Oxfam is in crisis. There must be a whole book of ‘lessons’ from the implosion of this once great British organisation. An implosion caused by a seven-year-old scandal exposed by The Times newspaper last Friday. It is ghastly to watch and a text book example of a ‘crisis’ where new damaging elements of the negative […]
Senior leaders are often booked into media training by PR professionals who are tearing their hair out. So often, successful, super-professional ‘talent’ has somehow missed out on a few of the basics of good external communication and are suddenly required to front a product launch or a PR campaign. Senior leaders need communications skills It […]
Latte-levy was a phrase that popped up everywhere last Friday and will continue to be written about for weeks if not months to come. It is the name given to a proposed 25p tax on disposable paper cups. I love it! The phrase that is, not the proposed tax. I have been unable to find out […]
Getting the tone right can be far from easy in a media interview. You need to sound in control, but also demonstrate the right emotion for the occasion. I wrote last week about how Prince Harry and Meghan delivered a happy but not schmaltzy interview on their engagement whilst apparently effortlessly avoiding a lot of […]
The royal interview was, for us spin doctors and media trainers, a highlight last week. Prince Harry and fiancée Meghan Markle faced respectful but very personal questioning from the BBC’s Mishal Husain; and they handled it with aplomb. The couple appeared natural, shared bits of their story but never looked uncomfortable. I may be wrong but […]
Theresa May stood up at the Lord Mayor’s banquet at London’s Guildhall on Monday evening and accused Russia of seeking to weaponise information: using fake stories and photo-shopped images to sow discord in the west. She added meddling in elections and hacking the Danish Ministry of Defence, the Bundestag and others to the list of […]
It is so easy to misspeak in public, especially if you are trying to be funny. Last weekend, it was Michael Gove who caused widespread offence by joking about the allegations against Harvey Weinstein. Wrong time to trivialise allegations against Weinstein In a BBC Radio 4 Today programme interview, he likened being interviewed by […]
Dull presentations that bore the audience and damage people’s careers are to be found, it seems, in every industry and sector. At The Media Coach, we have seen a lot of prize specimens. Established practice is often bad practice, riddled with overly long bullet points, statements of the blindingly obvious mixed in with obtuse arguments […]
‘The hypocrisy of Blair’ was the headline in The Sun on Monday this week, giving readers their weekly dose of outrage. Trevor Kavanagh, former political editor and now a columnist, wrote a stinging and vitriolic condemnation of the former Prime Minister for daring to suggest that there were ways to control immigration that might satisfy those who […]
The hardest questions from journalists are often the ones where you can’t tell the truth and you can’t lie. If you are not used to corporate life you will be quick to judge this post as more evidence of spin doctors’ corrosive effect on society. But I have learnt that there are plenty of occasions […]
