As recently as 10 years ago, major Manhattan public relations agencies considered media training to be a small segment of their businesses. But the advent of social media and electronic communications has catapulted media training into one of the fastest-growing practices in the industry.
In fact, it is striking to follow the national news from day to day and see the monumental media mistakes made by public figures. Consider the events of the past 10 days:
The fundamentals of media training would have helped Palin avoid the avalanche of negative publicity that was triggered by her comments and would have limited the damage to Weiner’s reputation, which now needs to be completely rebuilt. The reality of today is that media is everywhere (cellphone cameras, YouTube, Facebook, etc.), and business people at all levels must be prepared at a moment’s notice to represent themselves and their organizations in a credible manner.
Fortune 500 executives are trained to follow a few simple rules when engaging the media:
One of the key responsibilities of a company’s corporate communications team is to manage the media by crafting effective messaging that both answers the question and helps convey the company’s overall business objectives. In many cases, companies will forgo media interviews and respond with prepared statements to reduce the chances of a spokesperson being misquoted or misspeaking. It is also common practice for companies to ask the media for the questions in advance so they can prepare responses.
Palin and Weiner violated long-standing media training guidelines. After Palin’s tour of Boston, a reporter simply asked her how the day went. Defying the “Don’t over-answer” rule, Palin went off on a tangent about Paul Revere. Weiner didn’t tell the truth in his initial media interviews about racy photos and that led to unflattering front-page stories across the nation for several days in a row.
From a media standpoint, we live in a new world today, and the media failures by Palin and Weiner should alert business people that any interaction with media of any kind can inflict serious damage if not properly managed.
Josh Sommers is president and CEO of Focus Media, a leading Hudson Valley advertising and public relations agency. He can be reached at josh@advertisingandpr.com or 294-3342, ext. 303. Read his blog at www.advertisingandpr.com. His column appears Fridays.
