| Building and Protecting your Reputation |
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Hi John,
The results are in. My DNA has been analysed and I now have at least an idea where my ancestry is from. I must admit, it didn't turn out to be a huge surprise, since I had already traced my family back over a thousand years. Many people say (and have said to me recently) that DNA analysis is a vague art rather than a science, but I don't really care. It's helped me to contact some distant relatives, and seems to have confirmed that what I've discovered about my background seems accurate.
So here's the result. My background is:
70% English, Welsh and Northern European (Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark) 13% Germanic 9% Scottish and Irish 8% Viking
So basically that's Anglo-Saxon. No French, Spanish, Italian or anywhere else. Ah well. |
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I've no idea what my DNA means for my ability to enjoy art, but I visited the Anthony Gormley exhibition at the Royal Academy this week, and I was absolutely blown away. It's a large exhibition including sculptures, drawings and sensory experiences that are quite stunning.
He's known for his life-size figures, which are there of course, there is so much more there too. I always find it inspirational to see great art, and I thoroughly recommend this exhibition which runs until December 3rd. You can book here. |
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| Walking is a marvellous activity for all sorts of reasons, and I am very proud of my wife, Heather Waring, who has been advocating walking and leading walks around the world for many years. She has just launched a campaign to get one million women walking, as you can hear in the Media Coach Radio Show. There's also a great tune from Mick Terry. |
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The MediaMaestro is BritBox, a new streaming service launched this week by BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5.
Downton Abbey, Gavin & Stacey, Wolf Hall, Love Island and Broadchurch are among the shows available. The service will cost £5.99 per month and will mostly feature classic series, but will also include new shows, beginning with Lambs of God.
More than 600 classic episodes of Doctor Who - broadcast between 1963 and 1989 - will be available to stream for the first time by Christmas. Shows and movies from Channel 4 and Film4's back catalogue will be available in 2020, and original shows from Comedy Central UK will also feature.
Reemah Sakaan, ITV's group director for streaming, said having a big catalogue of classic shows "shouldn't be underestimated" by those assessing BritBox's chances of success. "The new battleground, quite often in streaming, are shows like Friends, which are 20 years old and are the top performers," she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
I wish them every success. |
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The MediaMug is Conservative Party Chairman James Cleverly. He has been ridiculed after denying the party doctored a video to portray a senior Labour figure stumbling on Brexit – insisting it had merely been shortened.
He faced a storm of criticism after the social media clip showed Keir Starmer appearing to falter when, in reality, he had provided a full answer to the question he was asked. Piers Morgan, the interviewer in the clip, was absolutely incensed.
Mr Cleverly refused to apologise or even accept it was misleading.Instead, he claimed: “We edited the video, just like you edit stuff on your programme, just like everybody else, because we needed to shorten the video.”
In my view, that was a lie. The video was clearly edited to make it look as though Keir Starmer had been struck dumb and did not answer at all.
Politics apart, if any Party Chairman comes on TV to defend fake news created by his own party, we are in a sorry state. |
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| Speaking Tip - Doctor King's rhetoric |
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The "I have a dream" speech was undoubtedly beautifully constructed and brilliantly delivered, and is rightly held up as an example of great oratory. Doctor Martin Luther King was an accomplished preacher with a great knowledge and grasp of classical rhetoric.
The three-part construction into Ethos, Pathos and Logos is overlaid with at least half a dozen rhetorical devices, including:
Anaphora a repeated phrase or word at the start of a clause or paragraph ("I have a dream") Antithesis, where ideas are matched to contrasts ("..they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character") Metaphor , where something is likened to an unrelated object ("Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice.") Simile, where two things are compared through a connecting phrase or word ("No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream") Synedoche, where part of something refers to the whole of something ("We can never be satisfied, as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities.")
Why do I think this is important for speakers? Because rhetorical devices are the tools of our trade. We need to know how to use them, and keep them sharp. |
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| Media Tip - Hook, Line and Sinker |
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HOOK - Nothing is news unless it's of interest, If it's of interest, there will be a reason why. That's the hook. You need to find the news hook for every media release you send out. Opening a new branch in West London is not a news hook. Running a social media survey with your clients and potential customers to find where to open a new branch is a news hook. It needs to be unique, innovative, startling or memorable (or a combination of the above). You'll know when you have a news hook, since a person you tell it to will say "Wow, really?" (or words to that effect). . LINE - your organisation (which may be just you) should have a line on every issue that may affect your business and/or your customers. Everyone in your organisation should know what the line is, and the way to deliver it. It's all about consistency. If different people from the same organisation offer opposing views, then that becomes the news story. That's not what you want.
SINKER Tens of thousands of media releases are sent out every day (PR Newswire alone delivers 1,500 releases daily) Most of them sink without trace, never generating any publicity at all. There are a number of reasons why your press release may sink. It may be sent to the wrong targets, the timing may be wrong, it may be overtaken by a bigger news story. But the main reason is that it's just not newsworthy.
Make sure you have a HOOK, and a consistent LINE, so that your PR efforts don't SINK. |
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| Social Media Tip - Three reasons to blog |
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Do you write a blog? There are some very good reasons to do so. Here are three.
1) Protection. Brands can suffer damage online in no time. If a crisis occurs, you need to establish yourself as the main source of information. Your blog can act as a focus for customers and journalists alike. Not only that, if you allow comments (as you should, in my view), you will see instantly the concerns that are being raised, and be able to move quickly to deal with them. However, don't feel the need to respond personally to every critical comment on your blog. You will find that other readers will often post comments that deal with the issue for you. In addition, there are some mischievous individuals who will post provocative comments simply to start a debate, which if you enter it, you will never win. You do need to keep an eye out for obscene or potentially libellous comments, too, and delete them as soon as you can.
2) Profile. Blogs that provide useful advice will be followed by potential customers, who will refer them on to their friends. It's another way of raising your profile and promoting your brand. If you are seen as an expert who constantly provides practical advice, you will become trusted, and people do business with those they trust. If your blog becomes known as a centre of expertise and debate for your sector, you will benefit from the credibility that it gives, as well as receiving valuable ideas and feedback. Some of the most popular blogs are read by tens of thousands of people, and can act as opinion-formers within an industry. Because of the simplicity and speed of production, news can break on a blog before it is seen or heard anywhere else. One word of caution - if your blog is to be seen as credible, you should take as much care as a journalist publishing an article in a magazine, particularly since the laws of libel still apply.
3) Publishing. Regular blogging gets you into the habit of writing often, which is essential if you ever want to write that book. For example, let's assume you write a blog every day of 250 words. Ten blogs (2,500 words) can be pulled together into a special report. Four special reports (10,000 words) make a good sized e-book. Four e-books (40,000 words) make a real book. If you've been paying attention, you will realise that in 10 x 4 x 4 days (160 days, or about six months, allowing for a bit of time off), you can have written a book, by doing nothing more than blogging. So, if you write a daily blog of 250 words, you can turn out two books a year. See you on Amazon! |
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| The information in this ezine may be freely re-used in any online or offline publication, provided it is accompanied by the following credit line - "This information was written by Alan Stevens, and originally appeared in "The MediaCoach", his free weekly ezine, available at www.mediacoach.co.uk." |
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