The Media Coach

Hi John,

I had a busy old weekend with Saturday spent at the Gallagher Premiership Rugby Final between Saracens and Sale in the company of some great speaker mates - Andy Lopata, Julie Holmes, Charlie Whyman and Jeremy Nicholas.

I urge you to go and have a look at their websites - they are all splendid at what they do.

The game was pretty splendid too, with some great rugby, only slightly marred by the incursion of a couple of "Stop Oil" protesters with the usual cloud of orange paint. I can only assume that they are sponsored by a paint company, since the reception they received didn't indicate they were winning over people to their cause.

And a word of advice to anyone contemplating protesting in the middle of a field with 30 fired-up huge rugby players - it's not a great idea.

A word about AI. There's been a lot of talk, and not a little concern about the impact of AI on our working lives and social behaviour. It's a good debate.

I'd like to make it clear that not a single word of this ezine is AI-generated. That would be ridiculous. AI wouldn't make the same typos and punctuation errors that I do.

I still have just one place left on my speaker coaching programme, for six or twelve months - the place is available in June. Better be quick!

If you'd like to know more and maybe have a chat, just get in touch.

My radio guest Tommy Stinson is a rock musician. He came to prominence in the 1980s as the bass guitarist for The Replacements, one of the definitive American alternative rock groups. In the mid-1990s he was the singer and guitarist for the rock band Perfect, and eventually joined Guns N' Roses in 1998.

He now has a band called Cowboys in the Campfire, and also has an amazing fund of stories about life on the road.

It was a real pleasure to chat with him last week, as you can hear in the Media Coach Radio Show.

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And there's a wonderful tune from Tommy and his band Cowboys in the Campfire

The MediaMug this week is the broadcaster ITV. They have made a real hash of the departure of Philip Schofield from their flagship morning TV show.

Accusations are flying all over the place, statements have been issued, and the whole sorry business has taken up more air time than the show under debate.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the matter, this is no way for a major broadcaster to behave. We haven't heard the last of this by a long way, and it's sad to see that just about everyone with any connection to the show is now weighing in.

I very much doubt that the show will survive this onslaught. Viewing figures are falling, and I suspect after a decent interval it will be replaced with something with a completely different name, new presenters, but featuring basically the same content. Such is life on TV.

At the end of your speech, if audience members leap to their feet, clapping and cheering, it's so embarrassing, isn't it? It takes ages to calm things down again, and it ruins your walk off stage.

Well here are ten ways to make sure it never happens to you.

There. That should guarantee that they stay in their seats, if they haven't already walked out.

Some people become very upset when they spend a lot of time, effort and money on media releases that receive no coverage at all. Sometimes it's due to circumstances, since when a major news story breaks, everything else is discarded in favour of saturation coverage. However, much more often, it's because the press release isn't newsworthy.

Here's some examples of non-news;

Here are some examples of real news;

Next time you send out a media release, consider whether the content is real news or non-news.

Online design guru Steve Krug says in his brilliant book "Don't Make Me Think", you should "get rid of half of the words on your pages, and then get rid of half of what is left".

Most company Facebook pages (and websites), argues Steve, have far too many words, and serve only to confuse the visitor.

For example, I found this online recently - "Please send us your feedback about our services. This will give us information that will help us improve our services to you, our valued customers, and make it more relevant to your needs. This will take only a 5-8 minutes. Include your name and details so that we can respond to your points quickly and efficiently. We appreciate you giving the time it will take you to do this. If you have any queries please call or email our customer services department" (82 words)

Instead, they might have said this - "We thrive on feedback, so tell us what you think about our page, or anything else that comes to mind. Thanks." (21 words).

Which do you prefer?

Dave Allen was a genius when it came to poking fun at religion.

If you're looking for a speaker coach, just get in touch. I now have all inclusive pricing.