Articles

Did you know that you can have a good voice and deliver great messages, but still fail in a presentation or interview? Yep, you can because your visual elements, including eye contact, are so distracting that your audience doesn’t receive your messages This can be especially true in close-up remote interviews where gestures and other body...

When is it appropriate to lose your cool during an interview, to act condescendingly toward a reporter, to threaten to prematurely end a media encounter? Never! Yet, this is exactly what California gubernatorial candidate Katie Porter did when she didn’t like the questions during a recent interview. In doing so, the former democratic...

Can you read a statement conversationally and credibly at a news briefing? Yes, absolutely. But don’t mistake casual for conversational. If you do, your credibility will suffer and your key messages will likely get lost. Put simply, casual is not cool. Case in point is a news briefing given by Bill Mateja, an attorney for convicted sex offender...

A successful news briefing begins with introducing yourself to the media, setting ground rules for the briefing, and outlining expectations about the information you are going to provide. This may sound easy, but it can be a challenge when the briefing involves deep emotions and grief brought on by a sudden tragedy. Shortly after three...

On a bright sunny day in Washington, D.C. Jeffrey Epstein survivors revealed their dark inhumane stories of sexual abuse. In doing so during a Capitol Hill news conference, these courageous women pleaded with the House of Representatives to release all unclassified material related to the Epstein case. The survivors effectively read statements...

During our seminars, we demonstrate that playing with paper clips, pens, or anything else distracts from messaging during an interview or presentation. And, wouldn’t you know it, we found the perfect example of this somewhat amusing mistake during a very serious interview with Russia’s top diplomat. During an interview on NBC’s Meet the Press,...

So, you are preparing for a remote interview with a reporter, a prospective client or a potential employer. You know your key messages cold and have rehearsed answers to anticipated questions. But you fail to impress during the interview because you forgot that how you look on screen is every bit as important as what you say. In remote...

The beauty of social media is that it allows anyone to bypass the media filter and communicate directly to an audience. But just because social media is a great tool doesn't mean it compensates for sloppy, incoherent messaging. You still need to know what you want to say, and how to say it, to effectively use online platforms. That’s why we were...

Can you look good and choose the right words during a presentation or media encounter and still fail to get your messages across? Yes, you can, especially if you talk too fast and run your sentences together while not pausing between key points. This often happens when speakers are so excited about their topic that they don’t realize their...

There may be no more challenging experience for a communicator than to appear before the media to discuss a deadly tragedy involving a good friend. That was the scenario Minnesota Governor Tim Walz faced when he spoke to reporters about the murder of his friend and colleague Melissa Hortman, the speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives....