By Devirupa Mitra, IANS,
New Delhi : Diplomats need more than diplomatic skills to tackle the media in this round-the-clock TV age.
A group of 25 members of the elite Indian Foreign Service (IFS) was imparted this invaluable lesson at a unique training session that included ambushes by TV journalists perennially hungry for news.
As soon as the external affairs ministry officers walked through the door for their class, a camera-wielding journalist surprised them with a volley of questions.
The queries related to the day’s hottest foreign policy headline.
The ‘ambushed’ videos were then critiqued extensively by the small group of officers themselves.
The organisers explained, patiently but with a lot of emphasis, what all needed to be done to take on the increasingly aggressive media — and how not to trip in front of TV cameras in particular.
“We were told that instead of saying anything, the first thing is to show empathy with the victims, if there is a disaster or terror attack,” an official who attended the training told IANS on condition he was not named.
“Also, importantly, stall for time — tell the media that we will get back to them later,” the officials were told.
The July 6-10 workshop was conducted by the Mumbai-based Indian branch of US firm Media Training Worldwide (MTW), which has been training corporate leaders and foreign politicians on how to manage the media.
India’s Foreign Service Institute had contacted the company to extend the lessons to its diplomats. The aim, one officer said, was to arm the diplomats with much-needed skills to manage the media.
A multiple-page questionnaire had been sent earlier to all the nominated diplomats, asking them details of when and how they had handled the media until then. The officials chosen for the day-long workshops ranged from under secretary to joint secretary, in easy batches of five.
The Indian foreign ministry allows only officials of the rank of joint secretary or above to talk to journalists. Most, however, prefer to route media queries through the External Publicity Division.
In Indian missions, the ambassador or press attache are the only direct interlocutors with the local media.
“It has now become very important to train officers in media handling. For example, if they were posted abroad as ambassadors, they could be immediately asked by a local news channel to come to the studio to give an opinion on, say, Mumbai terror attacks or Pakistan,” said a senior officer from the ministry.
There were mock studio interviews, recorded and shown to the group. “It demonstrated how bad most of our body language was,” said another official who too attended the class.
Simple but valuable tips followed: sip water constantly before an interview, keep a smile fixed on your face, remove distracting jewellery like multiple rings.
Each workshop ended with a press conference, with one participant at the dais — and at the receiving end — and the rest making up the media corps.
Contacted by IANS, Ravi Shyam of MTW India division who conducted the workshop declined to comment. “I am covered under a non-disclosure agreement. All information on media training is put on our website,” he said.
(Devirupa Mitra can be contacted at [email protected])