Hillside Media Training

Tiger Woods’ performance at last week’s so-called press conference was so cringe making one wondered who advised him to take part in such a bizarre confessional. Who died? Had he committed murder ? Was he about to go down for some heinous crime? The staging was so overblown and tone so deathly it was hard to believe that this devastating crime had been adultery.  Yep and currently, even in America, it doesn’t carry any sentencing – except death by dwindling sponsorship.

There was wasn’t even any stone slinging – even the metaphorical kind in terms of real journalists questions. Simply a White House style backdrop, full one eye gaze at the camera with this dreadful mea culpa mugshot and then the agreed exit – man in handcuffs, ready to go down, your honour.

At what cost keeping your multi million dollar sponsors happy? Surely this was so over the top it became a farce? Especially with the very weird final kiss from mummy. Did anyone else think that the freeze frame photo of that clinch looked like the classic Gone with the Wind film poster? Oedipal or what?

Check out how to really handle a press conference on our website! Learn how to keep control and look like a real person

Anyone who has been in the full pelt of the British media knows that it is a formidable onslaught, as  John Furlong, CEO of the Vancouver Olympics, has discovered.  His bruising has left him dazed and blinking in camera headlights this week, confused why UK journalists want to write such ‘angry’ copy.

In the UK we seem to love the language of war. We are always ‘hitting out’ or ‘back’, having spokes people ‘attacking’ something or someone, or being in ‘conflict’. And this is not just since the  escalation of war, first in Iraq, and now in Afghanistan. As journalists we have gone over the years from being society’s watch dogs to its attack dogs. We simply can’t wait to get our canine teeth firmly into some flesh and we don’t care if its political or corporate.

Whether this level of aggression is justified does not detract from one fact:  the UK  media is still some of the best in the world. As our clients find, especially international ones, if you want tough questions asked and want to put any message testing or media training through the wringer then a UK  journalist/trainer is an awesome experience.

Our media might be hard-hitting ( there goes the attack dog writing again) but it’s razor sharp. It comes possibly thanks to a highly sophisticated print media  who’s bright tabloidy populist feel might look brash and trashy but always has its finger cleverly on the true British pulse. And has for many many generations. This enduring power should never be underestimated.

We don’t mind echoing the voice of our readers or audience and we don’t care if we put those in power under the microscope and champion questions on our audience’s behalf.  Sorry Mr Furlong – but it can be tough at the top.

Tears again on the TV sofa this week  as BBC Midlands journo, Ray Gosling, makes his amazing confession that he smothered his young, gay lover to death because he was in pain from AIDS. It has sent the euthanesia v murder debate into hyperdrive.

The rights and wrongs of this confession will grind on this week and it’s no surprise that the police are now investigating.  But what a bizarre media moment??

It is extraordinary that people choose the most public of platforms as though they want the most public of humiliation to assuage any guilt. Catharsis or what?

As Gosling this morning plunged into his public hand-wringing  BBC’s Mr Nice Guy cuddily Bill Turnbill looked increasingly uncomfortable with the mea culpa performance. Gosling for a TV journo seemed ill at ease with the surroundings too. It was strange seeing someone who was meant to be at ease with live TV make all the classic mistakes: shaking the presenter’s hands, thanking everyone profusely and leaping up off the sofa at the end without waiting demurely until ‘off-camera’ to be unclipped from the microphone.

Desperation had set in as he completed his self-enforced round of media confessionals. One almost expected to see the ‘boys in blue’ waiting for him in the wings.

How do big name businesses like Toyota and Eurostar still get communications so wrong in this highly sophisticated era of media onslaught? It is fascinating that these companies have possibly never practised a crisis day in terms of how to get the basic communications right. And if they did  – did their executives actually take on board the consultants’advice who probably talked them through the implications of what happens when it goes wrong?

Not to do a global product recall is a disaster. Remember Perrier Water? They recalled contaminated water bottles in the US but not in Europe. Sales went down the sink with the water and they lost market leadership of what was a multi billion $ market. This can be very costly as Toyota will discover.

How do you keep your hands on the steering wheel in a crisis and not end up in the buffers? Get trained by us! Check out our crisis training package.

TOP CRISIS TIPS

1. Have a clear chain of command who have all been media trained

2. Respond IMMEDIATELY – call a press conference & take control. Practise press conferences – they are an art-form!

3.  If it’s a faulty product  remove it worldwide – not in just one country – we live with GLOBAL media – other countries will learn about it online or on TV & wonder why you haven’t bothered with them – this is when the panic and distrust starts.

