The Wintle Blog

A crisis had struck the craft of media training, one which pierced to the very heart of its time-honoured methodologies, and that crisis had dramatically unveiled itself during the first of the UK Party Leaders’ Election Debates, declared the President of the Worshipful Guild of Media Trainers, the Worshipful Bro. A DJING-HACK, at an emergency meeting of the Guild, convened in the snug bar of the Lens & Pen Inn, London EC1. For many years the craft had rested its practice securely upon on coaching clients to observe the celebrated fourfold formula: “IMPACT-ANECDOTE-ARGUMENT-POINT”, memorably described by one of his [The President’s] late and illustrious predecessors as “the unturnable poignard of media engagement”. Sist. KNIB asked to be reminded what exactly a “poignard” was? The President explained that it was a kind of medieval dagger. Sist. KNIB asked why, then, he [the late President] did not simply say “dagger”? The President replied that he did not know Bro GRUB: “What about...

The Annual General Meeting of the Worshipful Guild of Media Trainers was held in the upstairs chamber, the Lens & Pen Inn, London EC1. Members present included “resting” actors, former political advisers, sidelined PR practitioners, “life” coaches, redundant BBC presenters (female; over the age of 35), sundry other superannuated reporters and camera-people and the usual phalanx of casualties from Mrs Thatcher’s bargain-basement ITV auction of two decades ago (most still smarting from, and whining about, the injustice of it all). Addressing the meeting, the President, the Very Worshipful Bro. A. Djing-Hack, said it would be no exaggeration to say that the profession, or craft – for so he preferred to describe it [applause] – was facing the greatest crisis in its long and venerable history. He was referring, he explained, to the recent appearance of the former Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, at the Chilcott Inquiry into the war in Iraq. The President continued: “In the welter of comm...