You can be articulate, gregarious, the finest after dinner speaker, suave and sophisticated, witty and always with a quick turn of phrase but amid the heady and complex environment of a media interview, a real cerebral battleground, even the best can slip up.
The battlefield and the theatre of war are, politically speaking, highly charged spaces fraught with tension and laden with mutual benefits for the reporter, the public and the military.
The latest generation of, not only, technology but its users that are really multiplying the power, but not necessarily the control, of communication and information.
Strategic communication – its utility is laden with difficult issues, variously described in different fashions depending on who one talks to, which government or organisation they represent, the particular context and the phase of the moon.
Exercising of media handling and management is a little discussed aspect of preparing any organisation in crisis management – but it can pay huge dividends.
What, with wikileaks, phone hackin’ journalists, social media on the interweb, a new UK Prime ministerial spin meister and things called quora, it’s all enough to give you a migraine. Of course, it hasn’t always been like this.
It’s a question that is under-used in any media campaign. But knowing the basic newsworthiness factors may provide very useful answers and good media coverage.
PR’s contribution to modern society often finds itself in constant tension between the two ends of a spectrum – the enabling of the ideal citizen through to the creation of the ideal consumer.
Contemporary public relations far exceeds, even shuns, the dark art of spin. But spin remains and due to the very nature and frailties of human nature and its practice of communications, will not go away.
When it comes to media training, marketing, corporate communication, PR and the like, there remains an annoying and unhealthy preoccupation with the idea of ‘the message’. There’s more to it than that.
Even in these times of economic uncertainty, the public of the rich West will still dig into their pockets to alleviate suffering in the most desperate areas of the planet. But if they were more informed, would they continue?
A quick examination of ongoing conflicts involving both military and humanitarian activities reveals that ‘military humanitarianism’ continues, for good and bad.
Bad news is often reason enough to feel like pulling the trigger, but just plain bad communicating is just asking for the metaphorical bullet between the eyes. So how can we try to avoid the bullet?
The establishment of a free media in developing countried is well served by many respected NGOs but nascent government institutions and political bodies are often ill-prepared to engage with this free media and the public at large.
A common fault amongst those trying to communicate messages is the belief that if they put the message out often enough and loud enough it’ll get through.
It takes years to build a good reputation, but it can be shattered in hours through the media, and relying solely on a spokesperson to save the day or wielding unprepared and untrained senior staff is asking for trouble.
Networks and collaborative working: There’s lots of hype but whether we like it or not, they are fundamentally changing our environment – not quite earthquakes but slow, subtle and monumental shifts are afoot.
The technology to create Video News Releases (VNRs) is ubiquitous. The knowledge and training to produce quality ones is not. They are often utterly wasted opportunities, as those newsrooms which receive them can attest.
Malcolm Gladwell thinks that social networks cannot promote the deep passionate reaction of large numbers necessary for real social change. He may have a point.
Wikileaks – Governments are moaning, activists are up in arms, the media are getting terribly excited – all wonderful stuff. But what does it mean for the future?
Facebook, wikileaks, google – a technological assault on privacy for good or bad? Either way, the genie is out of the bottle and privacy is a casualty of 2010.