Detailed reports of presentations

A write-up about my last talk to Barton on Sea Probus appeared a couple of weeks later in the New Milton Advertiser/Lymington Times and reproduced part of its content in some detail.

This has happened before on odd occasions with reports from other clubs. I'm sure some speakers might see a problem with this, perhaps thinking that giving away so much material will suppress the number of bookings. Why bother to hear this speaker when thousands of people have already seen a summary of their talk in the local paper?

I disagree. I have never noticed any downturn in bookings after a detailed press report. For a start, the article will only be a few hundred words long whereas a 40-minute lecture might consist of nearly 5,000 so it will only be able to touch on a fraction of the facts, anecdotes, jokes, etc, that I have included.

If you think about it, such a report is a testament to the amount of preparation and research you have put into your content and the fact that a press officer has been able to write a clear synopsis demonstrates the clarity with which you put it across.

There are writers who publish books of tens of thousands of words on a subject who are then asked, as a result, to deliver condensed versions of them at speaking engagements, despite having made much more information available to readers than listeners.

Public Speaking Tip #312: If you are fortunate enough to have a very detailed report about your presentation published in a newspaper or magazine, you should view this as good advertising for you. It's a taster - not a free ride!

Of course, much depends upon the accuracy of the press officer's note-taking. In the case of Barton Probus it was excellent but some years ago, I delivered a talk to a particular organisation in Bournemouth and was stunned at the report which appeared afterwards (thankfully only in their small-circulation newsletter). There were so many inaccuracies and what I can only describe as invented details that I couldn't help wondering whether speaker and reporter had been attending the same talk!