How to Rock a Press Conference

I am the first one to enter the conference room. As I look around at the chairs, podiums and hors d’oeuvres, I wonder how the Charter Team is going to arrive. What would these movers and shakers look like? Charter Communications is huge! They have over 5.7 million customers in 29 states and employ 16,400 employees. On top of that, one of the owners of Charter is Paul Allen. You may know him as one of the cofounders of a little company called Microsoft.{{{gold}}}
The standard press then begins to enter the room. They line up their cameras one beside the other and exchange greetings with one another. Media kits are given out to everyone attending the press conference.
Now, here is a tip for all the Citizen Journalists out there:
Read the Media Kit before the press conference, especially the bios and backgrounds of people who are giving speeches. That way you can engage in some intelligent conversation.
The moment of truth arrives as a giant white tour bus pulls up to the door. Out steps the Charter Team, about 12 of them all dressed in crisp blue shirts. This is kind of cool, the way they travel in style. They have just returned from meeting with and touring the new Charter facilities in Medford. Neil Smit and Executive Vice President Mike Lovett are out meeting with the Charter employees, making themselves available to all those people who make up the local backbone of Charter.
Neil and Mike take the podium and begin their brief presentation. It only takes about 15 minutes, after which they ask for questions. You can sense a bit of disappointment after they receive a mere two questions from the press. But as trained professionals, they thank the audience and wrap things up.
I think, ‘Wow, that was it, nothing else? Here are the President and Vice President of Charter making themselves available for questions, to discuss the huge level of service they are bringing to Southern Oregon and nobody is taking advantage of the opportunity.’
I think that the least I can do is to get them to pose for a photo or something, something to liven things up. Turning the camera a little bit this way and a little bit that way, I take the MTV approach, the approach I always take with LocalsGuide: Big, bold, in your face and real.
After popping off the last of my shots and immortalizing the Charter Team in true rock star style, I watch them slowly make their way back on the bus. I wonder about the story that I can write from this experience and am somewhat disappointed that the press conference didn’t really make the Team available for a great story. But as the saying goes, “Its not over ‘til it’s over.”
You have to remember Charter is HUGE, but huge does not always have to equal bad… it just means that you have to find a way to connect which keeps things real and available. And this is exactly why Neil and Mike had traveled from who knows where to their support the local team.
As luck would have it I found out that Diane was still in the building. We had never met in person, so I decided to wait and see if I could get an interview with her.
“Diane, Hi, I’m Shields. Nice to meet you in person.” She seems in a hurry, but I persist. “Can we talk? I mean that press conference was great and stuff, but our readers are a bit different. They really like the up-close and personal stories.”
“Well we could talk on the phone later this week,” she replies.
‘No, no, no,’ runs through my mind, so I persist: “If you could just give me like 5-10 minutes, we can do this. It doesn’t take me long.”
Accompanied by Kathleen Martin (the head of Northwest Human Resources), we sit down on a nearby couch and it just flows from there. You can listen to the podcast of my interview with Diane and Kathleen online at LocalsGuide.com. It’s exactly what I was after. LocalsGuide site member Dave Walker helped mix up the podcast and it sounds great. I invite you to be the fly on the wall and listen in on our conversation. I think you will find it very refreshing.
In Summary:
Don’t lose faith just because things don’t happen the way you expect them to.