The Value of Media Training!

Hi all, and welcome to my second blog.

During my time at Capture I have been fortunate enough to attend a media training session hosted by Natalie, my supervisor. I found this presentation to be extremely valuable as I gained knowledge of how to effectively train individuals to deal with media professionals in a way that is beneficial to both parties.

It is incredible important to never speculate when speaking to the media under any circumstances. For ambulance officers working on the front line revealing their options on life or death situations could cause heart ache for families and legal difficulties for the organisation. Therefore media training is essential in this field of work. I was able to see how Natalie briefed the class on dealing with the media and clearly demonstrate why one should never speculate, using a real life example that caused difficulties for the organisation last year.

Like any organisation it is important that ambulance officers on the field are able to effectively promote the organisations key messages, if media coverage is going to be of any value. A great technique I learnt, in training individuals to promote an organisation’s key messages is called the 2A + 3M technique. This technique out lines clearly how to establish a message from an organisational goal/aim.

I discovered while attending this presentation that media role playing is an excellent way to train people. We had a camera set up and rolling and the officers were given fake scenarios, were they ‘where put on the spot’ by a “journalist”. This prepared the group for real life situations and gave them experience in having to deliver an organisational message under pressure as well as avoiding “unsuitable” questions.

One fact I personally found extremely interesting during the presentation was how the word ‘because’ can be used effectively in a statement, to deter a journalist from asking further questions. To explain this fact Natalie described a study that had been conducted using a queue of people at a photocopy machine to analyse how people responded to the word ‘because’. (When a person attempted to jump the queue by making at statement such as ‘can I jump the line because I’m running late”, they were more likely to be successful in using the machine over someone who didn’t include because in their statement). In the same way, a journalist can be discouraged by saying something along the lines of “sorry I cannot provide you with this information because I’m not authorised to do so”.

Lisa.