NPHIC News - February 2014 - Vol. 25, No. 1 Page 4

Media Training Part 3

By Norm Hartman

and we are doing that and we are doing the other. We, we, we.
How utterly boring this must be for the reporter and the non-
public health reader.

In "The Media & You," I point out that we need to address the
"what's in it for me" (the reader/viewer) rather than talking
about what we in public health do. We seem to forget that the
word "you" is an incredibly powerful tool of communication.
We acknowledge the reader or viewer. "You, Joe and Josephine
Sixpack. Here's how you can benefit from good public health
practices."

There is a second part of that equation that is equally powerful.
Simon Sinek calls it his "golden circle." (

www.youtube.com/

watch?v=l5Tw0PGcyN0

) Instead of talking about what we do

or how we do it, we should be saying why we do it. Then the
communication becomes much more powerful. "We do it so you
will be healthy."

In a training for a group of physicians recently, I asked, "Why
do you do what you do." Several said they found their practices
challenging and rewarding. One or two admitted that money
could be a factor. Finally, an ophthalmologist said, "I do it so that
people can see better." Bingo!

In the media training that is conducted for the public health crisis
du jour, the message likely will be obvious. It's not what we in
the public health agency are doing to protect or preserve health
during this particular crisis. It's what you, reader, viewer, listener,
can do to project your health. We've heard it a thousand times.
"Wash hands." "Cover your cough." And so on. But that's not front-
of-the-mind stuff for the person who comes home from a busy
day at the office and turns on the news to get the latest.

`Why do I need a message? No reporter has ever asked me for a
message." If I had a quarter for every time I've heard that well,
you know!

Reporters aren't going to ask because that's not their agenda. So
it's up to the person being interviewed to create the opportunities
to move the agenda to their comfort zone.

So far in this three-part series we've talked about the common
mistakes we make when doing interviews (long, technical
answers, just answering the question, lack of pre-interview
preparation and treating interviews as conversations).

Let me be clear. You don't want to try to turn an interview about
a Hepatitis outbreak into a discussion of your public health goals
for the next year. Nor could you, in all likelihood. But you may
be able to move the Hepatitis interview into a discussion of how
viewers can protect themselves from food-borne illness, both in
the current outbreak and on a daily basis.

In the 20+ years I've been working with public health agencies
across the country, I've seen a good many public health brochures,
pamphlets and mailers. They have one thing in common. They
seem to talk about what the agency is doing. We are doing this

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