Media Training - The Media Landscape; Radio - Frequency Modulation

Dennis McCarthy

I first appeared on the radio in 1995, and my first live broadcast was with Dennis McCarthy who was a legend.

Dennis had the ability to stand in a street in Nottingham and say on-air, "I wonder who's house we're doing the programme from this morning" and 60% of the doors would be thrown open by eager listeners who wanted Dennis to come and sit in their best parlor and do a radio show.

Everyone listened to Dennis...

His avuncular style belied a prickly nature. He was bigger than the station he worked for; it was BBC Radio Dennis.

The first and longest conversation I had with Dennis went like this...

Dennis (in the studio some 1000 yards from where I was, in a bunker, under a car-park, looking at the traffic cameras) - Hello Travel, who's that?
Me - I'm John, Dennis.
Dennis - John? John? What happened to Annie, or Claire?
Me - They're not on today, it's my first day, sorry.
Dennis - Pick up after the sting.

For the next year, every weekday afternoon all he said to me was "Pick up after the sting". I may have said "afternoon Dennis, are you well?" or "How are you today Dennis?" all he ever said to me was...

"Pick up after the sting..."

When he said that to me for the last time I didn't know that one of my colleagues was wrestling control of the studio from him. He was seriously ill, and the decision had been taken to get him off air for medical attention. He was having none of it, and every time someone pressed the control button in the other studio to take his signal away from the transmitter, he pressed it in his studio.

He was determined to finish the show...

That night he went home, and died.

20,000 people turned out for his funeral.

The days of Dennis are long gone. In Nottingham you had the choice between national stations and 3 local stations; BBC Radio Nottingham, Radio Trent & GEM AM (later re-branded to be Trent FM & Classic Gold Gem) both of the latter were owned by the same company.

There was little choice and that made for massive loyalty.

In Nottingham, a city of 730,000, there are now... well, there are around 10 stations serving the city, others serving other parts of the county and then you have the nationals, DAB and the internet.

There has never been more choice in listening in the UK if you want to listen to music. If you want news and speech content then you're pretty much stuck with the BBC it's the only place you'll find documentary, discussions and opportunities to be interviewed.*

In the UK it's a speech monopoly we have choice but only in very particular ways... you may as well have Dennis back.


*there are a couple of important Metropolitan exceptions LBC TalkSport et al.

Media Training - The Media Landscape; The Press - Who Owns Your Message?

If you're interviewed by the press, why does it matter who owns the organisation?

Media ownership is a thesis all on its own, but the main things to remember about the press, are the political standpoints of the owners and the readers.

People buy a newspaper because it reinforces their world view, it feels like a friend that's on their side, that stands for the things that they think they stand for. If your political leaning is to the right then The Daily Mail, The Express, The Star, The Sun are all for you. If your political leaning is to the left then The Guardian, The Mirror, The Independent should be of interest. If you're vaguely undecided then have a look at the ever wavering Times.

The voice of the outlet is as important as your message. If you take an example of the 31st of January 2014, then there wasn't much that the front pages of the papers agreed on, but it's worth looking at how 2 papers covered 1 story.

The i (a slimmed down version of the Independent paper) appeals to the left leaning, possibly younger audience. It's an easy digest of the news. On the front page a report into University demographics is hailed as a win for women. Women race ahead... a positive spin on the story.

Then look at the way that The Daily Telegraph (often referred to as The Daily Tory-graph) a right leaning paper covers the same story. This time Boys are being left behind... not celebratory, but warning of a disturbing 'gender gap'.

This is the same story, with the same figures, with the same information, presented in 2 different and opposed ways.

Where does that leave the interview that you're about to do?

Before agreeing to be interviewed ask yourself...
"Does this newspaper represent me or my organisation?"
"Does this newspaper have the same message we are buying into?"
"Is this the newspaper of choice for my clients, consumer base, customers, stakeholders?"

If not, then you may find that the interview will be more confrontational than you expect, it may even go down roads you don't want it to, especially if you're defending a politically left leaning action in a right wing newspaper.

