I hate to kick someone when they're down...but what the heck! Haringey Council must surely win awards for their dreadful handling of the Baby P case.
By refusing to take any action until the government made them, they looked complacent, hostile and inward looking. The result of this stance has been a wave of public outrage.
What should they have done, then? With years of experience of handling companies, organisations and individuals in these difficult situations and carrying out media training exercises with them my advice would be to act quickly.
An organisation in this situation needs to start by offering sympathy and regret. This is not the same as apologising because it doesn't accept responsibility - I can sympathise with the fact that you were very ill after you left my restaurant but it doesn't mean that I admit that it was my food made that you ill.
Organisations then have to offer to carry out a full investigation - again this doesn't accept responsibility or admit liability but it does make it clear that they care, that they are not complacent and that they are taking action.
As my media training clients discover - doing interviews with the media well in this situation is easier than they think. This is because the only answer you can give to almost any question is to tell the interviewer that you'll have to wait for the results of the inquiry.
It's not ideal, as I point out in my media training sessions, but it will dig you out of a hole and avid the negative coverage currently suffered by Haringey.

Harrow Council speaks plain English

Aah, jargon - where would we be without it? The news that Harrow Council has banned staff from using management-speak and insisted on the use of plain English will bring a sigh of relief from employees and the public.
During my media training courses I battle with jargon on a regular basis. One local council I provided some media training for explained that their dinner ladies were "meal operatives" while a pharmaceutical client insisted on talking about "local clinical management" - going to the doctors to you and me. I'll leave "loose stool urgency" to your imagination!
Another retail client who wanted help with handling the media and advice on doing interviews assumed that the public would understand the term "footfall" and that "delivering an enhanced customer experience" would mean something to readers of a local newspaper or listeners to the afternoon radio show. Also part of their daily language was "varied product offering" and "customer proposition." Come again? On the other hand, I don't think many customers would come in the first place!
Weaning clients off jargon and helping them to use plain language is essential if you want to handle the media effectively. It's not about dumbing down - it's just good, clear communication. Look at some of the greatest speeches in the English language - most of th e words in Churchill's fight on the beaches speech are just on syllable.
The psychologist Flesch developed a reading score relating to complexity of language. In good corporate communications the simpler the language the most trusted the company. As Enron became engulfed in its financial difficulties, the language its senior executives and company spokespeople used became more opaque and jargon-ridden, according to the Flesch score.
My pharmaceutical clients soon understand that every day language would engage their audience while, by the end of the media training course, the retailer was explaining to his audience: "When you come into our shop, you'll see a wonderful range of fresh fruit and vegetables and immediately you'll smell the fresh bread from our bakery". Painting pictures is the best way to communicate and persuade when doing interviews and in everyday life.
What will be really interesting to see is whether Harrow Council sticks to their resolution or ends up seeking stakeholder engagement by going for the low hanging fruit by opting for a meaningful dialogue at this moment in time.
Pardon?

Too much of a good thing

Alistair Darling must be ruing his relaxing weekend with the Guardian journalist Decca Aitkenhead.  Logs fires, walks along the beach, dinner round the kitchen table - it must have been lovely but the Chancellor is certainly regretting it now.

So what went wrong? The short answer is that Darling spent too much time with Aitkenhead. During their two days together, the Chancellor clearly felt relaxed with a journalist from a friendly paper and he chatted away.  Of all the thousands of words he spoke during the weekend his comments about the worst recession for 60 years stood out to Aitkenhead and her editor when they looked at her notes and so this what made the headline.

The increasingly popular phenomenon of reality television might seem to have nothing in common with serious reporting of a very senior government minister but there are parallels. 

Reality TV producers film for hours and edit out a tiny proportion for broadcast.  Needless to say these moments are not those which show the subject in a relaxed, positive mood - rows, chaos and disasters are what make good telly - as we all know.

During media training sessions I explain to those who want to handle the media effectively that they need to focus and say less.  In practical terms if you want to do a media interview properly you need to focus - choose two or three key messages and stick to them when you talk to the journalist.  Don't give him or her anything else to go on.  If when you're doing a media interview you provide a variety of different thoughts, observations, facts and arguments you don't know what the journalist is going to take away with them.

Similarly if you want to do a media interview well spend less time on it.  Appear helpful and open but make it clear that you only have a limited amount of time.  This will allow you to handle the media effectively by focussing on two or three key messages which the journalist will have to use as they won't have anything else.

Alistair Darling would do better to concentrate on short, focussed interviews and save the fireside chats for family and friends.  As for reality TV - if you're approached just say no.  

Where’s the fire?

Listening to Ed Balls, the UK’s Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families on the radio this morning I was struck by a change in his manner. He sounded more considered, more thoughtful and basically more convincing.
Then I suddenly realised what had changed about the interview style of one of British politics’ brightest talents but worst media performers.
He had slowed down. It was as simple as that.
During media training courses participants will usually ask me about how they can ensure that the journalist has taken on board what they’re saying and has got the facts down correctly as the interviewee sees them. At least one participant will usually rail against journalists who have interviewed him or her but apparently got things wrong or not included what they see as a key point.
So, what should you do to improve the chances of printing your comments correctly? You can never have complete control over what is written about you unless you take out advertising space which is obviously far more expensive than editorial coverage which costs nothing and, according to research from the US, is somewhere between three and nine times more convincing to readers than an ad.
But one of the best ways in which to gain more control during a press interview is very simple and easy to do.
Just slow down.
The adrenaline might be running, you might have so much to say and you might even fear, as some people do, that you’ll forget what you were going to say unless you get it out quickly but speaking fast increases the chances of the journalist getting it wrong.
Even with reasonable shorthand (a rarity these days) journalists can struggle to get every word down properly and clearly. The interpretation of a messy little scribble in a notebook turns into hard facts in black and white on the printed page or the website. Time pressure these days means that journalists rarely have time to ring back to check on something.
As a working journalist, I can tell you that listening to an interviewee who goes like a speeding train, pumping out facts, figures, jargon and disparate thoughts is a nightmare but doing an interview with someone who speaks slowly and clearly is almost always a joy.
So, to ensure that a print journalist gets down what you’re saying accurately:

1. Speak slowly and clearly.
2. Check beforehand how much the journalist knows about the subject area. Are they an expert? Or have they a general reporter who has just started their research? This will enable you to decide how to pitch your comments in terms of their complexity. Incorrectly assuming a level of knowledge on the part of a journalist is a classic error.
3. At the end of the conversation repeat your key points just to ensure that the journalist has got them down correctly. Make this sound like a natural part of the conversation. “Good to talk to you, X, as I say, the really interesting thing here is…”
4. Very importantly, email something over to the journalist after you’ve finished. Make it short and snappy and do it as soon as possible. This will ensure that things like statistics, job titles and product names are correct – or more likely to be so anyway.
5. Finally, never expect to see something before it goes to print – there’s not time and besides this in my article not yours! However, you can always offer to check your quotes. “I hope I’ve made myself clear and understandable. If you want to check anything or email over my quotes to make sure that I’ve got my points across clearly then please do.” Flatter the journalist by suggesting that it’s your fault if there is any confusion not theirs!

This will help you to improve journalistic accuracy and help you to get your message across properly when you’re talking to a press journalist.
But as Ed Balls as obviously realised, it also helps when doing a broadcast interview too.