Thinking

As is always the case with the media, those who win coverage are the ones who choose to speak up. Yet we find that many lawyers who are up for speaking to print journalists balk at the idea of appearing on TV or on the radio. When we dig into it, it becomes clear that their main reservation is their confidence.

We get it: if you are used to speaking to journalists with whom you can flit between on and off the record, giving a live interview can feel like walking without a tightrope. What if you say the wrong thing? What if they ask something you don’t know about? What if you freeze up? As with most phobias, the best way to overcome a fear of live broadcasting is to expose yourself to it bit by bit, i.e. through media training. By practicing what it’s like to actually be on air, you can gain the confidence to handle interviews like a natural.

The problem with broadcast media training is that historically it has also been very expensive. That means law firms often have to pick and choose which of their fee-earners get the confidence boost that will allow them to go on air.But broadcast media is quickly changing and, with it, the type of training needed is changing too.Tune into any TV news broadcast for long enough and you’ll no doubt see the telltale choppy picture of someone, anywhere in the world, speaking into a laptop.

A while back there was a video that made the rounds of an expert on North Korea being interrupted in the middle of a TV interview by his toddler barging into the background of the shot. Maybe this is an argument against interviewing people outside of a proper TV studio, but it certainly hasn’t dampened broadcasters’ enthusiasm for interviews via the web.

It’s also happening in radio, but if you tune in you might not even be able to tell. Radio stations wanting to do a ‘down-the-line’ interview used to have to choose between crummy traditional phone lines or expensive ISDN boxes, which few contributors had. Now, apps like FaceTime or ipDTL can delivery very high-quality audio from anywhere at a low cost, or no cost at all.

All this means that instead of wasting precious otherwise billable time to trek across town to a TV studio (in traffic, Sky News’ main studios in Isleworth are over an hour from the City) a lawyer can now open up her phone and appear on TV instantly, then get straight back to work. It also means that the facilities needed for high-quality media training aren’t as elaborate as they once were, allowing us to provide broadcast media training at a fraction of the price it once was.

Interested? Let us know.