The Brussels-based media have different agendas and different expectations from their national press equivalents. If you or your organisation fail to understand this your message will either be misreported or ignored altogether.

An essential part of your media strategy should therefore be media trainers who know and understand the Brussels environment. That is where CONSILIA BRUSSELS can help.

CONSILIA specialises in advising on the management of difficult and complex communications situations. It is a partnership of senior communications professionals, highly experienced in the handling of complex and intractable communications issues in an EU context. We offer plain, candid advice based on extensive expertise in media, journalism, technology, broadcasting and public relations.

MEDIA TRAINING
THAT WORKS FOR YOU

CONSILIA is retained by a number of leading PR firms to provide in depth and specialist media training based on our partners' long experience in written and broadcast journalism. CONSILIA partners have over 60 years of extensive experience at senior levels in the media, much of it in Brussels.

We have long experience of providing media training courses which are tailored to suit our individual clients' needs. Our clients learn to take a pro-active stance towards the media. Topics covered range from why it is almost invariably wrong just to say 'No comment', to taking part in a live TV programme. Every interview is an opportunity for the company, and an executive does not have to be led by the nose through an interview by a journalist. We can also provide training on press release writing and delivery.

Ambush interviews can be arranged, where the participants are suddenly faced with a mobile TV crew demanding an instant reaction to some imagined crisis. The aim is always to give participants the self-confidence to deal with the press, broadcast television and radio. If required, a confidential written report on individual participants' performance can be submitted after the session.

MEDIA TRAINING
THAT WORKS FOR YOUR MESSAGE

From the perspective of national publications and TV channels, the Brussels correspondents can appear almost as part of the EU apparatus. They speak in the jargon of the European institutions and sometimes seem remote from the concerns of the audience. You need to know and understand more of the news agenda, and how it can change.

    What do the media want?

    How will they regard
    the material they are sent?

    What will be their take on the story?

Broadcasting, too, has many pitfalls. Massive deregulation of broadcasting in almost every EU country has led to a great proliferation of private TV stations at a local, regional and national level. State-operated stations still retain a greater degree of factual and information programming, while the private stations, dependent on advertising revenue for their commercial survival, concentrate more on entertainment.

You need to know who you are dealing with.

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WHO WE ARE

    Martin Jay

is Senior Director of CONSILIA BRUSSELS. He has been a working journalist since 1989, when he began his career as a cameraman/producer for WTN producing news packages on the famine and conflict in East Africa.

For two years he presented packages from Brussels for CNBC, and during his nine years in Brussels has been associated with many print titles - filing for The Sunday Times, Sunday Express, The Daily Express, The London Evening Standard and other UK tabloids and broadsheets. He has often been able to secure stories which fall outside the conventional reporting on the EU.

His work in both print and broadcast stands him in good stead as a media trainer, providing clients with first hand experience of journalistic tactics. He concentrates on why people get into difficult situations with the media and how to get out of them. His work in both print and broadcast stands him in good stead as a media trainer, providing clients first hand experience of journalistic tactics. He concentrates on why people get into difficult situations with the media and how to get out of them.

Martin founded The Sprout, widely regarded as one of the best informed news sheets in Brussels, and read by everyone with an interest in EU affairs.

    Mark Rogerson

is an experienced communications professional and former TV journalist. An Executive Director of CONSILIA Ltd, he has developed and co-ordinated a range of communications and crisis management programmes for clients throughout the EU, including the European Commission, the European Parliament, the European Council and various trade bodies.

He has long experience of assisting the Commission with communication, and the majority of Commissioners, Directors-General and members of the spokesmen's group in successive Commissions have taken part in media training sessions under his supervision.

Before he began his career in public relations, his background was as a broadcast journalist with the BBC. He was a producer and presenter on Radio 4's The Financial World Tonight, after which he worked as Economics Correspondent for BBC Television News. He was also a reporter on The Money Programme, BBC 2's award-winning weekly business magazine, and on European Business Weekly (Superchannel), the European continent's first satellite business programme.

SOME OF OUR CLIENTS

The European Commission:

DG Agriculture
DG Environment
DG Press
DG Research
DG Regional Policy
ECHO (Humanitarian Aid)
OLAF (Anti-Fraud Unit)

The European Chemicals Industry Confederation

'This media training course was remarkable in that, in contrast to virtually all other courses, it focussed directly on what I needed, had the right pace and content, and was delivered professionally.'

Senior European Commission Official

HOMEPAGE