Last modified on August 4, 2011 by Brad Phillips

My Ten Favorite Blog Posts Ever

This week is the Mr. Media Training Blog’s First Anniversary! To celebrate, I’m running special content this week.

I’ve written or edited more than 300 original articles over the past year. I went back, looked at all of them, and selected ten favorites you might have missed along the way. Click on the title to read the full article. Hope you enjoy!

10. Caught With an Open Mic: They Never Learn: If there’s an open microphone in front of you, you should probably be careful what you say. So how come these ten famous people couldn’t remember that obvious lesson?

9. How To Tell a Good Story: Make It Small: How a small moment from a horrific natural disaster taught me a valuable lesson about the right way to tell a big story.

8. Why You Shouldn’t Say “I Don’t Know:” I love challenging industry “best practices” when I think they’re wrong. In this story, I challenge the conventional advice that you should always say “I don’t know” when you don’t know an answer.

7. Eight Ground Rules For Working With Reporters: These critical basics never get old.

6. Seven Rules To Remember When a Crisis Strikes: These seven tips may seem straightforward – but hundreds of companies, organizations, and government agencies ignore them every day.

5. Why You Should Never Use Numbers In Media Interviews: Executives and policy wonks love flooding their audiences with data. It’s a mistake.

4. Never Call Reporters Back By Their Deadlines: Some readers accused me of using a deceptive headline on this one. I disagree with them, as I believe it says exactly what I mean. The key word is “by.” Judge for yourself.

3. Five Ways Media Training Can Improve Your Marriage: I’m not a therapist, nor do I play one on TV. But I’ve always been fascinated by psychology, so I decided to finally try being an armchair therapist.

2. How To Write The Perfect Elevator Media Pitch: What’s the toughest question I ask our trainees during our media training workshops? Would you believe it’s often, “Can you tell me about your company?” This post teaches you how to answer that question the right way.

1. What These 12 Bad 1980s Songs Can Teach Public Speakers: Regular readers of this blog know I’m a 1980s music aficionado (or hopeless geek, depending on your perspective). So I looked for an excuse to write a presentation training story featuring some of my guiltiest 80s pleasures. This one took about eight hours to write. I enjoyed every second.

 

In the words of my late, beloved Grandmother, “Do you know how hard I work for you? Can’t you do something for me already?” Don’t insult her legacy. Like our Facebook page for me already at www.Facebook.com/MrMediaTraining.

Related: The 12 Things I Learned After One Year As a Blogger