.

Generally, in the first hour of a crisis, when information is still limited and most executives are busy managing the crisis at hand, I suggest that the PR spokesperson read what I describe as the “First Critical Statement.” This document lays out the very basics of what is known until more details are available.

Generally, I follow the initial statement one hour later with a more detailed statement delivered by a manager who has more expertise and knowledge about the subject at hand. This is one of the reasons why mid level executives need to be media trained.

Many companies will have sent out their CEO by this point to serve as the point person and lead spokesperson. I do not agree with this approach because I would prefer for the CEO to be leading the crisis team during the crisis. Furthermore, if a company uses a CEO as their spokesperson and the CEO misspeaks, who will come behind the CEO and clean things up if the CEO makes a mistake. Generally, I save the CEO to be the final spokesperson when the crisis is over. It both allows the CEO to clean up after any misstatements by middle managers and it allows the CEO to be portrayed as a leader who was managing the crisis.

Words are important, but you also send signals to the media by whom you select as your spokesperson. Choose wisely.

In our next lesson we’ll discuss the do’s and don’ts of a news conference.

Media Training 17: What Makes the Media Say Wow! – Commit News

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By Gerard Braud

www.braudcommunications.com

As a reporter, I generally hated going to a news conference or a media event that was about good news. It’s not that I’m opposed to covering good news, it’s just that generally the spokespeople were poorly prepared and the organizers were completely oblivious of the wants, needs and desires of the media.

If you call a news conference or organize a media event, you’d better be prepared to commit news. When someone commits murder, it is usually a pre-meditated act.  Well, good news needs to be pre-meditated as well. You need to commit news. 

The litmus test we use in the newsroom is to first ask, “Who cares?” Actually, in most newsrooms everyone curses like sailors, so how we actually phrase the “who cares?” statement a lot harsher. To pass the litmus test, the answer needs to be that a large portion of our viewing, reading or listening audience care. That’s how news is determined.

Too many good news events fail to meet that basic test of affecting or bettering the lives of a vast number of people in your community. A ribbon cutting is not news. Expanding your facility is not news. The anniversary of when your organization was founded is generally not news. Yet every day, the newsroom is filled with news releases asking the media to cover such events.

It is not news if the event is self-centered and all about how good your organization is. To be news, you must explain how it is good for that broad audience. To quote my wife – it’s not about you. It needs to be about the audience at home watching TV, reading the newspaper or listening to the radio.

For something to be news, you also have to make the media say Wow! That means you need to knock their socks off with a catchy hook, have good quotes and good visuals. Often adding wow means you have good timing and you are able to link your issue or event to something else important in the news. For example, holding a blood drive on a clear sunny day is likely not news, but holding a blood drive to help the victims of a crisis is news. Holding a food drive on a clear, sunny day is likely not news, but holding a food drive to help victims of a major natural disaster is.

I teach a workshop called, “What Makes the Media Say Wow!” My favorite case study in that program is one for a litter clean-up event that I was asked to handle PR for. The event is called Beach Sweep. It is an annual event that organizes thousands of volunteers to fan out along the Louisiana coast to pick up trash that has washed up on the beaches. While the event initially got lots of media attention, after covering the story for several years, media attention had died off.

To add wow I added controversy. In our state legislature there was a huge battle between a group of recreational fishermen and members of the commercial fishing industry. Fishing in Louisiana has a huge economic impact because more seafood is caught in our coastal waters than in any of the lower 48 states. With that said, I called the leaders of the 2 feuding groups and asked if they would both lay their differences aside for one day. I further asked them to call on all of their members to help pick up trash in the coastal waters as they went fishing on Beach Sweep Saturday. They both agreed. I then asked both leaders to act as spokespeople at a media event. These feuding parties standing side by side helped to create the wow I needed. Next, I needed the event to be visual, so I held it at a boat launch where the fishermen could take reporters out by boat to see the trash problem first hand.

Finally, I provided just enough media training for both spokespeople to teach each a handful of good quotes and how to deflect any probing questions about their ongoing battle in the state legislature. The best quote was crafted by simply asking the fishermen to hold a landing net and to demonstrate how it could be used to pick up trash, while saying, “This landing net is the best tool a fisherman can have this Saturday because you can land a trophy fish and you can use it to pick up trash.” It was what I call a show-and-tell quote. Four TV stations used the same quote, as did one radio station and every newspaper.

I knew going into the event that every reporter was really covering the story hoping to get greater insight on the legislative fight. When asked about the fight, the spokespeople were taught to say, “We’ll talk about that another day. Today we’re here to talk about something that is important to every fisherman, which is to clean up the environment.”

Hence, we committed news, told a story that impacted the economy, every fisherman and everyone who uses the waterways and beaches. That means we had all the pieces of a perfect story. And, to add icing to the cake, every reporter thanked us for making the story so easy to cover because we met their wants, needs and desires by giving them a story with a great hook, great quotes and great visuals.

In summary – be ready to commit news and don’t try to make the news about you, make it about your audience.

In our next lesson, we’ll talk more about how to prepare, media train and practice for an interview being conducted by an investigative reporter.