CorpComms Magazine

I confess: I am a media trainer. Not always, not even very often. But from time to time, I train company executives and managers on how to handle journalists. And I am not alone. There are thousands of hacks and former hacks out there helping people to take on the media. Not that long ago, media training was relatively rare. Today, there is no doubt it's a growth industry. Anybody looking it up on Google would find 6.87 mn entries, even if the search was restricted to UK pages.

The expansion of this market has taken place side by side with a proliferation of the media, and as organisations have become increasingly keen to improve the way they interact with journalists. With hundreds of media training companies across the country, each one promising to demystify the world of the hack and help delegates 'turn an interview into an opportunity', how can anyone decide where to go? And - perhaps even more importantly - how do you decide if training itself is worthwhile? The two questions are, of course, linked. Those who have been poorly trained tend to regard media training with some scepticism, while those who have had good experiences wax lyrical about the benefits. But there is an increasingly widespread belief that media training matters.

'Whether it's via the internet or on television, never has there been such demand for up-to-the-minute news,' explains Sharon Francis, managing director of Media First. 'Companies have to be able to respond with credible spokespeople who understand what the media want and can deliver the right message with confidence, clarity and control. Once the media know you are approachable and can deliver that all-important sound bite, they will come back again and again for comments - which is surely a good thing for any organisation.'

One size does not fit all

Training cannot be standardised, however. Situations, delegates and levels of experience all vary enormously. Most training companies pride themselves on having working journalists on their books but, as Andrew Caesar-Gordon, managing director of Electric Airwaves, points out: 'If you can't teach, people aren't going to learn anything.'

For companies bewildered by the choice of trainers and training companies, therefore, it is important to find out what training the trainers themselves have had and the effort they put into each session. All too often, so-called trainers are simply journalists or ex-journalists who believe putting a delegate through a horrendously difficult interview is tantamount to effective training. It isn't.

'Trainers need to understand that most of the time we put delegates up only to tell a good story,' says Julian Mears, external communications manager at Britvic. 'We will never put people below director level in a situation where they are likely to face hostile questioning.'

Richard Frost, head of PR at NPower, echoes this theme. 'When middle managers are being trained, there is no point training them for a Jeremy Paxman-like grilling,' he says. 'They just need to understand how the media work. Not all interviews are confrontational.'

In other words, most people who go on media training courses are more likely to find themselves dealing primarily with trade press, local press and local radio. They need to work out what makes journalists tick, how newsrooms operate and how to communicate effectively with journalists who have limited time, limited levels of concentration - and, often, limited knowledge.

'Most media training is not about being grilled on television; it's about talking to the trade press and the consumer press,' points out Benjamin Ball, managing director of Bladonmore Training. ' It's being sure you give journalists what they need for a good story, and telling them nothing but what you want them to write about. You have to teach clients how to package their message and not get caught out.'

'You have to help clients to clarify their message for different audiences, present and articulate their messages and understand that the media does not have to be viewed as threatening,' adds Caesar-Gordon.

Back to basics

In other words, training can be broken down into three constituent parts: first, trainees have to work out what their messages are; second, they have to learn how best to deliver them; third, they need to know how journalists work and how best to work with them.

Learning about what goes on before a newspaper is published or a news programme is broadcast helps delegates to understand the stresses and strains of being a journalist. When people realise that journalists often have five minutes to prepare for an interview, 10 minutes to conduct it and 20 minutes to write the story, they can be more sympathetic to those journalists' needs. 'Training encourages people to take a grown-up approach,' says Will Edwards, director at Bluewood Training. Training also encourages delegates to realise the importance of having clear messages. 'It helps to focus our people's minds on what their message is and how to get it across,' explains Anne Keogh, media relations manager at Siemens. 'If they were meeting a customer, they would prepare for it - meeting a journalist should be viewed in the same way. Often trainers will tell delegates the same thing we tell them day in, day out, but it has more impact coming from an external professional.'

'External professionals' need to know what they are doing, however, so they need to be able to help delegates refine their messages. Frequently, clients believe they know what their messages are but realise in the middle of a training session that they are too vague and fail to stand up to serious scrutiny.

'Good media training delivers clarity of messages by testing them in practice interviews to check they stand up,' says Warwick Partington of Media Training Masterclasses. 'It helps delegates develop a range of good examples, justifications and sound bites to explain what an organisation does and why it does it in its own particular way.'

Clear messages with examples are absolutely paramount, both for middle managers and senior executives. Often, however, training board directors is a very different exercise, requiring a different set of skills. 'At board level, we need trainers with the confidence and credibility to handle the personalities and egos that are frequently present at the highest levels in an organisation,' explains Frost.

NPower ensures at least one person at every one of its power stations is media trained and can handle him or herself if something goes wrong. 'Sometimes it's as simple as offering journalists and their teams a cup of coffee and a bacon sandwich,' Frost continues. 'Having the confidence to view journalists as people rather than ogres is important. That's media training, too.' Keogh points out that many of her colleagues are engineers, scientists and IT professionals, whose everyday language is peppered with jargon. 'They need to learn how to communicate in such a way that the reader of a national newspaper can understand what they are saying,' she says.

Special occasions

Many organisations use media training to prepare for specific occasions and here, the skills required are different again. 'Lots of people think once they have been trained once, that is enough, but we find a lot of our most media-savvy clients use training to road-test their messages ahead of key announcements,' says Chris Matthews, managing partner of Hogarth. 'It's too easy to draft something that looks very elegant on paper but does not stand up to robust questioning from an experienced journalist.'

Barclays is one company that frequently uses media training sessions to make sure its executives are up to speed and can handle even the most aggressive questioning. 'Media trainers are an invaluable part of the internal process of preparing for an announcement or for dealing with an issue,' confirms Stephen Whitehead, Barclays' corporate affairs director. 'Until the position on an issue is tested under the scrutiny of media-type probing you cannot be sure just how robust the position is.'

Ultimately, training can be used in a variety of ways, by a variety of trainers working in a variety of media. Successful trainers research the organisation whose delegates they are training, understand the position they occupy in their organisation and know what they hope to get out of their training. Successful trainers have to be able not just to teach but also to listen. 'The real skill in providing a professional media coaching service is choosing the right trainers,' concludes Ball.

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