Monitor sentiment and coverage relating to difficult question handling in useful time.
Designing Strategies for Handling Difficult Press Questions
A practical programme in difficult question handling for professionals who are accountable for results, not just awareness.
📍 Tunis🗓️ 5 training days📚 4 modules🎓 Accredited certificate
5intensive training days
4scientific modules
8training sessions
32detailed points
Course Overview
Internal audiences learn about difficult question handling from the news unless you reach them first. Journalists covering the communications and media practice capability are working to a deadline you do not control. The most reliable predictor of sound this area of communications and media practice is whether anyone reviews it when nothing has gone wrong. Cases are chosen to expose the trade-offs in difficult question handling rather than to illustrate ideal conditions. Participants take away a working set of documents supporting this strand of communications and media practice, ready to be adapted internally. Plans for the wider communications and media practice agenda often fail at the handover point between functions. The course covers difficult question handling at the level of detail needed to act, and stops there. It is appropriate for those preparing to take on wider responsibility for this area of communications and media practice. The closing exercise tests whether the participant's plan for the wider communications and media practice agenda survives a hostile question.
Expected Learning Outcomes
Design the crisis response plan for difficult question handling with named roles and pre-agreed authority.
Establish escalation routes for difficult question handling that work outside normal hours.
Plan the recovery arc after a reputational event involving difficult question handling.
Estimate what difficult question handling costs to run properly, and what is lost when it is not.
Build the archive and record of communication on difficult question handling.
Translate policy on difficult question handling into procedures that hold up under day-to-day pressure.
Who Should Attend
Anyone whose accountability for difficult question handling exceeds their current formal training in it.
Officers preparing reports on difficult question handling for boards or oversight committees.
Content producers creating material about difficult question handling.
Community relations staff engaging stakeholders about difficult question handling.
Public relations and communications managers responsible for difficult question handling.
Spokespeople and executives who speak publicly about difficult question handling.
Course Modules
Difficult question handling: materials a journalist can actually use
2 sessions · 8 pointsSession 1Coordinating difficult question handling across markets and languages
- Draft the minimum viable communications plan for difficult question handling.
- Establish what evidence demonstrates difficult question handling is under control.
- Decide what will be stopped to create capacity for difficult question handling.
- Rehearse the hostile interview on difficult question handling with a real challenger.
Session 2Keeping difficult question handling alive after the initial push
- Prepare the holding statement for difficult question handling in advance.
- Localise messaging on difficult question handling without fragmenting it.
- Define the trigger that would require difficult question handling to be redesigned.
- Archive every statement issued on difficult question handling with date and approver.
Difficult question handling: media relations and the working journalist
2 sessions · 8 pointsSession 1Correcting a false story about difficult question handling without amplifying it
- Check that difficult question handling still works when volumes rise unexpectedly.
- Name a single owner for each element of difficult question handling.
- Identify the journalists who actually cover difficult question handling and what they need.
- Define acceptance criteria for difficult question handling in advance.
Session 2Telling staff about difficult question handling before the press does
- Compare the cost of difficult question handling with the cost of its absence.
- Prepare the summary of difficult question handling that senior management will read.
- Build the competence framework that supports difficult question handling.
- Agree who signs off statements on difficult question handling outside working hours.
Difficult question handling: message architecture and discipline
2 sessions · 8 pointsSession 1The hard cases in difficult question handling and how to reason about them
- Name the crisis roles for difficult question handling and confirm authority to speak.
- Check communication on difficult question handling against legal and regulatory constraint.
- Plan the recovery sequence after a reputational event involving difficult question handling.
- Agree the smallest change to difficult question handling that would be visibly useful.
Session 2Where difficult question handling typically breaks, and why
- Sequence internal notification about difficult question handling ahead of external release.
- Plan the sequence in which improvements to difficult question handling will be introduced.
- Reduce the variation in how difficult question handling is carried out between teams.
- Build a stakeholder map for difficult question handling and the message each needs.
Difficult question handling: recovery and rebuilding credibility
2 sessions · 8 pointsSession 1Building media relationships on difficult question handling before you need them
- Write the three key messages on difficult question handling and test them against hard questions.
- Decide in advance when to correct misinformation about difficult question handling and when not to.
- Prepare the response for the most likely failure in difficult question handling.
- Arrange the handover of difficult question handling so capability survives staff changes.
Session 2Writing on difficult question handling so a journalist can publish it
- Draft materials on difficult question handling that need no rewriting to be published.
- Rehearse the briefing on difficult question handling that would follow an incident.
- Review whether coverage of difficult question handling changed anything that matters.
- Define what success in communicating difficult question handling looks like, numerically.
Choose the package that suits you
Silver Package
At least 3 people
USD1,250
- Workshop or Program Participation
- Airport Transfers
- Customized Badge
- Expert Mentorship (Private Sessions)
- Supervision & Secretarial Services
- Accredited Certificate of Participation
- Complete Training Kit
- Coffee Break
- Closing Ceremony
Gold Package
At least 3 people
USD1,850
- 5-night stay in a 5-star hotel
- Workshop or Program Participation
- Airport Transfers
- Customized Badge
- Expert Mentorship (Private Sessions)
- Supervision & Secretarial Services
- Accredited Certificate of Participation
- Complete Training Kit
- Coffee Break
- Closing Ceremony
Complete your registration
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