User:PierreSelim/Media Training

These advices are useful if you are going to meet/answer to a journalist that you don't know. Remember, some journalists do not have the same ethics than you, their goal is to sell a story and they will do everything they can to trick you. Obviously this is not the case of every single journalist, but it is quite common so you may want to keep the following in mind.

Media training 101

• Journalists are not your friend.
• Journalists don't care about you, they care about their story.
• Journalists will twist what you say to fit their story.
• There is no such thing as Off the record.

Few advices

• Do some background check on the journalist before meeting them (or giving any answer). Know the kind of story they run.
• Do not answer/meet a journalist unless you have a message to give. i.e. You can choose not to answer to a journalist if you think it will be a waste of time/ressources for a bad result.
• Choose a simple message, and repeat it in all your answers.
• Train yourself, with a friend role playing the journalist and a camera.
• When speaking on behalf of an entity:
  • you are not an administrator (resp. any functionary role you may have inside the communities),
  • you should avoid answering on any content related question in order to avoid linking your entity to editorial responsabilities.