
Get Lost In The Swarm
The biggest threat to news, PR, and the good feelings of an entire nation is the group. The group is easy to report on, easy to categorise, and easy to blame. The group is an amorphous entity that isn't like a person; it’s both cunning and stupid at the same time, it’s easily influenced and yet it’s completely intractable, it’s scary and stupid and misrepresentable. Because the group is a group there’s no one to sue you. Start with asylum seekers. They are a swarm, they want

What is your Twitter feed hiding?
My father-in-law used to play tricks on my wife, and at Christmas he would wrap her presents up in oddly shaped boxes, or with extra packaging, so she’d think that she was getting something else. Oh, what fun they had. Oh, what disappointment there was when she found the great big box had something tiny and insignificant within. How… they… laughed… We’ve all felt that as a child; the advertised super rocket with real blasters turned out to be half the size and far less blasty

Media Training Handbook - Who owns your story?
If you're interviewed by the press, why does it matter who owns the organisation? Media ownership is a thesis all on its own, but the main things to remember about the press, are the political standpoints of the owners and the readers. People buy a newspaper because it reinforces their world view, it feels like a friend that's on their side, that stands for the things that they think they stand for. If your political leaning is to the right then The Daily Mail, The Express, T

Get Invited Back
You're the expert that will be explaining that difficult story, you're the one informing the presenter as much as the audience, you'll be the next Martin Lewis, the next Dr Mark Porter, or even the next Greg Wallace (he was a veg expert before Masterchef). Or you'll be an abject flop. The person that no one remembers, like, you know, thingy... So how do you get invited back? 1) This is their house not yours. Show the presenter some respect. They may be an idiot but that's no

Media Training - Coke & Sugar part 1
On the 9th of May James Quincey the President of Coca-Cola Europe appeared on the BBC Radio 4 programme 'PM'. He was interviewed by regular presenter Eddie Mair. The interview is available here... listen to ‘PM Programme Coke Interview pt1’ on Audioboo listen to ‘PM Programme Coke Interview pt2’ on Audioboo I think that this is a great example of a large organisation doing something to break their 'default narrative' which simply reinforces their 'default narrative'... The Co

Put The Phone DOWN!
I need to give you a little bit of personal background before I start this blog because I'm going to sound like an intolerant psycho by the end of it. I was born in 1974 and lived most of my young life in the mining village of Calverton in Nottinghamshire. My father was a policeman my mother is a chiropodist. We were not well off in the 70's. When the 1980's came events took a strange turn. In early 1984 I was 9 and still at junior school. All of my contemporaries were the so