Mr. Media Training

Study after study proves that the public retains very little of what they hear.

But too often, media spokespersons and public speakers load their delivery with way too much detail.

In this video media training tip, I’ll cite a couple of my favorite facts about memory – and give you a few keys to being remembered.

We’ve released numerous video media training tips over the past year. To make it easier for readers, I’ve compiled a few of our most popular videos here to make it easier to find them in a single place.

Eye Contact for Media Interviews: Where Should I Look?

This video teaches spokespersons the three different types of television interview formats, each of which require you to look somewhere different.

How To Give a Great Media Phone Interview

This video offers three tips to help you become a more effective media spokesperson during your phone interviews.

Crisis Communications: The Right Way To Apologize

This video will help you skip the ineffective “stage one” apology and skip straight to the more effective “stage two” apology.

Why You Should Avoid The Language of Denial

If you ever deny an accusation by using the accusatory language, you’re going to create a damaging sound bite that the media play over and over again.

Lose The Jargon!

Most spokespersons use some kind of internal lingo. It’s easy to tell people to stop using jargon, but it’s harder to actually do. Here’s a tip that will help you.

When a crisis strikes, the first reaction for most individuals and organizations is to become defensive.

That often leads to two media statements: the wrong one, followed days later (after the fallout has intensified) by the right one.

In this video, I’ll offer you the right way to apologize when a crisis strikes your organization.

Below are some recent case studies of good and bad apologies:

Case Study One: When a vegan magazine pretended that pictures of meat were actually vegetarian dishes, many readers felt betrayed. They released a bad statement, followed days later by a good one.

Case Study Two: When an Orange County politician sent out a racist email showing President Obama as an ape, she released an inflammatory apology before backing down days later and issuing a more direct apology.

Case Study Three: When MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell used racial language to describe an African American leader, he skipped the defensiveness and issued a tone-perfect apology instead. A role model for spokespersons everywhere.

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A lot of media spokespersons treat phone interviews far too casually. And their tendency not to take phone interviews seriously can be a big problem.

Their casualness is understandable. Talking on the telephone is an everyday occurrence, so people don’t tend to view it as a scary thing. In contrast, being on television is a foreign experience for most people, which tends to make them prepare.

That makes no sense, of course, since your print audience may be ten times the size of the broadcast audience.

This video media training tip will offer you three ways to improve your telephone media interviews.

Related: How to Avoid the Language of Denial (Video)

Related: How to Lose the Jargon (Video)

“I am not a crook.”

“I am not a witch.”

Those phrases, like hundreds of others that embrace the language of denial, are media disasters.

Although many spokespersons know they shouldn’t use those denial phrases, they often forget that rule when they’re in the middle of an adversarial media interview.

This video will teach you a technique for responding when you’re accused of doing something you didn’t do.

Related: Five Tactics Reporters Use to Intimidate You

Related: Five Ways to Avoid Being Misquoted By Reporters

I recently posted a YouTube video that taught spokespersons how to answer questions to which they didn’t know the answer.

A few people wrote in and told me they thought my advice to avoid the words “I don’t know” was wrong. They maintained that saying “I don’t know” would play well with the audience, which appreciates a straight shooter.

A new Harvard study suggests they’re wrong. First, the original video:

According to an article about the Harvard study in Canada’s The Globe and Mail:

“Those who answered the questions honestly but hesitantly were rated an average of 25 per cent less credible and likeable than those who evaded in an eloquent way….As many as half of the students in the study could not even remember what question was originally asked after hearing an artfully evasive answer.”

So, is my advice is to gracefully evade a reporter’s questions? Not at all. Evading questions will cause the reporter and the audience to question your sincerity.

But I maintain that the “Peter Jennings Technique” described in the video doesn’t evade questions. Rather, it answers questions directly, albeit in a broader context than the question itself.

This technique works best in interviews that aren’t adversarial. If you’re on local radio with a friendly host, for example, it’s safe – moreover, preferable – to use this technique.

To be clear, there are times you should say “I don’t know.” You should say “I don’t know” during a crisis. You should say it during a decidedly negative interview when your credibility would otherwise be compromised. You should say it when asked a follow-up question that asks you to offer the specifics you didn’t mention in your first answer.

But for everyday media interviews, stick with my original advice: tell them what you know, not what you don’t.

So, now that Harvard has backed up my original advice, did I change the minds of the e-mailers who originally disagreed with my advice?

I don’t know.

In this video, I’m going to share with you the best media training story I’ve ever heard.

It involves a famous news anchor, a red-faced rant, and people getting screwed. Enjoy!

This story (and a lot more) is featured in my new book, The Media Training Bible: 101 Things You Absolutely, Positively Need to Know Before Your Next Interview, available from Amazon here and for the Kindle here.

Click here if you missed Part One of this interview, in which we discussed the qualities that separate great media interviewees from the mediocre ones.  

Over the past few decades, veteran broadcast journalist Nathan Roberts has interviewed thousands of television guests while anchoring television newscasts at numerous stations in Los Angeles and Washington, DC.

In this video media training tip, I ask Nathan about the best – and worst – people he’s ever interviewed. His answers include a well-known politician, a not so well-known politician, and an iconic football coach.