Aim: Deal effectively with the press and get your message over

1) What’s it all about?

Journalists want news and views fast. So fast that managers and senior leaders simply don’t have time to prepare what to say in detail. So it’s important to understand the key dos and don’ts before talking to any print, radio or TV outlet. Because one bad interview can have a dramatic consequences for you, your business, your stakeholders and the public.

2) Why iOpener?

We only work with selected current BBC TV news journalists to ensure that you get trained by people who do this kind of interviewing all day every day. Who’ll show you how to hold your line whatever the question. Who’ll ask you the really hard questions until you can produce a really good answer. That means when you go out there you’ll protect your reputation as well as your organisation’s.

3) How?

This workshop is more of an intensive coaching session which covers all the practical issues in a media interview. You’ll do an interview and you’ll practice the different styles needed depending on the news outlet. You are interviewed and debriefed by a TV news journalist. And you’ll watch many clips of good, bad and disastrous interviews.

4) Participants

This workshop is for 2-3 participants who need to prepare a brief in advance for the TV journalists.

5) Outcomes

Participants will:

• Understand what media outlets are looking for so they can deliver to their needs
• Know how to hold their line and stay on message
• Understand and avoid typical traps
• Know what to say in different types of interview
• Start to deliver a sharp and to the point answer to the hardest questions

6) Participants cover

• How the media operates? Print, radio and TV
• What are journalists looking for vs. what you want them to know
• Skills checks, e.g. playing for time, holding my line, deflecting questions
• Avoiding picking up, using and denying negative words
• Sounding snappy – sound bites
• Different kinds of interview and how to prepare
• Clothes, posture, body language and voice
• Analysis of good and bad media presentations

7) Who should attend?

Any manager who faces media exposure.

8) Duration

1 day