However much Gordon Brown’s pundits try to rubbish the screaming front page headlines about The Sun’s switch of political allegiance this week they are agreeing on one very simple fact – one that Rupert Murdoch knows oh too well….

It is not newspapers that decide a government it’s the electorate –  and Murdoch only backs winners. Research and the mood of his readers will be reflected in the political direction of the Sun. Love it or loathe it,  it is read by more people than any other paper in this country – approximately 11 million people each day if you multiply number of copies sold by approx 3 readers a copy – so 1 in 5 of the country. Amazing power. And if Murdoch wants to keep these readers he has to reflect their interests. And if he wants to gain readers in this difficult climate the same fact applies.

The Sun does not make or break governments – we do. The paper might expose their weaknesses and report under its now chosen political bias – but it’s only reflecting our mood. In terms of business speak – and let’s not forget newspapers in the end is a media business that is struggling to survive – it is about responding to the demands of your market.

And on the reporting aspect – its vicious pull-out section, punning on GB, PM’s initials and GB, us,  was visually very clever but factually tortuous and in some cases dangerously vague. But as a body blow , a cruel knock-out.

Yes, some Labourites might argue that it doesn’t matter as most people under 35 get their news on-line so will ignore what they perceive as the Sun’s tantrums but behind closed doors they know the timing and focus was annihilating. Plus those reading news on-line still go to newspaper websites in the main, as  The Sun knows.

Labour has so much work to do to stop this tide of apathy that comes after any 3 term tenure of government. We just get bored and tired of the same old faces and same old mantras. At least last time round when the mood swung from 12 years of Tory rule there was hope in the voice and style of change that Tony Blair represented. This time round the voice of David Cameron leaves much to be desired. What is it? And what does it represent? Will someone in the media please force them to nail their true blue colours to the mast so we can all take stock of where we might be heading mindlessly towards?????

It starts with a low fever but over the next months will become rampant and out of control – general election campaigning is contagious and upon both us & Downing Street like a dose of political swine flu.

Soon we will all be begging for a vaccination as kills are notched up on political belts. Ex head of News of the World and Tory head of comms, Andy Coulson, is the current victim of this soon to spread viral campaign. As momentum grows and the police start fully investigating the bugging claims one wonders where this will end.

If the superstars decide that the spying on them was an obvious breach of human rights and start a class action Murdoch could rue the day he got involved with British media. Celebrities, politicians and chiefs like Elle Macpherson, John Prescott and Max Clifford have enough financial clout to ensure that the next scalp could even be the News of the World itself.

And all this comes as a possible revenge attack from Labour for the recent head of Labour’s Damian McBride demise over email slurs against senior Tories.

From now until May next year, if Gordon Brown waits to the bitter end to go to the country, this clash will become even fiercer. Ten months away and the fever is only just hotting up…

Last election there was no Twitter, no Facebook and no real internet viral campaigning – this time they will mean that election fever will be so in our face we will be begging for mercy.

Casualties?  Well, McBride and possibly Coulson might be wondering what has hit them. News of the World  is probably hoping this is a simple sore throat. The next few weeks will see if they’ve just caught a political cold or are suffering the potential fatal effects of full blown election campaigning.

Yes Andy Murray’s Wimbledon win was impressive but why wasn’t I glued to the set during the match? In fact I was driven to keep wandering out to find something else to do. There is a huge difference between what works on screen and what works in the flesh. Often some TV presenters you meet in the flesh are strangely plain but the camera loves them and they light the screen.

Poor old Murray is not blessed yet with on screen looks. He may be magnificent when you are actually there watching him in Centre Court but just why doesn’t he translate to the TV screen?

Like many people he or his PR team have not yet realised that any interview on radio and TV should be a managed, controlled performance. We producers are not looking for actors or automatons but real characters who look and sound passionate and enthusiastic. McEnroe and the other on air commentators can bleat on how great Murray is but we the audience can’t see it! When he speaks to the interviewer after the match, he breaks one of the cardinal rules of a good TV presence. Just look at his eye line. He looks away before he answers any question – the viewer interprets that as shifty or unsure. He has nervous tics which betray his unease even when he has just delivered a 3 straight set victory. For God’s sake, he should be on cloud 9.The adrenaline should still be flowing . But he scratches his head. He looks down. He even sounds defensive. Even more surprising, at the end of the interview when he thinks it’s all over his shoulders collapse and he appears awkward. He looks dare I say it –DEFEATED!

Come on Andy –  Today you were a winner. You need to look like one. What you need is some TV Training!!

The fact that you are reading this means you probably trawl the internet for much of your news.  If you are under 40 when was the last time you bought a national newspaper, actually put your hands in your pocket and dished out the 30p to 90p cover price rather than grab the freebie Metro at the local station?

