Intermedia Communications Training: the Fundamental Difference

The cornerstones of our program are:

• Speak with authenticity; keep it simple.
• Drive an interview with compelling facts and a clear message.
• Think on your feet.
• Detect and avoid the traps the media sets for the unwary.
• Defuse negative attacks and set the record straight.

Our clients are:

• International organizations
• Public institutions
• Government agencies and ministries
• Think tanks
• Advocacy groups
• Academic, research, and scientific organizations
• Non-governmental organizations (NGOs)

These organizations' interactions with the media are essentially different from those of business and politics, where self-interest, spin, and cover-ups often overrule truthfulness. In contrast, our clients recognize that clear communication and public awareness of the issues are crucial for attaining their organizations' goals. Our goal is to help our participants become compelling, convincing, quotable speakers, so that the media will convey their information accurately to the public.

What makes Intermedia’s Workshops Unique?

What you will get: Leadership Communications Intermedia's graduates know how to get their message across with clarity and strength.	What you won't get: Spin. Media companies that teach you to duck the question, avoid the truth, sugar-coat reality do not teach the skills needed for organizations where credibility and trust are hard to gain and easy to lose.
What you will get: Interviews on your issues. We thoroughly research our clients' issues and the specific topics raised by the media in the countries where they work. We use this information to ask questions participants are actually going to face in their real-life interviews.	What you won't get: Role playing or irrelevant case studies that waste your time. ("Okay, Sue, forget your job is building hospitals in Afghanistan, pretend you're the head of Enron and the media has just uncovered a new scandal!")
What you will get: Highly interactive sessions. More than 70% of the total time in the course is devoted to practice, coaching and feedback. Our participants learn by doing.	What you won't get: Boring PowerPoint presentations that put you to sleep and don't tell you anything you don't already know.
What you will get: Behavior Change. We teach practical communications skills using simple models and clear examples. New skills are consistently reinforced with practice interviews that become progressively more difficult. Handouts and copyrighted pocket models encapsulate the core techniques.	What you won't get: Theoretical discourses and pointless "war stories" from retired journalists. These don't help participants when they are on the spot in a tough interview. The worst spokespersons are those who are half-trained and don’t know it.
What you will get: A global perspective. Our consultants have lived and worked as journalists internationally. We specialize in tailoring each participant's training to the specific media environment of his or her job, whether working in Manila, Nairobi, Geneva, Rio or Washington D.C.	What you won't get: A limited American-only media focus that prepares you only for light TV talk shows.