Keep It Simple

 

The simpler the message, the less likely it is to be misunderstood. When it comes to dealing with the media, simplicity and focus are virtues. One reason for this is that a reporter has a lot less time to spend on your message, announcement, or report than you do. Your career could ride on the way it is received. It may have been the total focus of your day, week, month, quarter—or longer. To reporters, however, it is just one of several assignments that they might be required to handle on a typical day.

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 Keep It Simple

The simpler the message, the less likely it is to be misunderstood. When it comes to dealing with the media, simplicity and focus are virtues.

One reason for this is that a reporter has a lot less time to spend on your message, announcement, or report than you do. Your career could ride on the way it is received. It may have been the total focus of your day, week, month, quarter or longer.

To reporters, however, it is just one of several assignments that they might be required to handle on a typical day.

The reporters who show up at your office might have just finished talking to police officers at a crime scene, interviewing the widow of a murder victim, or sitting through a boring city council meeting. They might have two other interviews scheduled for two completely different stories after they leave your office.

They have a limited amount of time to spend on your story, so the simpler you can make it for them to understand, the easier it will be for them, which means that they can do a more accurate job of reporting it.

Reporters are not stupid. They are paid because they have the ability to walk into virtually any situation, figure out what is going on, collect all the information they need, mentally organize that information in a logical way, and then write a clear and concise summary of what is going on, usually win a matter of only a few hours.

The simpler and easier you can make their job, the better it will be for everyone concerned.