Media Training That Matters
Tags: Marketing, Media, Rallytakes, Media Training, Advocacy

Media Training That Matters

RALLY Insights on Telling Your Story to the Press

By Jake Pagano

On the second evening of the first Democratic primary debate, audiences nationwide witnessed a clash between Senator Kamala Harris and Vice President Joe Biden on school integration that has generated waves of conversation. Regardless of your stance on the issue at hand, one thing was immediately clear: presenting one’s message and advocating for a cause is about a lot more than just the right words. Body language, tone of voice, cadence, performance — it all matters, and the right balance and presentation can strike a national chord and shift voters.

In today’s media environment, it’s not just candidates for President who must compellingly present themselves and their message to the media. For almost everyone advocating for an issue — whether equity in education, universal access to reproductive health services, or more affordable housing — it’s often vital to speak directly to the press. Doing so can take many forms, from a nationally-broadcast interview on a major network to an intimate one-on-one conversation with a local reporter. Regardless of the setting, getting one’s message across effectively is essential to moving the needle forward, gaining traction, and making change.

Enter media training, an exercise designed to help people develop the skills to be effective in interviews with reporters. Unfortunately, most media training manuals focus on the same areas, like “speak clearly” or “reiterate your core message.” Without a doubt, lucid presentation and mastering your top-line messaging are a key part of speaking to a reporter. We work with clients closely on both. Yet, the RALLY team firmly believes a media training should do more.

Our aim is to ensure everyone has the tools to speak truth to power and connect with their audience — and generate new allies and supporters — on any media platform. To that end, we help our clients really understand their interview presence and the context in which they are speaking.

Regardless of whether we’re working with a non-profit whose aim is to convince an urban population that housing is a human right, or engaging with students who have directly experienced the terrors of gun violence and are courageously sharing their stories with a national audience, we keep several key and useful strategies in our front pocket.

Here are six of our guiding values:

1. Be Trauma-Informed When Necessary

As part of a recent project, Since Parkland, RALLY worked with twenty student-reporters, all of whom had penned stories about one of the 1,000 American children who have lost their lives to gun violence since the Parkland Shooting. As RALLY coordinated media trainings with the students, who were preparing for both national and local broadcasts, it was of the utmost importance to always be gentle, sensitive, and conscientious. Sara Lueders, a Senior Account Executive who led the trainings, typically opened sessions by reminding students that “It’s okay to show emotion and to remember, you’re in a safe space.” By establishing trustful relationships with the students and reminding them that the media interview was the opportunity to tell their story, the trainings helped bring forth each students’ natural storytelling abilities, while also recognizing the immense pain and trauma caused by losing a loved one to gun violence.

2. Remember the Power of Visuals

In our highly visual media market, it’s not enough to simply speak the part — one has to look it, too. When RALLY prepares its clients for a media opportunity, we look far beyond the basics of proper dress and appearance (though those are important). Instead, we seek to develop a holistic understanding of the visual elements of a given media opportunity with the aim of ensuring that our client’s message is conveyed through the power of symbols and signs.

When Daniel Ramirez Medina, a DREAMer whose immigration case drew widespread attention, was released from ICE detention, RALLY coordinated with Daniel’s brother to ensure he could greet him immediately after his release. Through this relatively small detail, national television was able to broadcast successfully the emotional intensity and moral urgency of Daniel’s release.

DREAMer Daniel Ramirez Medina reconnecting with his brother upon release from ICE detention in Tacoma, WA.

It’s always important to remember: body language, from the gestures you make on camera that reinforce your point to the visual symbols of care and concern that were communicated in Daniel’s case, are not insignificant. In fact, they are one of the most important ways to supplement your verbal message and create a media appearance that resonates with reporters and audiences.

3. Generate a Relationship

As is the case with almost any client interaction, developing a strong relationship rooted in empathy and active listening truly benefits media trainings. RALLY works with various clients where strong relationships are particularly important. One of these involves speaker-training folks who, as part of United Way of Greater Los Angeles’ EVERYONE IN: Stories from The Frontline event series, share their stories experiencing homelessness and their journeys into supportive or affordable housing. In the context of equity in education, RALLY also works with students who wish to present their journeys in primary education and their goals in both University and beyond.

In support of United Way of Greater Los Angeles’ EVERYONE IN: Stories from The Frontline event series, RALLY Senior Account Executives Candace Johnson and Rachel Horning always keep one thing top of mind: meet people where they are. We all arrive to media trainings in the midst of busy days and our own personal lives. Through tailoring a session to each person, you can ensure the training is not only successful but leaves everyone involved feeling confident and prepared. In instances where you are supporting someone in sharing personal details about their life experience, it’s especially important to remind them: they are the world’s top expert on their own story, and this is an opportunity to make a true impact, while turning supporters into advocates in the fight to end homelessness.

4. Practice, Practice, and Role Play

As with any performance where you only have one opportunity to make your point, rehearsing and practicing in a way that mimics the conditions you will confront in the interview is a must. But rather than simply walking a client through their message and identifying the most effective way to convey it, RALLYers like to find creative, fun, and novel ways to rehearse.

One tried-and-tested strategy is simply video recording a client’s response to a given question and playing it back to them. This allows them to see precisely how they sound/appear on camera before the added stress of actually being on broadcast television.

That way, when you appear for the interview, there’s no “deer in the headlights” moment. Instead, you feel calm, collected, and well-rehearsed.

5. Know Thyself and Thy Client

When you begin a media training, it’s crucial to recognize the specific strengths that any given person brings to the table. Doing so ensures you help them deliver a message that holds true to who they are as individuals while also connecting with a diverse array of audiences.

Consider the start of the training as an opportunity to recognize the specific personality traits and areas of expertise your client brings to the table. For example, if you’re working in the space of homelessness, you might be training a policy expert who’s seasoned in citing statistics on the shortage of housing units. At the same time, you might be training a service provider who has decades of experience helping folks navigate social support services. Their expertise is in telling impactful stories about our neighbors experiencing homelessness who are now on the path to finding permanent housing.

In both cases, you’ll want to take your client’s strengths into consideration and supplement them with insight into areas with which they are less familiar. For example, a policy expert should spend their training preparing some more personal and emotive stories, while the field organizer should prepare with some hard stats that can complement their natural skill set.

Ultimately, media training should provide a set of tools that enable anyone to feel better equipped to confidently speak with the media. In providing insights that are truly tailored to each client’s innate abilities and previous experiences, you ensure the media training feels both personalized and empowering.

6. Don’t Be Afraid to Improvise!

While the value of preparation and message rehearsal cannot be under-estimated, it’s impossible to prepare for every last question or the specific nuances that might arise. Enter the importance of improvisation. As the brilliant author and scientist Isaac Asimov said, “To succeed, planning alone is insufficient. One must improvise as well.” The same holds true in conversations with the media.

When you’re talking to an engaged reporter on broadcast TV, or confronting a difficult question about an important issue in a newspaper interview, consider using your core message while also speaking to what resonates most in that moment. Indeed, improvising is not so much “winging it” as it is tapping into your inherent, well-practiced knowledge. And with a media training that is impactful and targeted, you will arrive confident that you have the tools and capabilities to address any given question.

That way, when a question arises that you might not have foreseen, you can find the right phrase, story, or expression that amplifies the issue at hand and catalyzes audiences across the world to speak up, sign up, and get involved.