Expert Guide: How to Manage ‘Down the Line’ TV Interviews

Expert Guide, Media Training / By Andrew Caesar-Gordon

As broadcasters’ resources are stretched, ‘down-the-line’ TV interviews are increasingly common. Interviewees in one location talk to a camera, listening via an earpiece to the journalist who is questioning them from the studio. The most difficult type of interview Spokespeople often find these interviews unnerving. It is unnatural to be talking to a camera rather …

Expert Guide: How to Manage ‘Down the Line’ TV Interviews Read More »

Expert Guide: How to devise soundbites and get quoted

Expert Guide, Media Training, Presentation Skills / By Andrew Caesar-Gordon

Many participants on Electric Airwaves’ media training courses ask how they can ensure that they don’t get unfairly edited by a journalist and can get their soundbites broadcast or published. Why was I misquoted? For busy journalists in a busy newsroom, confronted with something new, a few minutes on Google can often be the totality …

Expert Guide: How to devise soundbites and get quoted Read More »

Expert Guide: How to Avoid “Um” and “Er” and “YKnow” when public speaking

Expert Guide, Presentation Skills / By Andrew Caesar-Gordon

There are around 230,000 words in the Oxford English Dictionary. ‘Um’ and ‘Er’ and ‘Y’know’ are not listed. Over-use of these so called ‘spurious spacers’ are at best annoying to the audience and at worst can damage your credibility and dilute your message when public speaking. Y’know The liberal use of “y’know” can signal pleading …

Expert Guide: How to Avoid “Um” and “Er” and “YKnow” when public speaking Read More »

Expert Guide: Handling Appearances before a Parliamentary Select Committee

Crisis communications, Expert Guide, Presentation Skills / By Andrew Caesar-Gordon

Introduction Select Committees were established and expanded during the 1970s and 1980s to ensure that Parliament could better scrutinize the Government and hold it to account. Most Committees perform without fanfare most of the time. But in recent years, some Committees seem to have come to see their job as holding the wider world to …

Expert Guide: Handling Appearances before a Parliamentary Select Committee Read More »

Expert Guide: How to Apologise

Crisis communications, Expert Guide / By Andrew Caesar-Gordon

It is important to recognize that sometimes things do go wrong – your organization is after all, comprised of fallible human beings. Or your organisation could be the victim of somebody else’s misdeed. While it has become very fashionable to apologise, how can you do so and sound like you really mean it? Because too …

Expert Guide: How to Apologise Read More »

Expert Guide: Moderating Conferences and Panel Discussions

Expert Guide, Presentation Skills / By Andrew Caesar-Gordon

Just as there are few ‘naturals’ when it comes to media interviewees, there are few ‘naturals’ when it comes to moderating conferences and panel discussions. The good ones you see are the ones who have practiced – a lot! As a moderator or conference chair, your job is to make the speakers look good and …

Expert Guide: Moderating Conferences and Panel Discussions Read More »

Expert Guide: Presenting in the Round

Expert Guide, Presentation Skills / By Andrew Caesar-Gordon

Speaking on a platform that is surrounded on all side by the audience is known in theatre as ‘presenting in the round’. It’s quite a different experience presenting to an audience that you sometimes cannot see! Here are some tips to help you do so effectively. The main worry of a presenter in this situation …

Expert Guide: Presenting in the Round Read More »

The fake news problem and the consequences for PROs

Corporate Story / By Andrew Caesar-Gordon

Jesus: Everyone on the side of truth listens to me. Pontius Pilate: What is truth? Since the election of Donald Trump, debate has raged about whether the flood of ‘fake news’ on the web swung the election to him. Leaving to one side Trumps’ own contribution to a ‘post truth’ world – and …

The fake news problem and the consequences for PROs Read More »

Is there really a PR Profession?

Communications Function / By Andrew Caesar-Gordon

Nothing personal but I’m going to challenge a conventional wisdom about the PR profession. The wisdom that it is indeed a profession. Instead, is what we do rather more like a ‘craft’? One that is mainly learnt as one goes along (a bit like most journalism!)? I suspect that if you asked 100 people in …

Is there really a PR Profession? Read More »

Trump – the Power of PR?

Corporate Story / By Andrew Caesar-Gordon

It was another bad night for pollsters and experts. A lot has been written - and a lot more is going to be written - about the campaign run by Donald Trump that has seen him elected to the US Presidency. Donald Trump tore up the campaigning rulebook. He has won at a point when …

Trump – the Power of PR? Read More »

Weird Public Speaking Situations

Presentation Skills / By Andrew Caesar-Gordon

We were recently asked to provide public speaking skills training to an executive who was going to speaking on a platform that was surrounded on all side by the audience. What in theatre is known as ‘presenting in the round’. So here are some tips for how to manage presenting to an audience that you …

Weird Public Speaking Situations Read More »

Media Training for Receptionists & Security Guards?

