inUNISON - IDEO MEDIA INTERVIEWS - TOP TIPS

 

by Carole Jones

The trend for more interviews via Zoom or Facetime, etc. continues to grow, and it is essential that UNISON’s voice is heard. Many of us will have become familiar with online meetings, but for media interviews it really is a different technique, and a matter of giving yourself the chance to get your points across effectively, and looking and sounding your best.

Here’s our ten top tips for appearing in media video interviews.

1. If approached to give an interview, contact the UNISON Press Office, and let them have the following information about the interview:

- the time and date of the proposed interview

- the name of the programme and the news organisation conducting the interview e.g. BBC TV News, LBC radio etc.

- the subject

- if known, the name of the interviewer

2. Think about the one or two key points you want to get across, and the simplest way of

saying them.

3. Think about the counter-arguments that might be put to you and the most effective way of

responding to those.

4. Check your connection (visual and audio) by conducting a quick test of it with a friend

5. Position your phone, computer, or camera safely at eye-level (this avoids looking down into the camera, giving the impression of looming over the viewer, and perhaps looking menacing!)

6. Place a lamp or other light source behind your computer etc so that your face is properly illuminated.

7. Think about what is in your background. If you’ve got UNISON material you can display, all

the better. But keep it simple, not too busy.

8. Just before the interview check yourself out in a mirror for messy hair or food-stains!

9. Let others in your household know you’ll be doing the interview so you are not disturbed.

10. Speak as clearly as you can.

Good luck!

Reclaim the Media - Stop Murdoch - Sign the EU Petition

"Three companies, control 70% of our newspapers here in the UK. One of them, Murdoch, has just been thwarted in his ambition to takeover Time Warner, home of HBO, and it's likely he'll now return to his unfinished business of getting full control of BSkyB (which he had to abandon when the hacking scandal broke).

This level of control over the media prevents debate, provides the media control over our politics and police and is bad for democracy.

Please sign an EU petition to trigger a directive to curb the power of media moguls (it's just got 10 days to run) and it would be great if you could tweet or RT too (@hackinginquiry or @Media_Pluralism)

Hacked Off has just posted a blog http://hackinginquiry.org/comment/murdoch-now-has-his-eyes-fixed-on-europe/"

Hat tip Julianne Marriott 

New Pensions Crisis on Way...Millions will get Pension Boost

This morning (2 Jan 2013) I noticed that the entire front page of the Daily Express newspaper (see online page to right with picture of smiling grey haired pensioners) was taken up with this banner headline "Millions Will Get Pensions Boost".

I thought at the time that it was unusual for a tabloid to be saying anything positive about pensions. So I had a look tonight at the online version and found that due to the recovery (or sorts) in the price of shares that the deficits of pension funds had been reduced and the value of private pensions increased.

Which is good thing but hardly news since the recovery of the markets is well known. However, there was a link under the article to another Daily Express article written a whole 2 working days earlier (28 Dec 2012 see left with picture of unhappy grey haired pensioner) with the headline "New Pensions Crisis on Way". 

This alarmist article predicted the end of private pensions by 2050! Now I have posted on a similar misleading article on the "end of pensions" here.

But my point is no wonder people are genuinely confounded and confused by pensions when there is so much inaccurate and sensational misreporting by the media and in particular the tabloid press. Are pensions a good thing or a bad thing? How can you tell on the basis of this coverage. This is one of the reasons why so many give up on saving for their retirement and will end up dying in poverty.

The real problems with pensions is that employers either don't contribute anything or only grossly inadequate amounts and that many of the saving products on the market are simply rubbish. Bad value, insecure, nonsensical accounting and the final pension amount totally at the whim of the stock markets and government policy of the day.

The answer of course is decent modern defined benefits schemes for all. 

Oxford Economics or Mickeymouseonomics?

I enjoyed this demolition in "Redbrick" of the so-called "report" issued yesterday by the CBI on apparent cost savings in the public sector from outsourcing.   Steve Hilditch pulls it to pieces with regard to Social Housing management.

The Right are coming out with some really desperate rubbish lately. While I blame the tax evaders alliance for starting this trend we must also wonder why the media chases headlines regardless of merit?

Schadenfreude

Continuing on a German theme...

The State of the Unions

The 2009 TUC seems to have passed off quite well. A little bit of drama and passion at the end with the supposed fisty cuffs at General Council over a boycott of Israel - which turned eventually (inevitably?) into the classic TUC fudge on the Congress floor.

I think this year (this is utterly subjective) that it got a higher profile in the media than in the past - which is good. The wildcat strikes and factory occupations have reminded the media that unions exist and have provided good copy for them.

But there is trouble at’ mill in the union movement. Membership is well down from our 1970's peak and although lately stable in numbers - all important density is down, especially in the private sector. All of us know this, even though of course, we cannot all agree on what to do about it.

Or, if we are all really, really honest I think we are genuinely unsure and and uncharacteristically uncertain what to do.

The New Statesman supplement for the TUC congress on trade unions is useful and in the near future I will try and post something useful on the union "State We’re In” and the possible ways forward.