Streamline Training & Documentation: Putting Your Best Foot Forward in a Media Interview

Saturday, May 19, 2007

Putting Your Best Foot Forward in a Media Interview

Before recycling my copy of the May 2006 issue of Training magazine, in order to make room for this year's issue, I took another look at its contents. One two-page article by Tim O'Brien, a communications consultant, particularly caught my eye. It offered a compact checklist for preparing for a media interview that is well worth highlighting. O'Brien recommends:

Identify the objectives you want to achieve during the interview. For example, you might be aiming to communicate your company's plans for keeping its product portfolio state-of-the-art, or the steps the company is taking to protect the environment.

Anticipate questions that are likely to come up, and prepare honest, persuasive responses.

Package your answers so they are clear, concise, and free of jargon. (This is the skill I personally am focusing on improving.)

Lead with your key point, and reinforce it with facts, examples, statistics, or anecdotes.

Rehearse, preferably with another person on hand to play the role of determined interviewer.

I would add to O'Brien's checklist my own caveat that you aim for authenticity, as opposed to coming across as too rigidly packaged and overly rehearsed.

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Labels: Communication

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