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.
