Parsley Productions offers world-class media training either on site or in a broadcast TV studio. Our extremely experienced team still works at the highest levels of the news industry.

The course is conducted by Scott Imren who has more than 10 years’ experience directing network news on ITV, Channel 5, Channel 4 and ABC as well as business and financial news for Reuters and CNBC. He also directs and produces investigative documentaries for Al Jazeera English.

We work with a number of well known news presenters, including Linda Duberley and Owen Thomas, who will ask the questions and give tips on how to improve your performance, get your message across and avoid journalists' traps.

Award winning Linda Duberley has worked for twenty years as a writer and broadcaster. She held three staff positions on national newspapers before moving to Sky News as a senior anchor. She was then posted to Hong Kong as the Asia correspondent for Fox News before joining ITV's Tonight programme as a presenter.

Owen Thomas has more than twenty years’ experience as a reporter and presenter in network television and radio including ITN, the ITV News Channel, London Tonight and BBC Radio. He now presents BBC World News after two years anchoring at CNN.

Overview

News has changed immeasurably over the past few years; 24-hour rolling news channels demand instant answers from industry leaders and opinion formers. How you perform on screen can have a massive impact on your message and the image of your organisation. From damage limitation to challenging misleading information, you might only get one chance. And if you don’t get it right, your mistake will be replayed every hour during the course of the day. It’s vital you know what to expect in an interview situation. Our courses will allow you to shine. They will familiarise you with the broadcast news environment and give you all the tools you need to communicate your message confidently and credibly.

Media Environments:

Every participant will be given a comprehensive introduction to each environment on what to expect and how to prepare. They will then be interviewed ‘as-live’ in as realistic a manner as possible. We then review the recorded performance and discuss how improvements can be made.

1 - The ‘live’ studio interview. You have been invited into the studio to be interviewed live on air. Your on-camera body language and what you are wearing can be as important to audience perceptions as how you answer the questions. Never underestimate this! Our course will familiarise you with what can be an intimidating environment and let you in on some simple industry secrets that can make all the difference to your credibility.

2 - The ‘Down-The-Line’ interview. You will often see interviewees on the news “joining us from Manchester/Norwich/Edinburgh” etc. These are predominantly ‘green-screen’ studios where the person is sitting in front of a green curtain and a moving image of the appropriate city is superimposed behind them. This is an unnatural environment where many untrained people will come across as unsure and nervous. You will gain essential experience in wearing an earpiece and talking confidently to a presenter, who you won’t see, hundreds of mile away.

3a - The ‘Door-stepping’ Interview. You are leaving your office and find a cameraman and journalist asking difficult questions. Whilst in the public street the material shot can be used in news broadcasts whether you approve or not, so how you react will say a lot about your company’s position. We simulate this environment outside the studios and don’t pull any punches!

3b - The Public Statement. You may want to alert the media that you will be making a public statement outside your office and have the chance to manipulate the news agenda yourself. We will explain how to do this and how to deliver it.

Conclusion

Alongside becoming familiar with the television news environment you will gain a valuable understanding into what journalists require to tell the story, avoid the many pitfalls that exist and leave fully prepared to deal with any sudden media relations exercise that confronts you in the future. The media may seem threatening, alien even. Our courses will dispel that thought. They’ll prepare you to see the media as a tool that can be used to your advantage.