Dealing with The Press

For 2023 (and 2024 ...) - we are now fully retired from IT training.
We have made many, many friends over 25 years of teaching about Python, Tcl, Perl, PHP, Lua, Java, C and C++ - and MySQL, Linux and Solaris/SunOS too. Our training notes are now very much out of date, but due to upward compatability most of our examples remain operational and even relevant ad you are welcome to make us if them "as seen" and at your own risk.

Lisa and I (Graham) now live in what was our training centre in Melksham - happy to meet with former delegates here - but do check ahead before coming round. We are far from inactive - rather, enjoying the times that we are retired but still healthy enough in mind and body to be active!

I am also active in many other area and still look after a lot of web sites - you can find an index ((here))

A big thanks to Bruce Williamson who held us all spellbound at yesterday's RailFuture Annual National Conference with his talk / "masterclass" on dealing with the press - something which many of "us campaigners" have learned the hard way.

Bruce has many years of experience on both sides of the microphone, having been one of the presenters on Radio Caroline a number of years ago, and now being the press officer for RailFuture (a national group campaigning for improved rail services where appropriate), he's on the other side of the fence.

Although almost everything Bruce said makes common sense - it's obvious once you've been told - it's not necessarily something you'll pick up automatically. He talked about two types of press contact - the newspaper press release, and the radio interview.

Let's see what I can remember the morning after ;-)

On Press Releases

The Story
• Look for a NEWS story / news angle
• Don't be afraid to jump on a bandwagon
• Add human interest
• Spice it up (but be truthful, of course)
• Keep it snappy

The Format
• Do the job for the journalist - write as a news item
• Snappy start - expand a bit - bulk of article with quoted
• Put words into peoples's mouths
• Write to entertain
• Write for the audience
• Provide notes for editors on background
• Provide contact information and references to stats sources, etc

And
• Split stories - don't burn all your wood at once
• Email direct to the right journalist if you can
• Put your headline in the email subject

On Radio Interviews

Initial Questions you must ask
• Where and When?
• Who is doing the interview?
• How long will it be?
• Will it be live?
• What will it be about?
• Who is the audience?

Doing Your Homework
• What is your overall message?
• Think sound bites. They may be re-used to your benefit
• What awkward questions might you be asked
• Bone up on the recent news
• Check it with policy.

During the interview
• Bridging. Use questions to link (back) to what you want to talk about
• Remember the listener - don't use jargon, and explain
• Don't lie
• There's no such thing as "off the record"
• don't go off topic
• don't get wound up.

Taking a leaf our of Bruce's book - "Keep it Snappy" - I'll leave it at that.

Thank you, Bruce - I recommend anyone who gets a chance to list to you to go out of their way to do so!
(written 2008-07-06)

Associated topics are indexed as below, or enter http://melksh.am/nnnn for individual articles

G503 - Well House Consultants - Newsletter and publicity
  [48] PHP - onwards and upwards - (2004-09-14)
  [57] Posting 1000 letters! - (2004-09-21)
  [281] What they are saying about our OF COURSE newsletter - (2005-04-16)
  [336] Targetted Advertising - (2005-06-05)
  [458] Final courses of '05 coming up .... - (2005-10-08)
  [480] New look to website - (2005-10-30)
  [734] Keeping customers informed by email - (2006-05-26)
  [904] Of course I'll tell you by email - (2006-10-25)
  [1000] One Thousand Posts and still going strong - (2006-12-18)
  [1087] Telling a story in different ways - (2007-02-20)
  [1090] Too many instructions, too much detail - (2007-02-23)
  [1284] An update on the West Wilts show ... - (2007-07-30)
  [1494] A time to update pictures - (2008-01-03)
  [1673] Spam Filters ... are working! - (2008-06-11)
  [2051] A Presentation about our company - web and PHP - (2009-02-23)
  [2124] Building down expectations - (2009-04-09)
  [2244] What should a web site cost you? - (2009-06-16)
  [2388] `Of Course` is back! - (2009-08-31)
  [2564] Microblogging services - Plurk, Twitter, Jaiku and more - (2010-01-05)
  [2873] Another toot of the trumpet - (2010-07-16)
  [3153] Points West to Belfast - (2011-02-01)
  [3165] Journalism 101 - (2011-02-11)
  [3354] Sales and Marketing - adding advertising to the product - (2011-07-11)
  [3974] TV show appearance - how does it effect your web site? - (2013-01-13)
  [3984] 20 minutes in to our 15 minutes of fame - (2013-01-20)
  [4266] Facebook marketing - who are we reaching? - (2014-04-23)

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Some other Articles

Running operating system commands in Perl
Training Course and Business Conference Technology
FTP server on Fedora Linux
If you are learning Lua, here are some more examples
Dealing with The Press
Sorting in lua - specifying your own sort routine
Saying NOT in Perl, PHP, Python, Lua ...
Lua Course - here is the index
Defensive coding techniques in PHP?
July to December 2008 - Open Source training schedule

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This is a page archived from The Horse's Mouth at http://www.wellho.net/horse/ - the diary and writings of Graham Ellis. Every attempt was made to provide current information at the time the page was written, but things do move forward in our business - new software releases, price changes, new techniques. Please check back via our main site for current courses, prices, versions, etc - any mention of a price in "The Horse's Mouth" cannot be taken as an offer to supply at that price.

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