HarveyLeach Media Training

No time for point-scoring

August 10, 2011 By David Rogers Leave a Comment

At a time of crisis, Harriet Harman, Deputy Labour leader, showed how NOT to reassure an anxious public that politicians are able to put broad national interest before petty, partisan point-scoring. When Newsnight viewers might have been looking for evidence that senior politicos were soberly focused on “London Burning”, its causes and consequences, Ms Harman [...]

Filed Under: Communicating messages, Media news Tagged With: harriet harman, london riots, michael gove

It’s not what you say, it’s the way that you say it

August 4, 2011 By Graham Leach Leave a Comment

From this article it looks as though an awful lot of “sociolinguistics” experts have been spending an awful lot of time researching whether we regard people with regional accents as a bit less intelligent than those who talk posher or, to be grammatically accurate, in a posher manner. We at HarveyLeach lay no claim whatsoever [...]

Filed Under: Communicating messages, Media news, News reporting Tagged With: accents, kathy clugston, neil nunes, peter donaldson

“Syria, please don’t do that”

August 2, 2011 By Andrew Harvey Leave a Comment

The first and most important lesson for any spokesperson is to keep quiet until you have something to say. Last night, faced with the need to say something in answer to Syria’s apparent slaughter of scores of civilians in Hama, an unfortunate EU spokesman found himself in front of the cameras, delivering the international response. [...]

Filed Under: Communicating messages, Media news Tagged With: eu, media training, syria

Unselfconscious in the spotlight

July 27, 2011 By Juliet Errington Leave a Comment

There is nothing affected or phony about how Jens Stoltenberg has responded to the terrible events in Oslo this week. Completely out of his comfort zone, this was a politician who probably thought he was leading a country where bombings and crazed shootings just don’t happen. No amount of doomsday scenario role-play could have possibly [...]

Filed Under: Communicating messages, Media news, Media training Tagged With: jens stoltenberg, juliet errington, ken livingstone

Laura Kuenssberg goes to ITN – smart BBC career move?

July 22, 2011 By Graham Leach Leave a Comment

The BBC’s political correspondent Laura Kuenssberg yesterday marked her last day as a BBC political correspondent. She’s moving over to ITN where she’s to take up the post of Business Editor. It could prove to be the best move she will ever make in order to advance her BBC career. Pop into William Hill now [...]

Filed Under: Media news Tagged With: bbc, itn, kuenssberg, political correspondent, political editor

What advice were the Murdochs given?

July 19, 2011 By Andrew Harvey Leave a Comment

So now we know. Apart from their failure to predict the unscheduled appearance of a plate of shaving foam, the multi-million dollar advice to Murdoch Senior and Junior in preparation for their appearance before the Commons committee was very simple. Murdoch the Elder had clearly been told: “Pause at great length before answering, thereby swallowing [...]

Filed Under: Media news, Media training Tagged With: james murdoch, media training, news international, phone hacking, rupert murdoch, select committe

Andrew Harvey interviewed on LBC

July 18, 2011 By HarveyLeach Leave a Comment

Andrew Harvey was interviewed on LBC by Nick Ferrari this morning about the Murdochs’ preparations for their appearance before the Parliament’s Culture, Media and Sport Committee:

Filed Under: Media news, Media training Tagged With: andrewharvey, media training, murdoch

The Met, News International and the rules of media relations

July 15, 2011 By Neil Bennett Leave a Comment

We wait to see what the forthcoming judicial inquiry makes of relationships between the police and the press in general and between Scotland Yard and Rupert Murdoch’s News International in particular. During many years’ reporting on Scotland Yard’s successes and failures, I was well aware that crime correspondents from the Sun and the News of [...]

Filed Under: Media news, Media training Tagged With: media training, metropolitan police, news international

Is privacy possible?

May 25, 2011 By Dan Harvey Leave a Comment

The Ryan Giggs affair has demonstrated that the legal tools for protection of privacy aren’t working. In fact, there’s no question that the actions of Giggs’s lawyers have turned a fairly standard naughty footballer story into something far bigger. So if the injunctions system doesn’t work, what can be done to protect a person’s privacy? [...]

Filed Under: Media news

Tweeting a criminal record

May 24, 2011 By Andrew Harvey Leave a Comment

Twitter may be the bouncing bomb that breached the privacy dam. But how far will the floodwaters spread? Suppose I am up in court on a serious charge. I contact a friend in California, India or wherever and ask them to tweet my previous criminal record. I can then claim I will not get a [...]