What about journalistic impartiality?

When you're dealing with newspapers don't expect impartiality. They are there to serve a self selecting community of readers that have been drawn to that publication because they have their world view reinforced. Whether that world view is that women need more opportunity and university numbers signal a change for the better, or that masculinity is in crisis and boys need to be helped in the struggle to succeed because they are being let down by the left.

That said, news is news.

If you're asked to defend bankers bonuses, industrial accidents, killings, and embezzlement, no one will be on your side.

That's 'ownership' from the point of view of the intellectual ownership by the audience. Physical ownership will also have its effect on editorial, even if the papers protest that it won't.

If you are in competition with the owner of a newspaper, you won't get coverage, if you are in competition with the owner of a newspapers other companies, you'll get lots and lots of unwelcome coverage...

 Take the Wowcher / Groupon situation. Both are companies that offer deals and vouchers over the internet for various services.

Wowcher is owned (at the time of writing) by DMG Media, who own The Daily Mail. 

Groupon is not.

A quick search on The Daily Mail website brings up 1 page of results for Wowcher; generally favorable stories from the money saving pages.

There are 11 pages of stories featuring or mentioning Groupon. Mainly very bad news about the website putting people out of business.

I wonder if there's a connection there?

Both physical and intellectual ownership will affect your message. It will affect how your message is spun, used, and in some cases abused. You always need to know what's going on behind the scenes before you become involved in sending your message out.

Media Training - The Media Landscape; The Press In Numbers.

When I was growing up I had a paper-round and all of my friends had paper-rounds, because everyone had papers delivered.

My parents read The Daily Mail, and it appeared that everyone else read The Sun. I can still remember the early morning calm, the smell of the dew-damp air, and the yapping of the 9 or so Yorkshire Terriers that lived at the corner of Crookdole Lane and Broom Road.

I haven't seen a paperboy or girl for years.

It may be because I'm not awake at that time, it may be that I live in the Forest Of Dean and no one wants to cycle up and down the hills, it may be that Newspapers are dying.

In 1987, when I was delivering papers, The Sun had a circulation of nearly 4 million copies, The Daily Mail had 1.7 million copies, The Mirror had just over 3 million and the Guardian had half a million. Now you look at the circulation 26 years later, and in the last sample The Sun dropped 1.6 million to 2.4 million, The Daily Mail stayed steady with 1.8 million, The Mirror dropped by 2 million to 1 million and the Guardian more than halved it's circulation and dropped to 2 hundred thousand copies.

What do all those numbers really mean?

In 1987 the population was on its way to 57,439,000 (1991 Census) and the total copies of daily national papers sold was 14,867,000 about a quarter of the total population (and a much greater proportion of the adult population) was reading a daily national paper.

In 2013 we have a population of around 63,182,000 (2011 Census) and the total number of daily national papers sold was 8,151,000 about an eighth of the population (and a much greater proportion of the adult population) is reading a daily national paper.

Newspaper Circulation has halved in the last 26 years.

Halved.

So what does that mean for the companies that run these newspapers? They aren't making as much money as they used to so they've had to cut costs. Cutting costs means employing fewer people and asking them to do more.

Don't forget, much of a newspapers output is now available online, the Mail gets around 8 million unique users a day (worldwide) and the Guardian gets around 4 million (worldwide)... none of those users pay for it, but it has to be serviced somehow.

News organisations have to do more with less, journalists are over-worked, there isn't time to do 'journalism' which is why this happens

NOAH’S Ark Zoo Farm has achieved recognition for the education programme it runs at its Wraxall site. The zoo hosts more than 15,000 school children each year, ranging from infant school pupils to teenagers studying A-levels, and has now been awarded the Quality Badge from the Learning Outside of the Classroom scheme (LOTC).

The badge is a nationally-recognised benchmark that demonstrates that those places awarded it have met several stringent indicators for education.

Assessments are conducted by the Government-appointed Council for Learning Outside of the Classroom.

