I doubt Shane Jones will have any impact in this year’s Election, but 2020 could be a different story. With Election campaigns being dominated by party leaders and Winston Peters always offering the media an exciting sound bite, he will undoubtedly dominate the New Zealand First media attention. The party would be silly to plan it any other way because many would argue that Peters is New Zealand First. But what about the next Election? If Peters doesn’t stand as a...

Anyone trying to generate some good publicity in the New Zealand mainstream media over the last week will have been completely out of luck. Why? There’s been so much big news, meaning there has been little space for anything other than political scandals and the Americas Cup victory. Often people who have good news to tell approach media without thinking about what else is competing for the limited space that’s available. The last week is a great example of when it...

The Labour Party will have to think seriously about how much attention they give to the Todd Barclay. While it may seem natural to attack Bill English, will it win them votes? If they look back to New Zealand’s last two Prime Ministers, they will see that attempts to discredit them failed on all counts. Many commentators predicted that John Key would lose popularity over ‘Ponytail Gate’, the GCSB issue and more. Helen Clark had her own challenges like ‘Paint Gate’...

Gareth Morgan seems to understand that without lots of media coverage, his party is history. Even with media attention, TOP will find it hard to get into Parliament because it has no state funding for campaigning, no state-funded staff and no automatic profile that comes with parliamentary seats. But Morgan’s knowledge of what levers to pull to attract interest from reporters and producers is why TOP has been able to get its message across to some extent and is now registering...

There have certainly been hiccups for the UK Conservatives in the lead-up to tomorrow’s Election, but before the latest terrorist attack in London, they were using social media well to hammer home their campaign message. One of the biggest mistakes leaders make in both media interviews and political campaigns is try to get too many points across and go into too much detail. They need a clear and simple message and repeat it again and again. A former Conservative Party leader...

They will be hoping that rugby dominates the news coverage of their New Zealand tour, but the Lions management and players should be prepared for that controversial non-rugby story that could break on either social or traditional media. The team will be under huge pressure on this tour, and that’s before we even mention the media. They have 10 tough matches, they’ll have commitments to sponsors, they’ll need to stay in shape with ongoing training, while they’ll also take time to...

Budgets are notorious for bringing out the best in financial terms and jargon, despite most audiences not understanding the majority of it. This is something for politicians to be aware of when they speak to media after tomorrow's big event. How many people do you think understand the difference between a Balance of Payments Deficit and a Current Account Deficit? I bet very few. That’s why it’s so important that politicians explain what they mean before they comment on these things...

It’s clear that social media campaigning will have a huge influence over the outcome of September’s General Election. To maximise their success, politicians should learn a few secrets from Donald Trump. What did Trump do so well? He was very careful with the language he used. He didn’t just make points, he made them in ways that were not only understood by potential voters, but remembered. He did this by using the same language that savvy media interview experts use to...

Anyone who has attended one of my media training workshops will know that I usually recommend that people accept interview requests from journalists. But there are exceptions. A media interview is usually an opportunity rather than a threat, even if it’s about a negative issue. That’s assuming the interviewee understands the differences between media interviews and other conversations. How does this relate to Bill English? Yesterday the Prime Minister was asked what he thought about Donald Trump’s sacking of FBI Director...

The whole Willie Jackson saga about his list place has caused two big problems for Labour when it comes to getting valuable media attention in the lead up to September’s Election. Firstly, its another self-inflicted diversion away from a positive news story to a negative one. Labour’s list announcement should have been about the bright new stars who are likely to become MPs later in the year. Remember the news media are always looking for the best angle on a news...