The Media Interview

There are three possible explanations for GOP Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s poor showing in her first two major media interviews: 1) she is receiving no media coaching 2) she’s receiving very poor media coaching or 3) she’s receiving good media coaching and is not yet able to implement it. What is even more startling than [...]

A good reminder from Pam Perry on the PR Distinction blog: taking media training does not mean you don’t have to prepare for each interview. She uses the analogy of exercise, which I’d like to apply in my own way here. Suppose that you learn a series of exercises to help you stretch before running. [...]

Advice from a media training guide produced for the Texas Department of Transportation has people talking in the blogosphere and in the mainstream media: “Keep calm. Leave wrestling to the pigs. They always end up looking like pigs.” Texas state senator Dan Patrick, who’s a radio talk show host, appeared on Glenn Beck to voice [...]

Finally got to see the much-talked-about Paris Hilton interview on Letterman last week. I’m no fan of Hilton’s public persona, but I felt for her to a certain extent. Letterman starts in with questions about her stay in prison, and never ever lets up. Even after 4 minutes, when Hilton says she doesn’t want to [...]

Reading through a post by author Tricia Goyer entitled You Never Know… I was reminded that doing your very best in every media interview is important because you don’t know what might come of it. So often we get focussed on selling a book, promoting a product, convincing the audience, that we forget about other [...]

Can’t take credit for the title of this piece – it’s a phrase I found on Ike Pigott’s old blog Accentuate the Positive (the new and improved Ike is at Occam’s Razr) and I think it’s a perfect name for those situations where a loose cannon needs media coaching to get reigned in. Here’s the [...]

Reading through a post by Mr. Obie Joe about his disappointment upon hearing a favourite online journalist speaking live, I was reminded of one of my favourite scenes from the movie Singing in the Rain, when silent screen star Lina Lamont opens her mouth to do her first talkie. Yikes, does she sound like THAT? [...]

In her blog posting, The High Cost of a Six-Figure Book Advance, Sallie Goetsch makes the following points, which apply to anyone trying to get the word out about their product, not just authors: Getting into the public eye To get visible enough fast enough, you probably need a publicist, which means shelling out several [...]

Margie Zable Fisher’s guest post on Guy Kawasaki’s blog caused a lot of reaction recently with her Top Ten Reason’s Why PR Doesn’t Work. Most of the reasons concerned misperceptions about the PR process, and miscommunication between client and PR firm, but the one that interested me most was #3: The client has not been [...]

Of course, part of building a brand is knowing how to look good on the boob tube. “Authors who are media-genic are going to increase their chances ten-fold of being published and published successfully,” says publicist Lisa Ekus, who also notes that she gets twice as many bookings for authors who are media-trained. Interestingly, her [...]