Media Training in the Digital/Social Age

In my last, introductory, post, I said I wanted to expand on the dialogue I’ve had with colleagues and clients during almost three decades in the media and communications training business.  In this post I want to look at the importance of media training in the digital age.  Assuming, as I do, that it remains important.

Let me begin by saying that I have long considered media training as a subset of “communications” training in general.  Media trainers, and PR folks overall, are usually aware that when you peel back the layers of individual need with a specific client, you almost always end up talking about content, which has to be clarified and focused, whatever the audience or the pathway. In that sense alone, media training remains vital in the internet-connected world.

But back in the late 90’s, when I first became concerned about the tsunami of voices, opinions and visual material that flooded us online, my thoughts were at a somewhat higher level.  Like many others, I wondered what would happen if this new medium were to dominate traditional sources of crediblility, particularly news outlets.

Where would the public (and public relations pros) go when there were no clear sources of implied third-party endorsement, no reporters who could be trusted to probe, ask tough questions, be skeptical and then produce coherent stories with an effort to be balanced?

And more specifically, what would happen to those of us who work with spokespersons to help craft their information and points of view into clear, credible, persuasive communications?

Looking back, after 15 years, I was right to be concerned, but while social media has changed the way we communicate and even how we view the world, with a devastating impact on the news business, much remains the same.  Individuals and organizations have embraced social media, and every competent communications firm is focused on digital and social media strategies.  With vastly more people capable of reaching potentially wide audiences than ever before, the need for media training has actually expanded.

Organizations that communicate need to redouble efforts to achieve clarity, reasonable perspective, powerful expression and points of view supported by data and examples.  These qualities are often in short supply in the digital universe, but they are not easily dismissed, as audiences still respond to them.  Particularly media audiences which have, in fact, grown in the online world.

The plethora of new online opportunities to communicate, combined with the need for organizations to enter the digital dialogue through channels they do not own, requires preparation of more voices to handle the requirement for engagement.  And this means – or should mean – preparing many more people to communicate from a common set of facts and points of view – and with a single mission – precisely the work of media training.

What’s happening where you work?  Is media training (or social media training) reaching more people?