Noah’s Ark education coordinator Catherine Tisdall said: “We are very proud of our unique hands-on approach to learning at Noah’s Ark.

“Achieving the Quality Badge is the result of an awful lot of hard work from a team dedicated to providing an exceptional educational day out for visitors.”

This is a local news story taken from The Weston & Somerset Mercury. A zoo has got an award.

Well done them.

With a little bit of digging you can quickly discover that this is a Creationist Zoo that denies Evolution... which is why, after a number of comments from the website and from the page getting shared shared on social media the following was added to the story a day after the first publication...

The award comes after Alice Roberts, professor of Public Engagement in Science at the University of Birmingham, published an article in the Guardian in December raising concerns about how the creationist zoo promotes religious views to its visitors through posters.

Professor Roberts wrote how she fears such posters, which she said ‘distorted scientific fact’, could interfere with a child’s education.

* * *

* We have acknowledged there are contrasting views on this issue, and have added a line to make that fact clear – however, the award presented to Noah’s Ark is a reputable one, and we have reported on that fact without taking sides or passing judgment on the merits of the facility itself.

 The original piece looks like a "copy & paste" press release from the zoo, the addition looks like the stable door being closed by a journalist who has seen that people are angry about the celebratory tone.

This is what some press journalism has become, the recycling of press releases.

It's because there's a tiny number of journalists rattling around news rooms that used to be filled with people.

The individual journalist has to do more and more and more, and a press release with pictures of nice people from a zoo about how the zoo has won an award is easy to cut and paste.

The journalist can now get on with their real job.

I have a friend who was an editor at a local paper, she left because the owners had decided that her journalists were going to be managed by the commercial manager not the editor, because they were there to find stories to support the advertisers. I know people who have seen their jobs in national publications get harder and harder... you can almost understand why phone hacking started being used; it was an easy way to get good stories that sold papers and kept journalists employed.

When the press come to you for an interview, remember the background of a changing world, remember that the journalist may have 10 other stories to get done, and you're just another one, remember that the person you're talking to may just want sensationalism to keep in with the boss, or even rarer than that, they may have actually had the time to find some real news about you.

On the next blog we'll look at how owners, influencers, and audience can affect your press coverage.

Media Training - Introduction

She let out a small scream and ran away… she actually ran away.

I looked at her retreating back, looked at my microphone, and then looked at my other guest. My voice seemed to come from a cave a long way off. I recited one of the great journalistic ‘thinking time’ phrases “So, if I can turn to you…” as I tried to work out if what had happened, had actually happened…

…and then time returned and the interview continued.

I had never had an interviewee let out a little strangled scream and run off.

I was presenting a program from a large college; we had already interviewed seven or eight people including some of the college’s special needs students and were building up to talking to the management. Two of the senior people were standing with me in the entrance hall, the producer in my headphones told me that we’d be live in thirty seconds; I relayed that information and carried on explaining to my guests just what would happen.

I was live, I greeted them both, and I asked something ground-breaking like ‘you must be proud of the work you do here?’ or some other soft warm up question, and then she let out a small scream and ran away… she actually ran away.

Until you’re in front of the media you don’t know how you’ll react. This senior manager probably thought she’d be fine, presenting and talking are all part of the managers role, however, when there’s a branded microphone, a journalist, a producer, a runner, and a waiting audience of thousands, you may suddenly give a small scream and run away. Or worse, your common sense, good judgement, brand identity, ability to speak, bowel control and higher functions all run off and your physical shell is left to try and respond to a journalist whilst your brain is doing something else.

Media training isn't just getting the story straight, it’s learning to be comfortable with the media, it’s learning the rules, it’s learning to play the game properly, and until you can do that your media interactions will always be average, at the best.

Default Narrative - The basics.

Default Narrative - The basics in one handy video. follow me @johnrockley

Tony Christie Is NOT Dead

"Tony Christie is dead and I think it's in very bad taste to be asking about him" I was surprised to get an email like that in 2003.

