Get ahead
with business communications from Stewart McIntosh
Sharpen your media skills
Every approach you make to the press faces intense competition. Editors and journalists are engulfed by a daily crescendo of potential stories. From a journalist's point of view, the clamour is deafening. Amid all that noise, how is your message to be heard?
A one-day seminar with Stewart McIntosh, a Scottish journalist with a track record that includes 16 UK press awards, can give your organisation a powerful push towards the pages of the newspapers and the broadcast studios. If appropriate, he is happy to work closely with your own PR advisors to achieve maximum impact for your message.
The seminar falls into two parts. The morning comprises core information that anyone dealing with the press needs to understand. The afternoon can be tailored to your particular requirements, or you can choose from the options listed below. A typical day would look like this:
Morning:
- Splash or spike?: Why do some stories make the front page while others are binned?
- Tip-offs and teletext, strangers and stringers: Where do journalists find their stories? What are the stories they really want?
- No comment: How to handle a call from a journalist.
- Monkeys, scribblers, and the folk from the Dark Side: A day in the life of a front page lead.
Afternoon:
- How can our organisation get its message across? What are your best stories and where should you place them? Are you pushing the wrong stories to the wrong papers?
- Door-stepping and monstering: Bad news happens to even the best of organisations - here's how to look good in a crisis.
- How to write a punchy press release: Most releases flutter straight from the envelope to the editor's bin. Here's how to get yours' noticed.
- How to prepare for radio or TV interviews: Broadcast media offers enormous opportunities for getting your message across. Here's how to stimulate a producer's interest in your story - and how to perform well on air.
- Watch out for the Velcro words: Journalists use words that can damage reputations while ensuring that the writer or publication can't be sued.
- How to write with clarity and concision: Contributing an article to the company newsletter? Preparing a pitch to win a new contract? Writing a report for the board? No matter what you are writing, there are a few easy-to-learn rules that will make your message easily understood. Journalists use these techniques every day to make their words bounce off the page. You can use them too.
Get ahead with business communication from Stewart McIntosh:
Contact me now on +44 (0) 141-334 8475 or stewart@stewartmcintosh.com