The Media Interview

Great posting from Eric Bergman on the IABC Media Relations Commons blog about the value of fake ambush interviews during training sessions. On the face of it, making someone do an interview with no prep, on the spot, seems like a good way of showing the importance of preparation, but Bergman argues that it [...]

I have to thank googling for increasing my serendipity quotient ten-fold. You just never know what will come up in a search… like my search on “media training” today. Found this intriguing page title “Active Media Training Institute”, so I click on it, and there’s a picture of a robot. Hmmm [...]

Over the last week or so, blogs have been filled with clips from and comments about a Fox News interview on June 11 between host Julie Banderas and guest Shirley Phelps-Roper, who organizes anti-gay protests at the funerals of US servicemen. Basically it turned into a giant shouting match of name-calling, etc. You can [...]

“Shift preoccupation from how the performance will go to what the audience will go away with.” - that was the theme of a post from speechwriter/ghostwriter Jane Genova about the Cult of Self-consciousness that I recently came across, and I think it’s a great line to keep in mind when you’re being interviewed. Focus [...]

Heard a TV interview today in which the interviewer began with a statement and then waited for the interviewee to say something. After preparing for all sorts of opening questions, this can be a difficult situation for an interviewee - even worse than “So, tell me about your book…”.
But look at it as just [...]

PR and Marketing expert Susan Harrow recently posted this idea for netting yourself some publicity: “Think about how you can comment on social situations or stories that drive a movie”. For instance, if you’re a relationships expert, you could send out a press release mentioning tips for people who want to split up but [...]

Talk about not being prepared for a media interview… last month the BBC put an IT expert on air to comment on the Apple vs. Apple decision. Problem was, the receptionist ushered in a man who was there for a job interview in the BBC’s IT department. You can see the clip on [...]

This is a media coaching blog.
Sometimes I wince at the name “media coaching” because it sounds like you’re helping a politician to dodge media questions about having spent half a billion taxpayer dollars on floating restaurants masquerading as fast ferries…. sorry British Columbian readers, it was the best example that came to mind.
But media coaching [...]