After playing a Tony Christie song on BBC Radio Gloucestershire I asked "what's Tony Christie doing these days?" This was long before the reintroduction of Tony on the British audience via Peter Kay and his charity video.

The anger I encountered spurred me on. I knew that if he had died I would have heard about it; so I started doing a bit of research.

I found, after trawling the internet, that Tony wasn't dead he was living in Spain and that he was still popular enough in Germany that he had an agent based there. He'd even released a number of German CDs.

A quick email to his German agent got a response from Tony and I got him on the programme, on the phone from his home and I interviewed him live. He was surprised to find out that he was dead.

A few weeks later I was sent a selection of his German releases, as a thank you for being interested in him.

Lovely, I resurrected a classic star, and got a nice bit of radio out of it.

In 2005 after the huge success of "Is This The Way To Amarillo" Tony was back in the UK, and he was doing a gig near to my patch... So I got him on and interviewed him again.

I always want an interview with an artist to be about them not me, we started looking back over his career and he mentioned that a radio station had once phoned him because they thought that he was dead. I was about to say, "yes I know, that was me" when he went on to say that it was a presenter at GMR in Manchester.... Not Gloucestershire... not even close...

What do you do in that situation?

He told me the whole story of how this great presenter had got in contact and it was very odd because he was working in Germany at the time... I let it slide. I didn't want to be the person who got uppity about being forgotten.

So why talk about it now?

I think that it pinpoints 2 things that you need to be aware of when communicating with anyone, from Media Training to Presentation Training to Crisis Communications... whether you're on BBC Breakfast or in a pitch meeting.

1) People remember what's important to them - To Tony the important bit was someone thought he was dead, the detail of who that was was unimportant. He didn't care it was me, he cared that they thought that he was dead.

2) What is important to you is irrelevant - I wanted to be remembered... it's as simple as that. I wanted to be the person that found out he wasn't dead. Tony Christie didn't care about that, why would he. That was what was important to me, not him. Make your communications relevant, interesting, and important to your audience and they will remember you. It may be easy, it may be about internal change, but even then you may be more interested in the strategic direction of your organisation, your audience cares about their jobs, and if they have to move their desks.

And, by the way, I still like Tony Christie

Presentation Training - Your Number's Up.

I like words, words can do what you want them to do; they can swirl around forming pictures in the sky, they can transmit emotion, they can bring people together, they can start arguments, they can do anything.

Words are the modelling clay of meaning...

Numbers are not.

Numbers are cold and hard and they mean one thing, 4 will always be 4, but fore, for, and four are very different.

Or at least that's how modern culture looks at numbers, as fixed moments in our minds.

The problem is that numbers have been leading a double life, they have been moonlighting as escorts who are ready to let you do terrible, terrible, dirty things to them.

Take the % symbol. It's used as a fairground mirror to make things look bigger or smaller or just different... "100% increase in users!" you trumpet... that means you now have 2 users rather than 1...

Well.

Done.

You.

When you present numbers what should you remember?

1) Vague percentages mean nothing unless you put them into context.
Tell me the starting point for any rise or fall, don't just get excited by the big percentage. That said....

2) Avoid Percentages...
They may be the icing on your cake, or the way that you're able to show a good thing (or a bad) but my brain likes fractions. I can understand a quarter or "1 in four" better than 25%.

3) Remember your audience.
Are you presenting annual figures to a department or are you talking to a group of potential clients? The annual figures need to be in there for the report but do you need so many numbers talking to potential clients? Probably not, they want the business benefits and to see if you're the type of person they can do business with.

4) Very big and very small are incomprehensible.
If you're talking billions, trillions or on the other end of the scale, nanos or picos, my brain goes mushy.

That's why (in the UK) we like the Wales scale; as in "an area 3 times the size of Wales*" or "the height of 12 Nelson's Columns". We like comparisons with solid things. I don't know how big Wales is, but I can picture it on a map and if it's 3 times bigger then that must be very big... don't forget that even the great writer Dorothy Parker compared length, she said "If all the girls who attended the Yale Prom were laid end to end, I wouldn't be a bit surprised"

5) Headline numbers get remembered the subheadings don't. Use numbers sparingly.

