Media Training Update – w/c 22nd May

“The Russians were hunting us down. They had a list of names, including ours, and they were closing in.”

The Pulitzer Prizes for journalism were announced earlier this month. I’d thoroughly recommend you take a few moments to read and watch the work of Mstyslav Chernov, Evgeniy Maloletka, Vasilisa Stepanenko and Lori Hinnant from the besieged city of Mariupol. It’s extraordinary stuff.

“We were reporting inside the hospital when gunmen began stalking the corridors. Surgeons gave us white scrubs to wear as camouflage.”

READ & WATCH

It’s Monday 22nd May.

Good morning. The week ahead…

Monday: Strikes bill vote in the House of Commons

French Open begins

Tuesday: RHS Chelsea Flower Show

Wednesday: Release of Consumer Price Index statistics

Thursday: Release of the UK’s annual net migration figures

Friday: Ofgem announces its latest change to the to the default energy tariff cap

Ofcom report on news consumption in the UK 

And the weekend…

Turkey’s presidential election goes to a runoff on Sunday

In a media training session recently I made an off-hand comment that in my opinion introverts often make better interviewees than extroverts. Someone in the room emailed me this week to ask why. Here’s what I wrote back: 

Introverts work harder to make connections with people they are talking to because that connection makes a potentially uncomfortable social setting a little easier. Translated to an interview context, I suspect it means an introvert has the knack of making a subject relevant to the audience and more rooted in their world. Extroverts don’t always try as hard to achieve that connection, because it isn’t as necessary to them. 

It’s just the beginning of a train of thought I’d be interested in exploring further. 

What do you think?

You The Editor 

A bizarre old running order on the BBC’s 10 o’clock news on Saturday night:

1. Phillip Schofield/This Morning
2. Suella Braverman/Speeding Fine 
3. Martin Amis obituary
4. Northern Ireland/Local Council Elections
5. G7/Zelensky in Hiroshima

What would have been yours? Email or tweet us your numbers.

(Mine – for what it’s worth – 2,5,3,1 4)

Radio listening figures (RAJARS) were released last week. It’s literally a bunch of people marking what they (think they) listened to in little diaries so take it with a pinch of salt, but…

1) LBC’s James O’Brien records his biggest audience ever with 1.5 million weekly listeners

2) Radio 4’s Today Programme loses 800,000 listeners in the past year

3) And despite all the ‘outrage’ at Steve Wright being replaced, Radio 2 are up on the quarter & Scott Mills actually increased numbers in that slot.

“A New York Times report was unsparing, calling Vice a “decayed digital colossus”, and noting that at one point it was thought to be worth a now-unfathomable $5.7bn.”

With Vice facing bankruptcy and Buzzfeed dead, what does it mean for the future of news? Margaret Sullivan considers…

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On the Inside Edge website – Tony’s A-Z of media training: 

E is for Edge:

A word that’s close to our hearts of course, and an ingredient that every good on air conversation contains. It’s the things that sharpen a guest’s contribution, that cuts through all the stuff people might be doing to reach the audience. It can be in the way you talk – that concern you bring to a troubling subject for example. In terms of content – that specific and telling example or a stonking stat are both ways to sharpen the conversational flow.

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Be part of the MMB. Thoughts on this week’s content, or interviews you’ve seen, heard, or (best of all) done. We’re @insideeedgemedia or just reply to this email. 

Footnotes:

Thanks to Laura for following up on our CNN Trump Town Hall piece last week. She recommends this excellent article if you can stomach more. (The opening sentence is an absolute scorcher…)

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Peter Sutcliffe, known as the Yorkshire Ripper, was sentenced to life imprisonment after the judge describes him as “an unusually dangerous man” on this day in 1981.

Highs of 22 degrees in Cardiff today and 20 in Derby.

And this week’s dog-pic-footnote…the shower-of-shame following an idyllic afternoon spent rolling in cow-poo:

Back on Monday, unless it’s a Bank Holiday. It’s hard to keep track.

Have a good week.



Team Inside Edge