Media Training Update w/c 1st June

Edition 536

Good morning. It’s Monday 1st June.

I bumped into a reporter friend over the weekend who had spent the previous week covering the record-breaking May temperatures. She described the dilemma facing journalists. How do you tell a story that contains three very different truths at the same time?


1) the impact of climate change

2) the immediate threat to, or loss of life 

3) for great swathes of the population it was just a joyous day at the beach, paddling pool, or barbecue.

Results in a fortnight.

The Top Line from a Cardiff University report into coverage of the May Elections: 


Broadcasters prioritised balance over genuine scrutiny. 

More than 70% of politicians’ claims on TV news received either limited scrutiny or none at all.

The report also criticises the over-use of vox pops (regular readers will know this is a pet hate of mine) arguing they replaced deeper analysis of policy and competing claims.

Read the executive summary or the full report.

Newsgathering Diary
Stories to look out for over the next seven days…

Monday: Met Office publishes climate stats for May after record-breaking temperatures


Tuesday: Strikes by London Underground staff in the RMT union


Wednesday: Bank of England launches public vote on wildlife images for next banknotes


Thursday: England v New Zealand test series begins


Friday: Victims’ Commissioner Claire Waxman gives evidence at Nottingham attacks inquiry


Saturday: Women’s singles final at Roland Garros

Pope Leo begins visit to Spain.


Sunday: Peru presidential runoff election

“Don’t treat media work as an add-on. If you see engaging with the media as a troublesome extra, something that takes you away from your proper job, then that is exactly what it will become. Instead, see it as an integral part of what you do: you research something, and you tell the world about it.”

I regularly return to Professor Phil Cowley’s article on why academics should engage with the media…

“Doing media work of whatever sort is wonderful training in communicating clearly and with brevity. For academics for whom 1000 words is merely the throat clearing at the beginning of the introduction, being asked to cover a whole topic in 300 can seem a challenge.”

I’ll quote more over the next couple of weeks but you can read the full article here.

Every so often an exec uses language so staggeringly inappropriate it makes you wonder how they could possibly have risen to such lofty heights in the first place.

(Then you remember this is a surprisingly crowded field.)


Anyway. Take a bow Bill Winters…

Much more on language in the next edition. Mr Winters will feature.

Footnotes:

On This Day: Rhodesia formally ended nearly 90 years of white minority rule and declared it will now be known as Zimbabwe-Rhodesia on this day in 1979. 

Our Week: Derby, London and Brighton for us this week.

The Mutt Photo:

Be part of the MMB. Thoughts on this week’s content, or interviews you’ve seen, heard, or (best of all) done, please let us know.

We’re going to skip a week if that’s ok, and will return in a fortnight.



All at Inside Edge