Here's the quick summary of the course, the news industry is changing fast, but it's still shapes Americans' opinions about their water and the people who are responsible for it, that's you. In this training, we'll explore both old-school public relations techniques, and high-tech digital techniques for working with journalists to get the coverage that you want. And by that I mean, stories that might otherwise not get written, or prepared, and making sure that the coverage itself, the content of the story turns out how you like it. And what we're gonna focus on in this session, is getting the message out through intermediaries. And by that, I mean a reporter, because when we're working with the media, we don't send our message, for the most part, directly to whoever it is we're trying to reach, we're working through an intermediary that gets an active say, and can edit, and curate, and prompt what we're gonna do, and, which is a little bit different from when you're communicating directly, like the way I'm communicating to you right now. And I'm gonna start, just to kick things off, with a short video. Well, actually, I'm gonna start in a couple of ways. First, I have a handout for everybody, right here. Let me just make sure I have the correct link. So as we work through our material this afternoon, I have a handout that you will be using in parallel. You know, the conference format doesn't really allow me to have you print this out before the session, but if you've got a scrap of paper handy, you can look on the handout and the one screen, and then scribble your answers and your exercises on another piece. I'm gonna be putting you into breakout groups at various points so you can discuss some of the key points in small groups, and then come back out, and report on what you found. So we're gonna start with the absolute worst-case scenario. This is as bad as it can possibly get. This is the worst interview on an environmental topic that I have ever seen. And I have seen some really bad ones in my day. So the person being interviewed is representative Robert Wexler, who was a Democrat from Florida, and he served in Congress for 13 years. And during his time in office, he had a 100% rating from the League of Conservation Voters. He's a great, dedicated, environmental champion, the entire time that he was in Congress. And he sat down for an interview with a very famous reporter to talk about offshore oil drilling, or I should say, he thought he was there to talk about offshore oil drilling, but the interview took an unexpected turn, and he found himself confessing this. Now, how could that possibly happen? How could a congressman sit down for an interview to talk about offshore oil drilling, and end up confessing to enjoying cocaine and prostitutes? And in fact, neither of these things are true! These things aren't even true! He confessed to crimes that he didn't even commit. So now I'm gonna send you a link to the video, and you will see for yourself. So take a look in the chat box, I have a video for you to watch. Click that link and it should pull up. Once you've had a chance to watch the video, just raise your hand, or hit the yes button, or however it is, and give me a signal. [Silence] I see a couple of you got your hand raised, and a couple of you pointed in the thing. Okay, let's give it a couple more minutes, and I wanna see a couple more hands up, 'cause I know it's a little bit of a, some of you might have slower internet connections, et cetera. Few more hands, looking good, looking good. All right I think it's probably, all of you have had a chance to see that. So you can unraise your hands, and let's discuss what we just saw. So that was really painful to watch, and it's really kind of a silly example, but I am making a serious point with all of this, that Mr. Wexler made the same kinds of mistakes that I have seen environmental professionals make over, and over, and over again in all my years doing this kind of work. They put a lot of faith in the journalist to get to the heart of the story. Now, Mr. Wexler, on one hand, he made the mistake of assuming that if he just keeps answering these sillier, and sillier, and sillier questions, eventually the journalist will ask him the important questions. He just, he assumed that if he just keeps answering the questions about grinding up the caribou, and if he plays along with the little joke about the cocaine, that eventually the interview will, will get around to what he really wants to talk about. That's a mistake. He put too much trust in the journalist. So not only is he now on record, officially quoted, as saying really embarrassing and untrue things, he also missed his chance to make the case that offshore oil drilling in Florida was a bad idea. He was quoted saying things he regrets, and he missed the chance to say things that he wanted to say. And the point of this, is that you have to steer your interview to get the message you want. You must be an active participant in shaping where the conversation goes. Otherwise, it may go in a direction that you don't like. Otherwise, you might get quoted saying something like this, and never get the chance to say, "offshore oil drilling is a bad idea, because in Florida we care a lot about clean water, it's really important for our economy." He missed that opportunity. He should have made that opportunity. Now, the technique that he should have used, and the technique that I'm about to show all of you, is called ABC. Acknowledge the question or the statement. Bridge, connect whatever was said, or asked to the message you really want to deliver, and then convey the message that you want. Acknowledge, bridge, connect, and I am gonna illustrate that for you now. We're gonna do something called the discipline of the disabled dog. And so here you see my disabled dog, he's only got three legs, but enjoys being in the water, and is wearing a life jacket. It's amazing what you can find on the internet, if you know what to look for. And so now what we're gonna do, just for the purposes of this exercise, is I want each of you to type a question into the chat box for everyone, make the question, for me, as silly as you can possibly make it. Don't go, don't make it dirty, this is a family-friendly webinar, but ask me a silly question that I can't see coming, and I'm going to show you how to use the acknowledge, bridge, convey technique to get back to the message. I want to talk about my disabled dog, you ask me questions that have nothing to do, nothing to do with a disabled dog, and I'm gonna ABC. And so here comes one, it's from Janine. Why does that river water look polluted? Well, Janine, I'm not sure, but my, I have a disabled dog who has a really great nose, and a really great sense of smell. So let's get my disabled dog to smell that water, and tell us what's up. And then I have a question from Jen D., are you a really big fan of taking cold [laughs] spaghetti baths? You know, I'm not a big fan of taking cold spaghetti baths, I'm on a keto diet, so I try and avoid my carbs. But you know, when you imagine the sensation of all that cold spaghetti all over you, it's a lot like the sensation I get when I try and give my disabled dog a bath, because she fights, and struggles, and sprays the water everywhere, and I get covered with cold water, just like I had been in a bath of cold spaghetti. What would you do if a Sasquatch was walking through this forest? Well, you know, if a Sasquatch came walking through this forest, I would be pretty scared, but you know what they say, you don't have to be faster than the Sasquatch, you just have to be faster than your friend, and my three-legged dog, my disabled dog here, she runs pretty slow. So if that Sasquatch was hungry and we both started running, I think it would be my disabled dog that ended up as a snack. So there you see it. You can throw anything at me, anything that you want, and I acknowledged the questions that I responded to, and then I bridged back to talking about my disabled dog. No matter what you asked me, I can go from the statement that you make, or the question that you ask, and after a brief acknowledgement, I changed the subject and talk about what I wanted to talk about. And now you guys are gonna do the same thing. I'm gonna put you into breakout groups, and now you're gonna need your exercise. So I'm gonna just send the link around one more time in the chat, everybody who's on this webinar, please pull up the link that you see there. And I'm gonna send you into the breakout room for six minutes. And on the first page of your exercise, you see I've got 10 silly questions on here. And you're gonna basically do what I just did. You're gonna take turns asking each other questions off this list. And if you are responding to the question, you get to acknowledge it, bridge, and then convey a message about your disabled dog. So what I just did for you, you are now gonna do for each other in the breakout rooms. So let's see, there are 16 of us on the line, so I'm gonna put us into three rooms, which is about five people per room. And I'll let you be in there for six minutes to take turns, asking and answering these questions. Now, the way it works with the breakout rooms is I'm gonna hit a button, and you all have to accept being moved into that room. So watch your screen for that accept to being moved, and then enjoy the exercise. Here we go, six minutes.
Workshop: Mass Media (Part 1)
From Renae Siler October 5th, 2020
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From Renae Siler October 1st, 2020 |
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From Renae Siler October 1st, 2020 |
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