For the police, managing the media is a minefield because so many competing interests have such diametrically opposed opinions on virtually every internal and external issue relating to the police service. Both senior and junior personnel alike can expect to find themselves facing the media, often in a highly hostile and charged climate.
LBP designed a programme for forty officers from the Hampshire Constabulary and the City of London Police. The programme focused on ways to communicate the boundaries within which the police operate, and the reasons for the strategies and tactics employed in fulfilling their statutory duties.
Team spirit, mutual support, being both professional and approachable, and establishing a dialogue which excised all police jargon from communication were elements integral to a course which led to "perfect interview" sessions. These sessions proved immensely popular and entertaining, particularly because they gave participants an opportunity to commit all the most fatal interview errors.
By experiencing what could go wrong, the officers understood how to make things go right.