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Media training is hot. With the success of public relations-driven companies like Starbucks and growing awareness that PR is a potent marketing tool, many companies are using media training to strengthen their communication capabilities.

Media training can be a complex, expensive undertaking. But with a little planning, it can make your organization's message clearer and more compelling.

What Is It?

Media training is the process of equipping staff to interact effectively with journalists and present your organization in the best possible light.

For frontline employees, it means learning the basics—media inquiries are promptly and politely referred to the corporate communications department, and company gossip is not shared with the (seemingly) nice woman from the newspaper.

For corporate communications staff, media training ensures that different offices use the same techniques and information to handle journalists' inquiries. It can also involve simulations, where executives manage a rapidly unfolding crisis, often with incomplete information.

For senior managers who will represent the company, it centers on polishing their media-handling skills, usually with videotaped interview simulations and detailed appraisals. Training often supports an important event, like an acquisition or product launch.

Media Considerations

Regardless of the trainee, the program must equip them to deal with the media they will encounter most frequently. This can present some interesting challenges, because today's media range from small-town newspapers to issue-obsessed bloggers, and from propaganda outlets like North Korea's KCNA to respected global news services such as Bloomberg.

Level of skill, impartiality and sophistication vary accordingly, and spokespeople can encounter everything from cub reporters to knowledgeable specialists.

Planning the Program

Setting achievable goals is essential. A half-day session won't turn beginners into seasoned pros, but it will let you introduce basic concepts and determine who has potential, who is terrified and who is unlikely to effective.

Advance planning is particularly important if you are training busy senior executives. Holding the sessions off-site—at a hotel, the trainer's office or an annual conference—is one way to minimize distractions and disruptions from urgent phone calls and email. It can also create a sense of excitement around the program.

When you have identified the trainees, distribute a questionnaire to determine their experience and concerns. Then use this information to fine-tune the program and group trainees according to their needs and responsibilities. Mid-level staff are rarely comfortable being trained with senior people (and vice versa), particularly when detailed critiques are involved.

For training that includes interview simulations, small-group sessions offer the optimum combination of personal attention, flexibility and cost effectiveness. While less expensive on a per-head basis, larger groups are difficult to schedule and offer fewer opportunities for trainee participation.

Another option is to use programs that mix people from different companies. While better than nothing, these courses' pre-arranged schedules and content make them inflexible. And because they are public, they are unsuitable for rehearsing confidential or sensitive information.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Chris Dillon (chris@dilloncommunications.com) is the principal of Hong Kong-based Dillon Communications Ltd.