Spin Cycle

anyone who watched Tracey Grimshaw's interview with disgraced swimmer Nick Darcy will have received a very interesting lesson on media management.

1. Journalists are never your friend. All they're after is a good story. One can reasonably assume that the media were slapping Darcy on the back and calling him 'mate' after his Beijing Olympics qualification. Today is a different story.

2. Journalists always have a bias. They may be biased towards you and your cause or they may be biased against it. Never go into an interview believing they are completely unbiased. Being completely unbiased is a completely unnatural state for every human being - we all have biases.

3. Journalists have subtle ways of showing you their bias. In the print media, journalists use emotionally-laden words to weight the story in a particular direction. In electronic media every verbal miscue, pause or stutter will be either edited out if they like you or left to linger if they don't.

4. Journalists always get the last word. See explanation above - after all they control the final product and can make it look any way they wish.

Being aware of these issues and more is all a part of Business Communications Management's media training program.