A National Rifle Association spokesperson was quoted as making a case for guns with “[a gun is] a recreational tool like a golf club or a tennis racket. You can kill someone with a golf club, you know!” When considering a soundbite, consider the audience you’re attempting to reach and/or persuade. This spokesperson was trying to make a point. That, …
Winning The Audience Over
In accepting his Best Actor award as Lincoln at the 2013 Academy Awards, Daniel Day Lewis offered laughs and lessons in being Ready to win. Instead of merely thanking his presenter Meryl Streep and director Steven Spielberg, he joked that “three years ago, before we decided to do a straight swap, I had actually been committed to play Margaret …
The End of Illness
In a recent speech to the University of California, Santa Barbara Arts & Lecture series, leading cancer specialist, Dr. David Agus surprised and delighted his audiences with startling opinions and data-backed statistics. For example, Dr. Agus believes that sitting at one’s desk for a 5½-hour stretch is equivalent, on a health basis, to smoking a pack-and-a-half of cigarettes. “Walking works,” …
The Accidental Archivist
In contributing to the February issue of Vanity Fair with an article entitled, “The Accidental Activist” commemorating the 40th Anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, New York investigative journalist Joshua Prager found among Jane Roe/Norma Mc Corvey’s abandoned documents: a card from the Los Angeles media training firm Ready for Media with a typed list of pointers. (“Say Versus rather than …
The Audience Was Listening
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPdjX4Kya7o In Monday’s BCS Championship Bowl pitting Alabama’s Crimson Tide against the fighting Irish of Notre Dame, legendary sports announcer Brent Musburger, 73, couldn’t stop ogling the quarterback’s pageant star girlfriend. The former Miss Alabama, Katherine Webb, was viewed cheering on her new beau, AJ McCarron, who wasn’t the only one smitten by her beauty. With his media training …