One of Our Ongoing Assignments

For some of our clients, dealing with the news media is not a regular experience, so they have few opportunities to practice the skills they learned in our media workshop. Yet, they must be ready to take advantage of opportunities to speak to reporters both in “good news” and “bad news” situations.

One chemical company client has established a corporate policy that every plant manager along with several “backups” (usually an operations manager and human resources manager) must be media trained within three months of being assigned to his or her position. Moreover, they are required to attend a media training refresher every 18 months thereafter. The rationale for this policy is simple: if a serious plant accident should occur, the company must be able to communicate effectively with reporters who are likely to call or show up quickly in search of information.

The refresher training we conduct for this company focuses on crisis-related press briefings and interviews. It also includes examining any company-related news coverage that may have occurred since the last training session.