Injury Prevention in the Media: Understanding your Role, Crafting your Message and Developing Interview Skills

Pediatricians and pediatric specialists are the experts on children, and are frequently called upon to speak publically on local, regional or national topics that directly impact the health and safety of this vulnerable population. Often media requests are current health topics and physicians are asked to quickly give interviews or write opinion pieces with short notice. While we are experts in our content area, many physicians have not received formal media training, and the interview techniques learned in patient care do not translate to interview techniques for media. It is imperative to empower the physician with basic media skills to support advocacy efforts.

We propose to host a 90 minute workshop that will address the physician in media. Initially, we will describe the various interactions with media, such as a printed article, podcast or in-person interview. By sharing a variety of media pieces, we can demonstrate the breadth of successful and poor interviews, thus emphasizing the importance of the training workshop. We will review the basics to media preparation, and proceed to focus on media messaging. Through an interactive portion, we will encourage participants to craft their message utilizing the “Message Box” technique, with development of a problem statement, solutions, benefits and pertinence to the population. After developing their message we will work in small groups to practice delivering their message via the “elevator speech.” Participants will be empowered to develop their elevator speech utilizing the message box to stay focused, clear and concise.

We will move into an additional media review portion of the workshop, demonstrating a variety of interviews and critiquing for content and appearance. Through the media pieces selected, we will demonstrate the use of common interview techniques, such as hooking, bridging and flagging. Additionally, we will review interviews for pitfalls, and discuss mechanisms that not only led to the negative outcome, but what steps could have been taken to avoid it. During this critique stage, we will ask participants to develop and write down 2-3 transitional statements with their elevator speech. As we move through the sample interviews, participants should successfully complete a strong framework for their messaging.

By providing basic skills of message crafting, mastering the elevator speech, and use of transitional phrases, we hope to empower the physician and increase their comfort in approaching a media interview. Through engaging participants in multiple interactive opportunities, we can work to create a unique, valuable experience for the learner.

1. Describe how media is a powerful tool for advocacy 2. Review the principles of media interactions across multiple platforms 3. Develop skills in message crafting in order to create an effective, concise delivery 4. Identify techniques utilized to drive a media interview, including transitional statements, hooking, bridging, and flagging 5. Critique several interviews, identifying common pitfalls in media interactions and develop techniques to avoid them