Interfacing with Media: Top Lessons I remember

What Story do you want to tell ?
 From Salzburg, Austria

Along with esteemed colleagues from our Washington University Medical and Danforth campuses, I attended a Media Training Workshop today. This activity had been organized by Washington University’s exceptional Vice-Provost for Diversity, Adrienne Davis (here featured in the local media: http://www.stlmag.com/St-Louis-Magazine/November-2011/St-Louis-Innovators-The-Social-Justice-Professor-Adrienne-Davis/) and was led by the highly polished media veterans Doris E. McMillion and Carolyn Sawyer.

 Some Child and Adolescent Psychiatry trainees anticipate, rightly, wanting to learn to pro-actively interface with media as  future advocates for our field, our patients and their families.  So, to share what I learned: here are the top soundbites that I remember from today’s workshop:

1-Practice is key

Talking to reporters requires mindfully honing communication skills that most of us do not practice regularly in academia. A very simple example: sounding erudite is part of our academic culture and decorum but will (probably) come across as snooty on TV. Be clear, engaging, to the point, and practice as long as it takes so that you do not look or feel like a deer in the headlight.

2-Be well prepared for those questions you want AND those that you don’t want to be asked

Know your field and its controversies.  A tough question can be something you are tired of answering over and over.  Whatever the case (for instance, I regularly get asked whether adolescent depression is not “just a phase” that we, child psychiatrists, pathologize): anticipate those questions and answer them by taking the opportunity to get your message across.

3-In fact, if you have a message, then every media request to interview or talk to you is an opportunity

4 Related to that-lead rather than be lead

If you are clear about what you want to get across, you can learn to be an active participant and thoughtfully steer any communication that involves you, including a media interview.

5-About what you want to get across: what, exactly, is your message? Brief attention spans + editing vagaries = have a few key message points that you repeat confidently over and over –preferably not in a robotic unvarying fashion-rather than many message points that you mention in passing just once.

6-To best get your message across:  people prefer stories about people

This one is a little hard for me: I remember culture shock when reading American books when I first moved to the US. I read books about everything (immigration, learning English, organizing a home, gardening, working with others etc..) and was derailed by all the stories starting with individual examples. My (then) Frencher brain wanted the book to hook me first with some abstraction related to the immigration experience, not with something along the lines of “Dolores stares out the window and thinks about the blue skies she left behind…” But, guess what? The stories about people work best, especially in the media universe. Our media gurus gave the recent example of Romney, during the first recent presidential debate, narrating a story about his wife encountering a woman who had lost insurance. Far more effective than talking about loss of insurance coverage in general.

7-Not all stories have the same appeal

In the media Arena, not all lions are created equal: it may be unfair...but certain topics (sex, race, children etc…) are simply more stimulating of media/public attention than others. Related to our field, the public may be more interested in the plight of children who suffer from severe psychiatric disorders than in the adventures of the researchers, who study those severe psychiatric disorders: so this leads back to being conscious of what stories we choose and how we tell them.

8-Off the Record? No. It’s all on the Record.

If you are not sure that you want to own it: don’t say it. Carolyn thanked her mother for teaching her that she should never say something in public that she did not want to get credit for. Related to that: do not talk about what you do not know. Better to acknowledge the limits of your expertise and offer to get back to reporters later with additional information or to refer them to colleagues who have more expertise than you do.

9-Finally, if you are on TV, you have to look good, not just sound good.

This is too obvious to state? Maybe, but this can not be emphasized enough: the details of your appearance can either work for you or distract from your important message (e.g., your dangling chandelier earrings, your lugubrious clothing, your akimbo tie etc…)

Thank you Doris and Carolyn for enlightening us with the details of media phenomenology….just in time to experience tomorrow’s presidential debate with a refreshed perspective.

Till Later,

Anne

Reference: ABC’s of MEDIA by Doris E. McMillion and Carolyn Sawyer.