What are key messages in the media? Key messages are designed to be concise and clear, They’ll include the most important points for your audience to remember. And they’re designed to engage your audience, influence their thoughts, and motivate action.

What should be left out of key media messaging?

Let’s kick off by talking about stuff that shouldn’t go in your key messaging.

Here’s my brief and incomplete list of elements to avoid:

Excessive Details: Avoid cluttering your message with too much information, phone numbers, addresses, or complex technical details. That’s just distracting.
Repetition of your business name: Yes, reinforcing key points is a good idea, but excessively repeating the name of your organisation will make you look and sound like a chump. Also, you’ll never get invited back.
Jargon and technical terms: I’ve done a whole podcast episode on this topic: Why avoid corporate speak and office jargon in media interviews?
Off-topic information: “Oh, here’s another point on top of my point, I’ve just remembered.”
Sales pitches: Nothing is more of an audience turn-off during a media interview. If it’s pre-recorded, it’ll get cut, so save your breath.

Give your leader feedback after a media interview. Effectively provide feedback to senior leaders after interviews on TV, radio and podcasts. Navigating the challenges of giving feedback after a media interview
Ok, if you are a PR or Comms professional I know this is a headache. Giving constructive or mildly critical feedback to your CEO or someone more senior is a common pain point.

It may be you don’t have the skills or confidence to tackle these issues head-on. Often you’ll have leaders who are quite set in their ways when it comes to media appearances.

Maybe they take your briefing on key messages and just ignore them. Perhaps they’ll head into a media interview and just do it their way. Infuriating.

So coming up, my tips on how to give feedback after a media interview.

Why avoid corporate speak and office jargon in media interviews? Corporate speak won’t make you sound clever on air it’ll alienate the audience, be a switch off and be a waste of a journalist’s time.

Remember, in your organisation, chances are that you spend most of your time with a specific type of person.

For example, when I worked for the BBC, many of my colleagues were white, middle class and university-educated.

But when you are on-air you’re not speaking to your peers, you’re speaking to a mass audience made up of a diverse group of people from all sorts of backgrounds. It’s essential to use language that’s accessible to everyone. It’s not dumbing down, it’s about being clear.

Also, just because you are talking on TV, Radio or a Podcast, no one has a duty to listen to you. Think about how you consume the media. If someone talks in office lingo that you don’t understand, you don’t whip out your phone and Google it, you zone out or switch off. If your language is laden with jargon, you risk losing their interest quickly. That’s a wasted chance to share your key message.

Media interview preparation checklist. Let’s create a media interview preparation checklist. Sharpen your pencil. This is for you if you’ve been invited on TV, Radio or a podcast. It’ll help you get your ducks in a row before you appear on air. 1. Research the media outlet and journalist. Before you go into that interview, it’s crucial to do a bit of digging. Who’s this journalist and what’s their outlet all about? So, if they’re from the BBC, are they from a specific show? Are they a national or regional reporter? Understanding this really shapes how you’ll prepare. A lot of journalists are pretty focused on their field, so knowing their background can help you understand the types of questions they’ll ask and their style of interviewing.

How to create a founders’ origin story. step-by-step detail how you can create your own founders’ narrative using a basic rags-to-riches story structure. Founders’ stories are uber popular, CEO interviews take up a huge amount of podcast real estate. You’ll hear them on podcasts like How I Built This with Guy Raz and radio shows including Desert Island Disks.

But if you’re a founder or the founder’s marketing & PR department why should you consider preparing and telling your story?

Well a compelling, one-hour-long podcast interview about how you made it, will be an enduring record.

It’s a narrative from your point of view about your success that crucially you have written. Getting this first draft down is important because it’ll become a reliable source for future stories told about you by journalists.
You’ll lay down the facts – as you see them – putting a marker in the ground saying, “This is how it happened.”

In this episode, practical techniques and strategies for effectively managing difficult interviews. Also, how to handle combative interviewing styles, identify and respond to loaded questions, and maintain your composure under pressure.

Whatever you taste in TV news these sort of hard-hitting interviews are seen as ratings grabbers by the broadcasters. They’ll find an issue people like to argue about, be it immigration, transgender equality, or emissions charges for city centres, and we’re off to the races.

You’ll witness hostile or negative questioning on talk-based radio and TV shows and magazine news programmes.

Unusually for a former journalist, I find this sort of broadcasting a turn-off but it appears to be growing in popularity.

In this episodes simple techniques to build trust and sound genuine while appearing on TV, Radio or podcasts.

The number one bit of advice you usually hear about being authentic in the media is:

“Just be yourself.” But what if yourself isn’t great?

The challenge of authenticity in media interviews
“Just being yourself” is an issue for many of us because let’s face it, we’ve all got aspects of ourselves we’d really rather not broadcast.

Also, when you are live on air, or being interviewed on TV, Radio or even a podcast. It’s nerve-wracking.

Your palms are sweaty. Adrenaline is coursing through your veins. In short, you’re cr***ing yourself.

Even seasoned broadcasters with years of on-air experience struggle with this. In my career, the spike of anxiety I got when the mic went live never really went away, trying to look authentic and in control is a struggle.

Crisis Management: How to write a holding statement. In this episode about crisis comms communication, how to craft an effective holding statement for the media. The episode includes a practical scenario to test your skills.
What are crisis comms holding statements?
They’re a brief initial response from your organisation. A first statement that needs to be issued quickly when things go sideways for your organisation. This might be some sort of accident, financial issues, or other wrongdoing, basically, a PR crisis.
The importance of crisis comms holding statements
Now before we get into this, Crisis Comms is a big topic; in this episode, we’re just going to focus on putting together that initial holding statement.

A few paragraphs to temporarily satisfy the press, public, and your employees and stakeholders while you get to grips with the situation.
What crisis comms holding statements are not
To kick things off, let’s discuss what a crisis comms holding statement is not. It’s not a press release. It should be short, to the point, and contain your key messages. This isn’t the time for two sides of A4 written in a newsy style.

How to create a successful media soundbite.
We’re talking about soundbites. What are they? Well, you hear them in news headlines on TV, in radio news bulletins, and in news reports. They’re short, punchy snippets of speech that really grab your attention and capture the essence of an idea or story in a memorable way. Soundbites are brief, and they’re often funny.

Now, politicians and public figures try to use them to get a key message understood. The skill really in soundbites is that they often encapsulate complex ideas in a simple yet appealing manner. So, in short, soundbites are very cool. They oil, let’s face it, what can sometimes be the dreary wheels of news. Was that a soundbite?

Free press release template download (Word). In this guide, we will work through writing press releases. Listen to the podcast audio guide and download the FREE press release template.

Maybe you’re new to the idea of sending a press release, or your business doesn’t have a PR firm or PR department, but you’ve got great news to share. You’re in exactly the right place.

Download the press release template
To get started, Download the FREE press release template which I’ll discuss in this episode.

What is a press release?
Before we start writing our press release, let’s talk about what they are and when to use them. A press release is usually a short Word document you post or email to journalists to get media coverage. You’ll share your news, like an event, a new product, or something big happening. The goal is to grab media attention and get coverage for your business or organisation.

Press release writing style
When I write a press release, I aim for clarity and straightforwardness. I include all the essential ‘W’s: Who, What, Where, Why, and When. This means covering who is involved, what the story is, the timing and location of the event, and why it’s important.