engaging with the media part 2 - 22 june 2015audience audienceaudience their friends their friends...

David Thomas Media Ltd 2015

Engaging with the mediaPart 2 - 22 June 2015

with

David Thomas

This is the second workshop at the UN. The first was in April.There will be a final webinar in September.

www.SD2015.org

A reminder that you can download the Engaging with the Media PDF in four languages

All the materials are found on the SD2015.org website. It’s a sub-section of the Advocacy Toolkit. Click on MEDIA GUIDE in the top menu.

The site contains audio podcasts with tips and advice from experts in media engagement at NGOs.


Preparing for interviews

Gauging success

TODAY…

Refresher - messages and audiences

How interviews work


Medium

Language/Tone

Message

Audience

These all interact. The medium affects the kind of message and different audiences like different media.


What do you want the audience to…

understand?

remember?

do?

MessageA message is not a slogan. It’s what you want the audience to understand, remember or do as a result of hearing you.


Primary and secondary targets

message

journalists

audience audience audience

their friends

their friends

their friends

Here we see that journalists are an important first step in reaching our wider audience.

Social media is all about sharing. So messages and information have to be engaging enough for people to want to share them with their friends.


Three per interview

Keep them simple

Take control

Key messages

Don’t forget!

Key messages need to be easy for you to remember when you’re being interviewed.


Journalists

Busy

Focussed

Looking for news

Human beings

A reminder that journalists are people too.

This is how a leading financial journalist in the UK reacts to press releases. It’s not untypical.


What is news?

newinterestingrelevant


Print Radio TV Social Media

human interest facts & stats quotes pictures

human interest examples informality topicality sounds

human interest moving pictures open approach examples

human interest informality topicality links interactivity sharing

Notice how important human interest is. Make sure you talk about real people and how these issues affect their lives.


names…faces….places

PEOPLE!

NOT PROCESS


Preparing for interviews

Interview take many forms - TV, radio, print, in the street, in the studio, one to one, discussion, etc., etc.

A typical basic radio recording.

A typical TV recording in a street.

Note that recording equipment is now very small, and even print journalists are likely to record audio and sometimes video. Every interview has become a potential broadcast interview!


What to ask a journalist

● Full name & contact details (phone & email)● Who they are working for? (Where the work

will appear)● What’s their deadline?● Who is the audience?● What are they after? (quote? spokesperson?...)● Context, angle, hook, peg?● Who else have they spoken to?


What to ask a journalist

● Where will the interview take place?● How long will it take?● How long will it be when published or

broadcast?● Is it for radio, tv, print, web?


Preparing for an interview

Practise with a colleague or friend

Focus on the three key points you want to get across (the “key messages”)

Prepare useful phrases

Prepare examples

Remember to be human

Quiver of phrases and examples

Robin Hood had a quiver of arrows. You need a quiver of phrases and examples that explain succinctly what you’re trying to communicate.


Useful phrases

“Our organisation’s main aim is to…”

“I was talking to someone who is affected by this…”

“We’ve helped more than two thousand people…”

You’ll have to think of your own useful phrases and examples, but here are some examples to get you started.


“The main thrust of this work is to help hospitals work more efficiently by involving frontline staff.

“We know hospitals can work more efficiently. For example, in the north of the country, doctors and nurses at one hospital got together and analysed what happens when older patients arrive for treatment. They looked at every part of the process. As a result 30% more patients were sent home within just one day. The changes saved £3.2m across a year.”

Note how a dry sentence becomes more human with a few changes and the addition of an example.


Interview dynamics

A conversation (not a lecture)

Intimate (not a performance)

One on one

You’re the expert

Explain things calmly and in ordinary language

Be succinct

Keep a steady rhythm

17.5

35

52.5

70

Start EndTime

Energy levels

Feel good zone!

Conversation

Interview

Interviews need to start and end with energy, as audiences pay more attention to these parts. The dynamic is rather different from a conversation in this respect.


Being interviewed

Don’t learn a script

Mention the name of your organisation

Avoid statistics in broadcast interviews

Be human - talk about real people

Engage the interviewer

Be yourself


Difficult questions

Unexpected questions

Silly questions

Irrelevant questions

Awkward questions

Difficult questions are not necessarily there to catch you out. It might just be ignorance on the part of the questioner.


Bridging from tricky questions

AB C

AcknowledgeBridgeControl


Bridging from tricky questions

“That’s a great question, but what we’re really concerned about…”

“That’s true but the really important issue today is…”

“That may or may not be the case, but my expertise is…”

“That’s important, and definitely a question for someone else.”

“Let me emphasise a point once again…”

Some example phrases for bridging.


Jargon and specialist language

stake-holder

empowerment

mitigate

nexus

modalities

Stakeholder - describe their role; empowerment - the ability to do something; mitigate - reduce; nexus - connection/partnership; modalities - ways of doing something.

Please avoid these wherever possible!


A multi-stakeholder partnership has released the first-ever comprehensive narrative on global health

and country-level progress toward reducing malnutrition everywhere.

It was compiled to create a one-stop composite of the often fragmented and disparate information

available on global nutrition and to fill some of the critical gaps in knowledge and data collection.

Spot the jargon in these two paragraphs.


Gauging success

What did the audience think?

Did the journalist look happy?

Did the journalist come back to you?

Short term:Did you mention your three key messages?

Medium term:

Long term:

Have you built up a rapport with them?

Is your work getting wider recognition?


Thank you!

www.SD2015.org

>>> Engagement Tools >>> Media Support

engaging with the media part 2 - 22 june 2015audience audienceaudience their friends their friends...

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