The main thing is that you don't forget the reason for your presentation which is the passing on of UNDERSTANDABLE information. If the audience just get the information without understanding it, you'll need a 100% rewrite.

*62,283 Square Kilometres if you must know.

Interview Of The Week

listen to ‘Winifred Vs. Tesco Pt1’ on Audioboo

listen to ‘Winifred Robinson Vs. Tesco Pt2’ on Audioboo

listen to ‘Winifred Robinson Vs. Tesco Pt3’ on Audioboo

I am rapidly becoming Winifred Robinsons biggest fan.

Which is odd, as I really don't like the programme that she works on. "You and Yours" used to be half an hour every week, then it became an hour a day of 'consumer' radio, or in other words people moaning about stuff...

Not my thing at all, and then I started driving more during the programme and found that I'd listen if Winifred was there.

Why?

Because she is a very, very good interviewer.

Which is a problem if you happen to be George Gordon from Tesco.

We begin from a position of dissonance; Tesco wants to flag up social good while Winifred wants to make the point that during all of the coverage of consumer complaints and bad practice in the supermarket industry, Tesco are never available for comment.

It doesn't get much better for Tesco. Through the interview George tries to show what the company are doing to cut food waste and Winifred accuses them of causing the food waste in the first place with B.O.G.O.F. deals on food.

So what should you take from this as a business.

1) Be Familiar - if you expect good coverage when you want it, engage with bad coverage when you don't. By refusing to respond when the journalists come to you they stop trusting you.

2) Ask What Is The Story? - To Tesco the story is that they are being cuddly and responsible, to The You And Yours listeners the story is that a giant company many of them HAVE to deal with are chiding them for something that isn't their fault. Before appearing ask what the story is from the point of view of the audience.

3) Be Prepared - George Gordon from Tesco seems to think that Winifred Robinson is a wet behind the ears ingénue. She isn't, she's one of the best broadcast interviewers out there and any press office setting this interview up should have been listening to that programme for weeks before approaching them with this initiative.

4) Make It Good - The people behind this story don't seem to have figured out the major flaw. Tesco encourages customers to cut food waste, whilst pushing customers to buy more food as it's often cheaper to buy bulk in Tescos' Shops, blaming customers for wasting half of what they are forced to buy... Yeh, that reads well doesn't it.

Sugar, Coke, Health & Business.

 
Photo Credit: RєRє via Compfight cc

On the 9th of May James Quincey the President of Coca-Cola Europe appeared on the BBC Radio 4 programme 'PM'. He was interviewed by regular presenter Eddie Mair. The interview is available here...

listen to ‘PM Programme Coke Interview pt1’ on Audioboo

listen to ‘PM Programme Coke Interview pt2’ on Audioboo

I think that this is a great example of a large organisation doing something to break their 'default narrative' which simply reinforces their 'default narrative'...

The Coke default narrative in this case is...
"Coke is full of sugar and sugar makes us fat"

The result of Coke getting involved in anti obesity campaigns (and involved in this interview) changes the narrative to...
"We know Coke is full of sugar, but we're not going to admit that it contributes to obesity; by the way here are our anti obesity measures, which we're taking EVEN THOUGH Coke doesn't contribute to that obesity" 

We're left with a modified default that portrays the organisation in an even worse light...
"Coke is full of sugar, sugar makes us fat, and The Coca-Cola Corporation doesn't care."

As the interview progresses Mr Quincey states that people 'struggle to balance what goes in and what goes out... [low calorie and sugar free options] allow people to get the balance right.' Or in other words 'sorry fatty, you're too stupid to drink our drinks so we're going to offer you something else, because you've been struggling".

From the moment Mr Quincey enters the studio he has been stitched up like a kipper.

