Your media trainer won't write about you

"I would never hire a media trainer who didn't guarantee to write about my client immediately afterwards, I wouldn't be doing my job." This was the dismissal I had a few years ago from a formerly trusted contact who'd seemed interested in using my services. It was wrong on so many levels.

I don't come across it often but it happened so it's worth addressing. Here's the deal with ethical, proper media trainers:

1. We'll tell you that nothing is off the record when you're dealing with journalists - except when we're training you. On that occasion we'll keep confidences as we're acting as your contractor (or if you're going through a PR company, a subcontractor).
2. Very importantly, we're in your pay while we're doing this contract work for you. No, I don't care if there's no formal contract, a court will recognise the fact that we've been hired as contract enough. We therefore can't claim to be independent or unbiased - you owe us money, we have a vested interest in your continued existence. And even if only for a few hours, we've been insiders.
3. Now, our only value to editors is as unbiased sources of information - so, would you commission a writer with vested interests if you were that editor?

Of course you wouldn't. And no decent media trainer will pitch stories about companies they've trained for months after the training has happened. One guy with whom I trained a decade or so ago told all his clients not to bother pitching to him for six months after the training session, he had a distinct cut-off point.

Not just trainers

I've seen a number of dubious practices over the years. The PR person who approached me with a view to getting stories placed, which would involve payment to me and there was no need to tell any editors as this was "commercial reality" that "most journalists" would understand. I didn't bother calling him again. The people who called me once about how much I'd charge to write about them in the national press and who were genuinely surprised when I told them any payment would come from the publication, assuming there was a decent story in it. They'd apparently been paying another journalist good money every time their name was mentioned and hadn't been aware that the paper would have been paying for the work, too. Then there was the journalist who couldn't be bothered to write anything so got a PR person to write an entire article, to which he added a first and last paragraph - and took full credit and payment from a national newspaper.

None of these practices are ethical or fair to the editor or reader, both of whom have the right to know what they're reading.

So no, if you want to hire me as a media trainer there's no point in insisting I should write about your client immediately afterwards - that would be a clear conflict of interest and no decent journalist will do it. A PR person will do this and will declare their interest to an editor, so there's no difficulty because everyone is aware of the circumstances. But if a trainer claims they're going to place an interview with you in a publication shortly after your session with them, be careful - if the editor finds out about the deal ,the piece probably won't appear, and your trainer will vanish shortly afterwards.