Media training is a must for anyone who deals with the media professionally: business owners and CEOs, HR directors and, of course, spokespeople and communications managers. FINN media training is conducted exclusively by senior journalists and spokespeople – people with an average of about 20 years of experience on both sides of the microphone.
FINN media training is always:
- tailored to the client
- tailored to the situation (e.g. product launch or crisis)
- with a camera
The media training is conducted in Dutch, French or English, or a combination of these languages. By the end of the training, each trainee will have completed at least three and usually more rounds of interviews: practice makes perfect. The media training is therefore designed for 1 to a maximum of 4 people.
1st interview round: ‘cold’ interview
At the beginning of the media training, participants are invited to give a short on-camera interview without preparation, during which they are introduced to typical media questions. The questions will focus on the organisation and/or the participant.
The aim of this exercise is to make the participant(s) aware of a number of principles (i.e. the importance of good preparation, taking control during the interview). After the exercise, we work with the participant(s) to formulate a set of learning objectives for each of them, which we work around in the rest of the training.
Feedback & theory
In this section, participants are introduced to the basics of a successful media interview and 5 response techniques.
The five main response techniques consist of:
- Headlining
- Flagging
- Answer & stop
- Bridging
- Blocking
The training includes press clips of spokespeople answering (or trying not to answer) difficult or uncomfortable questions. This illustrates the importance of some of the concepts taught.
In addition to these five response techniques, we teach participants how to prepare for interviews using message maps.
2nd interview round
In the second round of interviews, trainees will learn how to use the newly acquired techniques to give better answers to questions.
We aim to interview each participant at least 3 or 4 times with similar questions – from friendly, neutral to critical or even antagonistic. In this way we ensure that interviewees are prepared for different types of interviewers.
(Note: if the organisation expects particularly hostile or difficult questions from the media around a particular topic, do not hesitate to include this in the briefing).
After the media training
After the media training, each participant will receive:
- their personal interview recordings (participants will only receive their own recordings)
- the slides of the media training
- specific feedback and instructions based on learning points from the training