The Most Important Part of Your Media Prep

I’ve got good news and I’ve got bad news.

The good news is if you’ve been with me through this journey so far you now know how to look your best on camera how to come across comfortable confident relaxed authoritative.

That’s good news.

And you know how to shape a message.

You know how to go from a complex issue where there’s 10 20 50 things you could say and you’ve boiled it down to a great clear understandable three part message something you can say in 30 seconds or less.

And you now have the ability to communicate that message.

And you have the ability to answer questions in an interview.

Where are the reporters happy but also you’re happy because you’ve bridge back to your message points again and again and again.

That’s great.

That’s wonderful.

That’s fantastic.

The bad news is you can do that all day long and never get quoted.

Never get the sound bites you want on your messages.

All we’ve really talked about so far is what we want.

What we like what we need.

We haven’t really talked about what reporters need.

Reporters need quotes if it’s any kind of a text story and newspaper online publication they need actual text with quotation marks around it from us to put in the story.

If it’s a television broadcast a radio show they need sound bites bites out of our sound where people hear us see us and we’re identified by position and title.

That’s what reporters need.

So where does this come from.

There’s this common perception.

Well T.J.

reporters are just going to use what they think is really their own opinion.

And so they’re just going to use whatever they want there’s nothing we can do or biggest mistake out there.

In my experience soundbites are the most confusing aspect of dealing with the media of any of these issues we’re talking about here today.

It’s the most misunderstood part of media relations because most media training will tell you look comfortable have a message NARROW IT DOWN TO TOP THREE POINTS stick to your message and then it kind of ends right there.

They just kind of leave you hanging.

When it comes to how do you actually package your messages with interesting quotable soundbites.

So we’re going to talk about in this section is I’m going to outline for you to give you specific concrete examples of the 10 sound bite elements in my experience in working with clients all over the globe.

Doesn’t matter if I’m in Thailand if I’m in New Delhi Dubai Southland or you name it the food can be different.

The language can be different.

The culture can be different.

The media can be different in some ways but the actual sentence structure of what gets quoted remarkably consistent everywhere in the world doesn’t matter to the language.

Does it matter whether it’s prestigious media or low level tabloid does it matter if it’s with sports pop culture or business and economics.

All that can change the actual sentence structure of what gets quoted is remarkably consistent now the only thing I’ve found that’s a little bit different.

Certain cultures where there are kings or authoritarian regimes the reporters may give much longer quotes and pull directly from press releases from any big business or corporation.

But beyond that these basic principles apply and that’s we’re going to learn right now.

But before we dive right into the specifics let’s step back for a minute and ask ourselves what’s a reporter actually trying to do when they quote us.

They’re trying to make the story more interesting to their readers viewers listeners than them just saying it all for themselves.

They’re trying to make the story more understandable than them just saying it themselves or summarizing it.

They’re trying to give a little bit of flavor to this topic in a way that makes it more memorable more interesting more digestible.

That’s what they’re trying to do.

There’s all kinds of biases in the world there’s biases in the media leftwing bias right wing bias corporate bias.

But the number one bias I find in media everywhere in the world.

A bias in favor of something interesting enough to get their story on the home page of the website on the evening news broadcast.

That’s the number one bias most reporters have.

And if you can package great soundbites into your messages then you make the reporter’s life a lot easier.

You make your life easier.