Another Olympic Games has come to an end.
Hurray – the Olympics are finally underway!
The majority of the great British public are glued to their TV screens, watching open mouthed, as Team GB display their amazing talents in front of the home crowd. Toss into the mix an excitable British media who have no hesitation at throwing superlative after superlative at their audience, and everyone’s hopes are that this will be the best Olympics ever.
With the home media support, plus the yelling, screaming and frantic flag waving from the stands, this must be the best place to be for Team GB to bring home the medals. But hold on a minute – what this? The headline in The Sun yesterday was “Wanted - Gold Medal”. The first sign that the media were losing patience. But the women’s rowing pair Helen Glover and Heather Stanning have now delivered our first gold! We all know what tomorrow’s headlines will be.
Fortunately the GB hockey team understand that despite the pressure the media is a good thing and realise the benefits of media training, so that they can manage the message rather than the media dictating what the agenda should be. We spoke to Alex Danson earlier this year when she was at the Youth Games in May held at the Olympic Park. Media First had been asked by the Youth Sports Trust to work with the students to give them the real life experience of what it’s like being interviewed straight after race. How do you deal with an interview when you’ve just done the race of your life and either achieved the dream or missed it by a few seconds? Here are some of Alex’s thoughts.
It’s the same when you’re suddenly asked to do an interview as you go through the office doors on a Monday morning. You know the scene – you’re just getting out of the car and there’s a journalist and a cameraman ready to strike and ask you an impossible question about an issue that you know very little about. So what do you do? If you say “No comment” that will just interest the media more. If you try and argue the point without all the facts you are on a hiding to nothing. So what should you do?
Well, like the athletes you need a plan. Despite all the emotion you need to know what you are going to say in advance. Even if you don’t know anything you need to assure the media that you will be back shortly with some more information. This will buy you some time so you can at least find out a bit more about the situation. You can then be the one in control - not the media.
So ‘don’t panic’ is the message; even if the media turn up uninvited or catch you by surprise you can still take control. Retain your focus, stick to the message and it will definitely be your chance to shine!
