NFL Coach Cries During Press Conference
Is Emotion Like This Help or Hurt?
When you are creating your media messages, it is important to brainstorm every possible idea. Write down every possible idea you could say on a subject. During this process, it is essential that you suspend all of your analytical or critical thinking skills. Instead, just try to be as creative as possible and toss out as many ideas as you possibly can.
The important part of this process is that you recognize that you are brainstorming in YOUR own private media message creation process, not during an actual interview with a reporter where the results can be seen or heard by the world. The beauty of tossing out a dumb idea during a private brainstorming session is that it can not hurt you. And if you write it down and then consciously scratch it off when you are analyzing your message points after the brainstorming session, then you are less likely to have the dumb idea spill out of your mouth during a real interview.
Do not try to save time during this process. Let it all hang out. If you are working with a bunch of colleagues, encourage each person to toss out ideas. If anyone shoots down an idea, tell him or her to stifle it. The brainstorming process needs to be free.
Make sure you have a least one page full of possible message points. A message point can be anything you think is positive or important or interesting to say about a subject.
After you have all of your message points written or typed, spread them out and try to look at them all together. Now, the editing process must begin. Someone is going to be the editor of your story. It can either be the journalist, producer or editor who doesn't particularly care about you or your business, or it could be you. If you go into the interview and you dump out all 57 message points that you have on a subject, then the journalist or editor gets to edit down your messages to three or so, and they will probably be the three points you care about the least, or that don't even make sense unless five other points that didn't make it into the story are understood.
This is the system most newsmakers use for editing their stories, and that's why they waste a lot of time complaining about the news media and their so-called biases.
Or, you could follow another strategy. With this plan, you look at all 57 of your message points and you rank them in order of importance. You go through and check off the ones that strike you as absolutely essential. Then you scratch off the ones you can live without. With others you put a question mark next to them. After the first review, you might have checks next to nine message points, and question marks next to four. Additionally, you might draw lines from another half dozen points so they connect to some of the checked points. This shows that these points are examples of the checked points, or that they are a part of the same them.
Keep scratching off, connecting, and checking. Finally, you want to end up with three main message points. You should be able to say all three message points in about thirty seconds. If it takes you longer than that, then you really haven't narrowed your message down to three points, you still have five, six or more points.
Don't be greedy!
If you go into a media interview with the goal of trying to communicate more than three main message points, chances are you will fail. Have three clear, simple, easy-to-understand points for your next media encounter and you will be primed for success.
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When you are creating your media messages, it is important to brainstorm every possible idea. Write down every possible idea you could say on a subject. During this process, it is essential that you suspend all of your analytical or critical thinking skills. Instead, just try to be as creative as possible and toss out as many ideas as you possibly can.