Coke is part of our collective food based cognitive dissonance. It's bad but we like to have it and we're not sure about the morality of the manufacturers. By approaching this dissonance the organisation attempts to mitigate its responsibility and (some would say) liability; they are doing good things so the problems are the consumers fault. It's not guns that kill people it's people that kill people... It's not coke that makes you fat it's YOU that makes YOU fat; you shouldn't blame the manufacturers of the tools.

Engaging the media on your core difficulty will often end badly.

When engaging someone as skilled as Eddie Mair it will end very badly.

He's prepared with multiple studies, he's prepared with the killer questions, he's prepared with 9 sugar cubes.

The challenge to eat 9 sugar cubes is a classic ploy, in this case it's the "would you feed this to your children?" question. It's side stepped and then returned to, it's the question that won't go away.

So, where does this leave an organisation that has an elephant in their room? (in this case it was a tasty sugary elephant... mmmm sugar elephant)

Weigh up the reputational risk between doing something and doing nothing. Doing nothing allows the default narrative to continue, you can acknowledge it, you can even monitor it, but it's unlikely to change rapidly without other circumstances coming into play. If you find there is a sector story you're dragged in to you need to reassess your default in that light.

Doing something attempts to change the default for the better, but the influential (in the UK) PM Programme is not the place to do it. What was the Coke Comms team thinking? Mr Quincey walked into the lions den and got delicately mauled. The key A + B demographic who hang on Eddie Mair's every word will have been delighted by the result and suddenly opinion formers are looking at the Coke initiatives and branding them 'fat wash'.

Do something you can make it worse, do nothing and it can get worse all by itself...

Which will you choose?


FYI Diabetes UK have covered sugary drinks and type 2 diabetes in this article regardless of what Mr Quincey may have said.

Prepare For Christmas!

2 things would fill me with dread when working for the BBC. One of them was Children In Need (I've never been a fan of forced jollity and news readers dancing).

The other was Christmas.

OK I now realise that I sound like an anti-fun stereotype. I do like Christmas, I've even warmed to tinsel and I want you to know that my home will become a grotto of delight for my 2 children. However, Christmas as a journalist is hell.

NOTHING.... EVER.... HAPPENS...

So why am I telling you this?

In the daily news media there are journalists, managers and producers up and down the land who are starting to prepare for the fallow period between Christmas and the New Year; they may only have it in their mind as a job that needs doing at this stage... and it's a job they all hate.

As a canny PR organisation, or as a PR working within an organisation, this is the time to think of how you can help those poor journalists with content.

Good content.

If you're thinking of things to do try along these lines (they are always the ones that get a look in at Christmas); Volunteering, working across the festive period, food waste, alternative presents, children, the armed forces / emergency services, animals and the awful things that happen to them and money. All of these will be trotted out every year without fail.

If you can dip your toe into any of these, provide case studies, no too many commercial mentions and access for a reporter to get it all pre recorded before Christmas week, start dangling it in front of them now. There will be journalists all over the UK who'll be so proud they have something to mention at the Christmas planning meeting in a months time.

Imagine their bright little face on that (nowhere near) Christmas morning when they open that big press release to find it's what every journalist asks Santa for... an easy life.

It's the gift that keeps giving.

MEDIA ENGAGEMENT SEMINAR IS BOOKING NOW 3RD DECEMBER IN LEICESTER JUST OFF THE M1

Page 3 or Lib Dems?

There are 2 big media stories this week, they both involve tits and they don't need anyone else to blog about them.

Seriously... Stop it.

Yes, Nick Clegg made himself look stupid and the song will haunt him to his inevitable political grave.

Yes, "Page 3" is out-dated out-moded tacky and unpleasant, but it won't stop until men decide that they don't enjoy looking at naked breasts.

Fine.

Are we done now?

So, on to the joy that Audrey Ellis has brought me this week.

Audrey Ellis? You haven't heard of her? The woman is a genius when it comes to the correct use of your freezer... She wrote "Complete Book Of Home Freezing" (no mucking about with definite articles here, oh no, straight in to it.)