Media Training / By Andrew Caesar-Gordon

Watching the extraordinarily cack-handed response of Ask.FM to the suicide of Hannah Smith following her being cyber-bullied on their website, have a look at this video clip from Sky News doorstepping an employee of Ask.FM here. http://news.sky.com/story/teen-suicide-site-refuses-to-answer-questions-10437918 When covering your organisation's issue or crisis, journalists will try to speak with senior executives. If your organisation …

Media Training for Receptionists & Security Guards? Read More »

Parliamentary Committee Woes

Case Study, Media Training / By Andrew Caesar-Gordon

Mike Ashley’s appearance today before the Business, Innovation & Skills Parliamentary Select Committee today has all the makings of a classic. The self-confessed loudmouth who had called MPs a “joke” was done up like a kipper, particularly by Labour MP, Paul Blomfield (a star in the making?). Electric Airwaves published our latest short animated video …

Parliamentary Committee Woes Read More »

During crisis, be consistent and be aware

Leave a Comment / Case Study / By Andrew Caesar-Gordon

The decision made by Cincinnati Zoo seemed like a no-brainer. A three-year old boy had climbed over a fence and fallen into the enclosure of a 4001b Gorilla named 'Harambe'. Even though the gorilla did not appear to be attacking the child, even though the gorilla was from an endangered species, Zoo Director Thane Maynard …

During crisis, be consistent and be aware Read More »

Getting Your First Crisis Statement Right – Even For Online Crises

Crisis communications / By Andrew Caesar-Gordon

Here's a nice storm in a crisis teacup underlining the importance of organisations having a clear social media policy AND clarity in your crisis media statements. Last week, the pastor of an American church in St. Louis went with her congregation to a restaurant, part of a chain, called Applebee's. The receipt for the meal …

Getting Your First Crisis Statement Right – Even For Online Crises Read More »

The Good Communications Director

Communications Function, Help For Communication Directors, Research / By Andrew Caesar-Gordon

Guest Blog: Ros Kindersley, Chair, JFL Ltd What makes for a good Communications Director? There was a time in the 1990s when I would be regularly approached by a particular type of PR consultant. Exhausted by pitching for new business, looking after clients and running an agency, they wanted to move to an in-house …

The Good Communications Director Read More »

What will the Communications Department look like in 2020?

Research / By Andrew Caesar-Gordon

Andrew Caesar-Gordon reports on research among 430 PR Practitioners in conjunction with PR Week. It’s no secret that the world of the PR and Comms is changing rapidly. But despite recognition that the PR canvas is changing, there appears to be less consensus on how that plays out in the detail, according to a survey …

What will the Communications Department look like in 2020? Read More »

Being Sorry & Being Human

Corporate Story, Crisis communications / By Andrew Caesar-Gordon

Any crisis situation for an organisation is highly emotional – for those involved and for the audience watching. Any tragedy involving children evokes particularly strong emotions. Blend the two and you have a potentially volatile reputation crisis. How should a PRO advise their leaders on what and how to communicate? When do you say sorry? …

Being Sorry & Being Human Read More »

Can you get away with controversial media comments?

Case Study, Media Training / By Andrew Caesar-Gordon

When an organisation's leader says something contentious in public, its PROs often cringe. A press release is issued to 'clarify' the comments in "'order to restore calm to troubled waters; the executive may be urged to take a holiday. But if the comments are not on the scale of BP' s Tony Hayward "I want …

Can you get away with controversial media comments? Read More »

Damned if you do … how a corporate story can help

Corporate Story / By Andrew Caesar-Gordon

I was at a seminar this morning about corporate storytelling. Evening Standard journalist, Anthony Hilton, suggested that PR teams often over-react to what should be seen as low-level criticism, especially online. His thesis was that even intelligent people can't remember yesterday's newspaper headline. Therefore reacting to every little negative is a waste of time because …

Damned if you do … how a corporate story can help Read More »

Crisis Communications: A Canadian Blame Game

Crisis communications, Media Training / By Andrew Caesar-Gordon

You would have thought that with over 50 people dead following a runaway train destroying the heart of Lac-Megantic in Canada, the rail company would be focused solely on the human impact of the tragedy. Not so if you are Edward Burkhardt, chairman of Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway. Generally, his media interviews have been …

Crisis Communications: A Canadian Blame Game Read More »