Our job is to help spokesmen to become completely comfortable with the messages that they want to get across but to do this in their own natural presentation skills. Yes, they must be confident and enthusiastic but should never appear ‘media trained’. If the audience starts to think about the mechanism instead of the message you have missed the opportunity.

Editorial has at least 3 times the value of any advertising you do but editorial opportunities must be used well. Listeners and viewers are very media savvy today and spokesmen lose all credibility with the audience if they come across as just another corporate speaking suit. Media training is invaluable as long as it is the right media training which means Communicate Media training.

One senior spokesman detailed the fact that ‘thousands and thousands of passengers have had their travel plans disrupted and their Christmas plans spoiled and we’re very sorry’. In Crisis Media Training it is important to show sympathy for any problems caused but there’s no need to list all the negatives again to emphasise the company’s failures. That sentence would have made a great soundbite for the journalist but a terrible comment for the company involved.

In your Crisis Media exposure you should demonstrate the action you are taking as well as putting the problem into context and showing caring for those involved, but please never use the hackneyed ‘first of all I’d like to pass on my sympathy to the family’ or ‘we take this situation very seriously’. Obviously that should go without saying.

Finally, make sure you have enough spokespeople media trained. In crisis management, they have to deal with the situation as well as the press and a tired spokesperson is a dangerous spokesperson. Who can forget that off the cuff BP comment – ‘I just want to get my life back’?