Audrey (the one with the hair) wrote her magnum opus in 1970, and I've been reading the reprint from 1978. Oh what a read it is. Not only does it tell you to keep a journal of what is in your freezer, a task sadly forgotten by the modern freezer user, but she advises on the correct freezing method for everything in your home.

Audrey has a no nonsense approach to her subject. Here's her views from the page entitled "Slimming Dishes Planned For Your Diet"

"Almost every woman who needs to lose weight consoles herself by blaming those surplus pounds on something other than self-indulgence. Whether you blame your over-active glands or your extra-heavy bones the only way to get rid of a spare tyre and a double chin is to eat less of the fattening foods."

Thanks for that stirring advice Audrey... She goes on

"A fat friend of mine who found it all but impossible to cook her favourite dishes for the family without sharing them, kept up her morale by setting aside a small portion for herself each time in a special basket [in the freezer] of goodies to eat after she had achieved her ideal weight. It might be a bit of a temptation though, to less strong minded ladies!"

 Thank goodness men don't need to lose weight, it's just our "wives".

So why have I blogged about this rather than the usual media training comment stuff? Well, like I said, it's all been done this week. It's as relevant as Audrey Ellis' book on home freezing...

Take Advantage of The Phone In

It is a truth, universally acknowledged, that Phone in programmes are for the insane.

Broadcasters know it, producers know it, and the listening public suspect it; because only extreme views are shared. It's like getting into a taxi and expecting a level headed discourse on the banking crisis that accepts it's partially our fault due to our acceptance of an extreme consumer society and our inability to differentiate between 'want' and 'need'.

The problem starts when a lazy producer thinks 'what's everybody talking about?' and comes up with the easy hit of 'Do you think [insert obvious shouty subject here] or [insert opposing view here] I'd love to hear what you think.'

They don't want to hear what you think, they really don't.

What they want is entertaining radio filled with opinions that get people cross and make them call some more. The full switch-board on a phone in isn't because they have asked an interesting question it's because they've asked an easy question.

So where do you come in?

Where does your business fit in with this vast swathe of lunacy?

Well, here's the thing, after a few weeks producing a phone in programme you yearn for a normal caller; a caller who doesn't have flecks of foam at the corner of their mouth. So when you receive a call from a business person who is measured and intelligent, who can use the right "journalist whispering" language, the heart beat quickens and you really want them to go on air and explain it for all the crazies out there.

The great thing for the business is that you get more exposure, you get the name out to a possible audience of hundreds of thousands and you are remembered by the producer... then the next time they need a business person who can talk fluently they know who to call.

Still Authentic

There are some real winners when approaching a journalist with a story, and one of them is authenticity.

Whose story is it?

The case study is used by every charity organisation; the spokesperson describes just how the charity has helped a specific person and how you can help too. What the good charities, the clever charities do is let the people speak for themselves, let the journalist into the lives of the case study. They get the authentic voice rather than a voice filtered through a spokesperson.

It can work for business just as well as charities, you just need to identify the owner of the story, the person that has the most authentic voice... for example I've been working with an organisation that helps people build their businesses. It's a fascinating group of interconnected projects that really help entrepreneurs. The problem is the stories aren't theirs, they are their clients.

So what do they do?

They facilitate.

They give their clients the chance to tell their stories. The clients become the authentic voice of their own companies and the stories are the authentic voice of the umbrella organisation that facilitated it.

Recently there have been some truly bad marketing and advertising campaigns that get actors to play the part of customers, or of real people who consume a product. They are without exception irredeemable bad. The recent "Philadelphia Cheese" campaign featuring an annoying woman telling us to hide sweetcorn under cheese  is one of the worst ads ever... In my head.

We can tell if it's not authentic and push against it if it isn't.

Why Do You Need Media Training?

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JOURNALIST WHISPERING - WHAT THEY WANT AND HOW TO GIVE IT TO THEM.

It's another Vlog from the face of