And when was the last time you actually bought a copy of your local paper? Regional media is in a deep crisis and that spells a  huge problem for democracy. The double whammy of the current recession, resulting in falling ad revenues, and the ginormous impact of internet news is killing off one of democracy’s greatest watchdogs.

Newspapers across the globe are crashing and burning. America’s third oldest paper the Phildelphia Enquirer has filed for Chapter 11 and in the UK  60 regional titles have stopped their presses this year, resulting in more than 10 percent of the workforce being made redundant in the past six months.

People who’ve heard me talk enjoy learning about my first day as a junior on a local paper. I run through what can be a typical day: first up was an ‘extremely good’ murder from morning police calls, then a fire in Woolies in the High Street. After lunch it was a dose of Magistrates Court, reporting on everything from theft of a plastic toy car to serious sexual assault (I’d never come across the word ‘incest’ before), then a photostory of extremely large onions at the local farming show, wrapping up the day with the regular spot at the planning committee of the local district council.

It was fabulous training ground. At the age of 19 I learned many lessons and made many mistakes but more importantly I realised one very fundamental aspect, that all those bodies knew they would be reported on. They knew that their decisions or actions would be given coverage and that the local people would be able to see and read about it. The local journo’s presence, even a very junior one, kept them on their toes, even more so if that local journo sold the story to the nationals, the route that takes most news around the world.

Without the journalist sitting in court who will know how much magistrates have fined someone or who’s been sent down to prison? How will we be able to assess if this is fair or safe? How would stories like the recent police ‘waterboarding’ brutality of suspects in Enfield come to light? Who would know if a local council is allowing some monstrosity to be built by a beautiful nature park?

Your local newspaper is your local champion. Regional radio and TV do not have the same space or time, or staff to play with. In fact ITN is struggling to maintain its local commitment with most regional stations being shut down. [More of that in a later blog.]

Local radio in fairness is fulfilling much of the vacant role as your local watchdog, thanks to phone-ins and greater involvement from those listening.

Citizen journalism is on the growth especially with timely photos and videos of key events – but, sorry to all you fervent bloggers, you have not been trained, you are not edited by a fleet of subs who check over your copy to ensure its sane, legal, entertaining and unbiased.

The BBC is rapidly hoping to fill the slot with local pages – aimed at small communities, a move which is of great concern for businesses like the Daily Mail’s parent company, Associated Newspapers as it owns much of the regional press. It sees this as the state’s news body eating away at its commercial heart.

The project could be an interesting new voice on the local block  but it raises many questions. Who will be doing the reporting? Who will moderate for libel, accuracy etc? Who will decide content..or impartiality? The BBC trades heavily on its status as our guardian of impartiality but as it gains in power – its separate concern BBC Enterprises is a huge global commercial outfit – how will this last?

As you can see there many grey areas which we should all be questioning as part of the new Digital Britain. This is not just about losing the local chip wrapper- and this is not just about losing your local voice. This is a fundamental chip away at our nationwide democracy and in these increasingly state monitored times, is something we should all be fighting to maintain.

BBC’s excellent recent series on the art of public speaking wheeled in the great and good to discuss top tips which, to be honest, have rarely changed since the Ancient Greeks who called the whole process Rhetoric. I have to admit I didn’t get to see all the episodes but was impressed by the odd snippets I caught and recommend you follow the link  below for some great advice http://www.bbc.co.uk/speaker/improve/.

Alastair Campbell’s fascinating contribution on Persuasion, (not the Jane Austen variety!), shown here, at least hits the strategy spot when it comes to PR campaigns. We find that most clients at the start of interview training completely forget the need for strategy and don’t even ask themselves one simple question: Why are we doing this??? You’ve got to plan what you want your audience to think or do about your message, or why bother?? You need to know exactly what you want to say and plan a strategy for making this message come alive. Watch BBC presenter Kate Silverton’s contribution on story-telling for a few ideas.

We often play in our media coaching workshops with what makes a good story. Like Kate, everyone when first asked this question comes up with ‘narrative’,  i.e beginning/middle/end but it is far more than that. Your story-telling needs characters (make sure you are the good guys in the story!), a setting (where is this happening) and some action (what’s happening!). There are several other aspects but if nothing else you’ve got to grab the audience right at the start with a great hook, or grabber as US readers call it, and back this hook with colour, as Campbell calls it, in other words, the stunning powerful imagery you should be choosing to bring your story-telling alive.

Click on the link here to our Public Speaking page for more ideas.