Blogs, insights and newsletters

Food is never far from our thoughts at Media First towers. We’ve got to keep fuelled up for our media training courses. But it’s not just eating. Journalists and consumers have an appetite for food stories.

Energy prices are soaring, and many face a cost-of-living crisis. So, advice on staying warm without cranking the heating up could have been useful. The advice issued by OVO Energy to its SSE customers, however, was neither helpful nor meaningful.

Have you played Wordle yet? If you haven’t, you’ve probably noticed some of your friends posting cryptic grids of different coloured squares on social media and either lamenting or boasting about their vocabulary skills.

Did you know most BlackBerry phones will stop working this week? The once ‘must-have’ gadget was not that long ago being touted by the rich and famous and was the device of the working professional – boasting 20 per cent of the smartphone market at its peak.

We’ve already brought you our guide through the worst interviews of the year. But what about those that went well? And the people who have proved to be excellent communicators over the past 12 months?

It has been another challenging year, hasn’t it? And while it has felt closer to normal than the previous 12 months, covid has never strayed far from the centre of attention.

It is the most wonderful time of the year. No, not Christmas. Our look back at the interviews of the past year that have stuck in the memory for all the wrong reasons.

Get your earphones ready – we have launched a podcast. The Media Landscape, presented by Julia Belle, combines a guide to the stories you need to know about with predictions and insight on those likely to be coming up on the news agenda.

MI6 bosses tend to avoid the spotlight. So, when Richard Moore – known as ‘C’ – gave his first live broadcast interview, we knew it was one we could not miss.

Sustainability can be a vast and complex issue. We know it is something many organisations are grappling with and struggle to go beyond targets and promises. And it is a subject that delegates increasingly want to discuss during our media training courses.

Let’s say your business was closing some of its offices or shops, shutting down a service or discontinuing a product? How would you communicate the bad news?

Forgive me. I hadn’t intended to write about Boris Johnson again so soon in one of our blogs. We know we only recently covered the complications caused by his “not a corrupt country” remarks during COP26.

The words you say are crucial in media interviews and presentations. But, sometimes, a brief silence can be almost just as impactful. In fact, the pause is a media interview tool that offers lots of benefits for spokespeople.

The words you say are crucial in media interviews and presentations. But, sometimes, a brief silence can be almost just as impactful. In fact, the pause is a media interview tool that offers lots of benefits for spokespeople.

What do two statements made almost 50 years apart have in common? The answer is they both serve as painful reminders of the danger of negative language.

at is the most trusted source of information? Traditionally, people might have suggested the government. Perhaps the media. How many would cite the internal communications of their business?

All organisations are vulnerable to crises and rarely a day passes without a brand making headlines for the wrong reasons or finding itself at the centre of a storm. But some are much more memorable than others.

It has never been easier for organisations to get their messages out. Social media, video and email mean it takes just the click of a button to begin communicating with customers.

Covid placed internal comms teams in the spotlight like never before. As the working world changed dramatically almost overnight, internal comms professionals had an integral role in communicating new ways of working and ensuring employees felt safe and supported.

If you are one of the many people who has turned to online supermarket shopping, you may have endured a frustrating weekend. The Tesco website and app went down on Saturday (23/10), leaving shoppers unable to buy groceries online at the country’s biggest supermarket.

A local council meeting may seem like an unlikely source of a story that has captured the attention of the nation’s media. But then, not many council meetings discuss something so stomach-churningly bizarre.

Feedback was a crucial feature of our latest webinar. If you watched it, you will have heard us argue it should be a part of the media briefing process, enabling spokespeople to develop and improve their skills.

Everyone in our team is talking about Squid Game. And we are not alone. The Korean drama seems to have quickly taken the world by storm.

It has been a time of both celebration and controversy for followers of football in Newcastle. The Saudi Arabian-backed £305m takeover of Newcastle United has been met with scenes of fan jubilation outside the stadium.

Many thought-provoking questions were posed during our webinar about building better relationships with your spokespeople.

How do comms teams show their worth, validate their work and prove they are making a real difference? These are not new questions. But they are being asked more frequently as comms teams are hit by budget and visibility pressures and a greater focus on analytics.

Another day and another crisis to add to the queue of issues facing the government. Having already been hit by collapsing energy companies and concern about food supplies, the country has now been struck by another outbreak of panic buying, this time draining petrol pumps.

Have you been asked to make something mundane ‘go viral’? Perhaps you have been requested to gain front page national newspaper coverage for a niche or hyper-local story.

Your media spokespeople are busy. So, how can you ensure they are best prepared for that crucial next interview? Effective preparation always begins by checking they have had recent media training.

When the Government announced its plans to give 30 million people a covid booster jab to prevent another wave of the virus, we didn’t expect to hear a comparison to a wet and windy night on the side of the mountain. But that is exactly what we got.