Travelling home from work recently I heard a phrase on the radio which really annoyed me.
The reporter on BBC 5 Live was discussing Sam Allardyce’s first press conference as the new England football manager.
He summed up by saying: “It felt like the real Sam Allardyce, not someone who was media trained.”
Now I confess that I know very little about Mr Allardyce, or football, but it was clear to me that the journalist who made that statement also knew nothing about media training.
People sometimes misinterpret media training as helping people to avoid the questions or stay rigidly to a corporate message. Sure, we teach people how to control the conversation and manage a media interview but more than that we help people to find their own voice and not to appear like a media trained robot.
Good quality media training is about empowering spokespeople to take control of interviews and be able to get their messages out clearly using language the audience will be able to understand. Language that will engage and interest an audience. Or perhaps persuade them of a point or motivate them to take a particular action.
Sure – we also show them how to manage challenging questions. But we teach our delegates how to address these awkward questions without ignoring them.
You want the spokesperson to be human, to show empathy if it is needed and to be humorous if the situation is appropriate.
The same Radio 5 Live reporter who uttered this infuriating line had earlier praised Big Sam, as I believe he likes to be known, for being ‘calm, assured, humorous’ and for ‘exuding huge confidence’.
Even though this was a fairly relaxed unveiling style press conference, and he will undoubtedly face tougher challenges in his new role, it is extremely doubtful he would be able to perform that well in a room full of around 50-60 journalists without having had some media training and extensive media experience.
Journalists like to make out they don’t like interviewing people who have been media trained because they think it prevents them from getting more of a story.
But don’t be fooled. Without being able to interview people who have been trained and regularly put their skills in to practice they would not be able to find the high quality sound bites and quotes that makes their television, radio and newspaper pieces come alive.
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