MAJ Crystalyn Fillmore says:
Toward the beginning of my time at CGSC, I had the opportunity to participate in the Advanced Media Training program that is provided on a voluntary basis in the schoolhouse. I at first took the class to help me better prepare for what I would assume would be many opportunities to conduct briefs in front of different types of audiences. I thought best that this would give me some much-needed practice.
Instead I was amazed at how invaluable the experience was, not only in helping me brush up on my speaking skills, but also giving me the opportunity to rehearse and execute three separate formats for speaking to the media: a sit-down, face-to-face interview, a news press conference, and a remote interview. Each session was split into about one hour with a group of three people. The program gave in-depth coverage to each type of media engagement that we might face in the future as senior military leaders.
I was blown away by how Mr. Steve Liewer (the lead instructor) and his associates conducted the program. They provided a fairly realistic news scenario for our news interviews, and they pushed each participant to take the situation seriously in order to benefit the most from the exercises. Although I was totally taken out of my comfort zone, I could not have asked for a better experience.
Another great aspect of the training was both an AAR conducted with the instructor and the other students at the end of each interview. We later were provided a CD containing each of our interviews to help us not only reflect on our AAR, but to see how we conducted ourselves. This gives us the opportunity to further improve personally should we be called upon to conduct an actual interview on behalf of the military.
Having participated in AMT, I was astounded that this is not a mandatory part of the core curriculum for CGSC. I can only guess that most officers would benefit from this type of training because the repercussions of conducting a bad interview could be so great.
MAJ Crystalyn Fillmore, U.S. Army,
ILE 12-02, Staff Group 1C
One Comment on "‘Blown away’ by AMT"
Thanks for the kind words, MAJ Fillmore. We have worked hard to produce a quality training experience for students in the ILE and SAMS programs. I’m glad you found it to be a great training experience, and I sincerely hope the lessons will stay with you throughout your career!
CGSC terminated the AMT program in August for budgetary reasons, so we’re not able to offer the class to officers in the 13-01 class and beyond. However, we are offering a form of the training on an ad-hoc basis with certain teams and staff groups who want it. We hope to continue that into the future.
Best of luck to you, and to all of our AMT graduates!