MAJ Janell Pulido says:
Lights, camera, action… my palms start to sweat as the cameraman begins recording my Advanced Media Training (AMT) session at ILE. By the end of my press-conference speech, I could not remember what I had just said. I thought to myself,” I can’t believe I’m this nervous, and this isn’t even a real press conference!” Was I being overly dramatic? How would you feel if all eyes were on you and you had to report on a tragic incident to the public media?
During ILE, students are required to prepare a media interview. For some people it’s an easy assignment. For others, like me, it can be quite nerve-wracking. When I polled some of the students in my class, most agreed that this was a new experience that was outside of their comfort zone. Regardless of which category you fall in, I would highly recommend that you attend the AMT elective. It is a fantastic opportunity that can help you to overcome your fear of public speaking or, if you are already a comfortable speaker, it can provide you with some valuable, inside tips for improving your communication skills and learning how to deal with the press. It also makes you appreciate the media more, it shows you how you can use the media to your advantage, and it makes you recognize the qualities of a good media interview versus one that could have gone better.
For example, during AMT, you will experience what it’s like to give a press conference (i.e., brief speech followed by a question-answer period with “the press”). You will engage in a seated, live interview. You will also experience a remote interview that involves you being in a room by yourself in front of a camera and wearing a microphone, while the interviewer is in another location. In the remote interview, the weirdest thing for me was having to focus on the camera the whole time while the interviewer’s voice came out of a speaker box that was outside of my periphery and outside of the camera frame. It felt unnatural. — Anyway, being in a studio setting, even a simulated one, provides you with a much broader experience than having to deliver the same message in the class-room setting in front of your peers.
Finally, some tips that I learned in the AMT experience which you might find helpful are:
- Practice, practice, practice! Use a mirror, videotape yourself, or practice in front of an audience before the big day.
- Prepare your press conference, command messages, and question/answers using a “murder board” approach.
- Take a deep breath and remain calm. Be the most polite person in the room. Do not lose your cool, and stay in your lane.
- Seek assistance from your Public Affairs Officer (PAO) beforehand.
- Read up on the situation; research the facts, circumstances, and other media coverage that already exists about the event/situation.
- Read tips provided in AMT pamphlet. For example:
- Create a clear intent, 3-5 command messages, and a list of accurate facts. Write this down!
- Provide context; be willing to be accountable for your actions. Ask yourself, “what are we doing about the incident and how do we prevent future incidents from occurring?”
- Be honest. Do not speculate. Do not discuss OPSEC.
- Common sense must prevail.
- If you don’t want to see it in print, then don’t say it. Consider that every microphone is live.
- Assign someone to record the entire press conference. This can be a valuable AAR tool.
- Answer the question (if you can) and be concise. Look at the person asking the question (during the press conference or in the live interview).
- When you want to send a clear message to the extended audience(s) look at the camera lens.
- Maintain confidence, good eye contact, and be mindful of your body language, facial expressions, movement, and the use of word fillers like “uh” or “um.”
BLUF: AMT was a valuable experience that everyone should take advantage of. As officers, some of us will be asked to give an interview about an Army event sometime in our careers, and AMT helps prepare us for that. We must embrace, or at least engage, the media as a way to get our voices heard, present our message in the best possible light, and share our side of the story with the public. If we don’t, the press will write the story without us. And whose fault would that be?
MAJ Janell Pulido, ILE 12-002, Staff Group 32C
Fort Lee, Va.
2 Comments on "Sweaty palms, but lessons learned"
I understand your feelings concerning sweaty palms and lessons learned. I taught public speaking and media relations in the Defense and Strategic Studies Program at West Point. During my time, I had many future officers come through my classroom having the same experience . . . sweaty palms and all. Their experience was not unlike yours and your classmates. They came in on the first day mostly being uncomfortable with public speaking, but at the end of the semester they were extremely confident and able to hold their own with reporters.
To solve the media issue, I strongly recommend the Army teach public speaking more purposefully. This would instill a much greater skill set with which to work with the media. By purposefully, I mean that the Army devotes specific POI hours in its various Professional Military Education courses to public speaking delivery. The majority of our courses teach public speaking from a technique of incorporation into the curriculum, not as a standalone skill. For instance, they ask us to brief an operations order or technical aspect of our branches. But, in these cases, the majority of instructors are not critiquing delivery or style. Rather, the instructors are focused primarily on content. There needs to be dedicated time for public speaking development that focuses solely on delivery, not content. This is how people develop into better public speakers.
Once a foundation of public speaking is laid, media relations become much more successful. There are two main factors that lead to a successful media engagement: public speaker ability and thinking on your feet. If a person only has to worry about one of these – most likely thinking on your feet – then media relations becomes much more manageable.
MAJ Joseph Foust
Student, CGSC
Fort Gordon, GA
Terrific post, MAJ Pulido. You offer some excellent and very practical tips for future students and future interviewees. Giving an interview is no picnic, and it pushes us all well outside our comfort zone. But I’m glad to know you found the experience useful.