Make Your Message Tight and Simple
A good media message must be more than positive, solution oriented, filled with accomplishments, and an answer to problems. A strong message is also tight and simple.
Think of it as fitting together simply and easily, like a children's Lego toy.
You may have certain messages you wish to communicate about yourself or your company that are quite positive, that talk about solutions, and that make you look great. They fit almost all of the elements of what makes a good message point. However, the message point is just too long and complex to fully explain in less than five minutes. In situations like these, the best thing is to simply not try to communicate that message in the middle of a media interview. Save that message for a speech when you have a captive audience, a white paper for your web site, an OP-ED column, or even a book or special report. But don't try to convey the complex message point during an interview.
It's not that reporters are stupid (necessarily). It's just that they don't know as much about your subject as you do, or they have to follow 50 other industries as well. In some cases, the reporter does know as much as you do and gets your story "right", but that reporter's editor doesn't understand your message, so in the process of editing and ostensibly making things clearer to the readers, viewers or listeners, your message gets distorted beyond reality.
Complexity is your enemy when deal with reporters. Focus on simple, easy to understand media messages. If you have 4 important messages to communicate and one is relatively a lot more complex than the other three, then cut the complex one and keep the other three.
There is a time and a place for everything. Wait until you have a live customer in front of you for a face-to-face presentation before you attempt to communicate your most complex messages. Keep your messages communicated to people indirectly through the news media tight and simple and you can't go wrong.
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