Sathnam Sanghera: How to be all right on the night
In 36 years as a professional journalist, Scott Chisholm has done it all: newspaper writing, television war reporting, radio presenting, chat show hosting. But last week the 53-year-old broadcaster, who among other things has reported from battle-hardened Beirut, faced the toughest test of his career. Working in the capacity of a media trainer, he had to teach me how to look slick in newspaper, radio and TV interviews.
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“That was absolutely appalling,” he complained, after a role play exercise in which I was asked to discuss subjects ranging from party political funding to the foreign ownership of newspapers.
“I would rate you among the bottom 10 per cent of my clients. You’re worse than any footballer I’ve trained. And I’ve had pop stars with IQs at room temperature who have created a better impression. Frankly, I could put together a piece based on that performance that would absolutely crucify you.”
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He was right. When an editor had asked me to undergo some media training with a view to proffering advice for Financial Times readers facing the prospect of a media appearance, I had assumed it would be a doddle. But it seems things are not as easy on the other end of a tape recorder as I had thought.
In the space of just three minutes, I contradict myself, hesitate, descend into a moody silence and get a series of basic facts wrong. The experience is made doubly excruciating by having to listen to a recording of it only minutes later.
Yet the business world is already wise to the value of media training. The insatiable demand for comment from media organisations, and the fear about the damage bad news can do to a company’s performance and share price, means that 90 of America’s top 100 chief executives now regularly receive media training, according to one report.
However, the nature and intensity of this training varies: some executives do as little as possible, while others happily rehearse every announcement. Meanwhile, some companies encourage groups of senior managers to be media-trained at the same time, and then pick the most competent to act as representative.
My session with Mr Chisholm, who over the past 13 years has trained executives from companies such as Nokia, Sony and MTV, takes a conventional format: a series of role-play sessions with an experienced journalist, across a range of media.
Chief among the insights it revealed was the realisation that if you are asked to talk to the media about something you know little about
