Media Training

For the benefit of readers of this book, I have to say more about media training. It’s one of the most important forms of crisis preparedness you can do. Not necessarily that handling the media is more important or valuable than other communications (I talk in Chapter 6 about communicating with audiences without going through the media) but because in a crisis media attention can seem to be your most pressing concern, and, yes, it can have an impact on your other communications. You don’t want what you’re saying directly to stakeholders to be undermined by something reported in the press.

When I wrote my media training manual several years ago, I titled it Keeping the Wolves at Bay for a reason. I used that metaphor to suggest the attitudes and actions of the media in a crisis situation. Do I think all people working in the media today are rapacious, hungry animals? Hardly. Most media people go about their day trying to do their jobs and trying to uphold the ethics of their profession. I have many friends in the media, and so do most of my crisis management colleagues, whom I hold in high regard.