The Board Approves the Center for Funeral Media Studies as New Home Study Provider
For more than twenty years the staff at the Center for Funeral Media Studies, Inc. have been conducting media response, crisis management and crisis communications training for professionals around the world. In early 1999, in response to a critical need within the funeral industry, the Center for Funeral Media Studies, Inc. was formed. The Center's President and Co- Founder, Richard Brundage, developed both the video-based training courses and the "live" seminar that were recently approved for funeral directors, for home study, by the Board of Trustees at the Academy for Professional Funeral Service Practice. Richard is a national award-winning producer, director, and internationally recognized media-response trainer. Before his career in broadcast journalism, he was a licensed funeral director and embalmer and grew up in a family with more than 100 years of tradition in funeral service.
Becoming more and more uncomfortable with the way the funeral industry is being portrayed by an increasingly tabloid media, Richard decided to bring his unique and critically acclaimed video-based training and "live" seminar, he has been teaching worldwide for 20 years, to the funeral industry. His vision was to tailor the live seminar and to make his video-based training courses available to educate, train, and empower funeral service professionals and to change forever the way they look at and respond to the media.
David Wallace, Director of Training Operations and Co-Founder, initially relied heavily on members of the Academy in determining whether or not the industry was ready for this type of training. Wallace states: "We realized the funeral industry was at a crossroads with respect to the media. We knew the potential for broad based acceptance of our media response training was there, but we realized help was needed in getting the word out." That is when he went to members of the Academy whom he knew had extensive media experience. They were John Horan, Ron Troyer, David Walkinshaw, and John Carmon. Wallace states: "We knew, given their reputations and credentials, that if they saw value in what we were offering, the industry acceptance would be there." After receiving favorable reviews from these four members, the next step was to apply for continuing education accreditation, and to get the word out nationally. The accreditation came from the Board of Trustees at their annual meeting at the NFDA convention and the word is continuing to spread. Wallace adds: "We have received incredible support from everyone that has seen the video-training series. We are currently discussing training pro- grams with state and national organizations, such as the NFDA. We have also scheduled more than 25 "live" seminars to train funeral directors, in states around the country, for the upcoming year and are beginning to see a surge in sales of our video-based teaching courses."
Recently the Center for Funeral Media Studies fielded questions from four members of the Academy for Funeral Service Practice who have extensive experience within the industry: Bill Aaron, CFSP & Board Member, Bob Vandenbergh, CFSP & Board Member, David Walkinshaw, CFSP, and John Horan, CFSP. The questions were posed to Richard Brundage, President of the Center for Funeral Media Studies. The following is an excerpt from the question and answer session:
David Walksinshaw: "Sometimes an individual funeral director may feel uncomfortable addressing the scope of an issue. Does your training address when a director is either better off not responding to a request for an interview, or passing the request along to either a state or national organization?"
CFMS: "Yes, our training directly addresses this critical issue. When the scope of an issue is very large and it's beyond the local "expertise" of the funeral director, he or she may want, or need, to defer to a State or National organization. What is often overlooked though, is the importance of how that is done. It is important the director look credible even though he is not directly answering the question. We teach directors how to not only refer the reporter to a state or national spokesperson without saying "no comment"; we also teach them how they can gain personal credibility by doing so."
Bill Aaron: "Given your programs and video mate- rial, are they responsive to different types of media interviews, i.e.: print, radio, and television? Does the program change for the different types of mediums?''
CFMS: "Yes, both
our "live" seminar and video training effectively teach funeral directors
how to proactively respond to and relate with the media: print, radio,
and television. And yes, the program changes to account for the different
mediums, but only slightly. There are many similar characteristics in
the way a funeral director would respond to the media in all three mediums.
For instance, though our primary media response teaching course is titled
"Mastering TV Appearances", it not only teaches how to deal with the TV
media, it also shows how to take the skills and tools needed to deal with
the world's most powerful medium, and effectively use them with radio
and print media as well. Television is the most pervasive, immediate,
and far-reaching medium today and we feel that if you can answer the tough
questions in front of a camera, lights and microphones, you can conduct
a great interview in print or on the radio. Again, there are necessary
modifications for print and radio, and we do teach them."
John Horan: "Funeral directors tend to be soft-spoken and low-key while
viewing the media as the enemy. The attitude often seems to be "if I ignore
this, it will just go away." How does this training address these issues?"
CFMS: "This is a very important question. First of all, the training teaches that the media is not necessarily the enemy - and that they're definitely not going to go away. Secondly, the "if 1 ignore this, it will go away" syndrome is not specific to the funeral industry. This happens in almost every industry and profession. We are educating funeral directors that they need to understand that the media is a business, just like their funeral home. After that, they then need to learn how to respond and relate to that business. It is a learned skill. There is very little tradition, very little experience, and not much of an in-depth relationship between the funeral industry and the media; and therein lies the problem. But once funeral directors understand how to respond to and relate with the media, they begin to see how they can leverage their strengths by proactively using the media."
"The irony of the situation is that, though funeral directors aren't currently trained well to deal with the media, once they are prop- erly trained, they come across very, very well. That fact is that, because of the long-standing traditions of serving families in their communities, funeral directors have many great things to say to the media. Truly when it comes to this issue, many funeral directors are "drowning in three feet of water." They simply need to be more educated in basic media response training - how to act on television, or radio, or with a newspaper reporter, how to bridge ideas, how to not get taken out of context, how to take control of an interview and effectively put forth their points of view, how to talk about the great traditions of the funeral industry. Media response training is initially a pretty quick read and then, like anything else, it simply takes practice. Our challenge is to reach the funeral director that would benefit from this type of training that, either has fear of the unknown, or is concerned about how long it might take to learn, or that think they won't possibly have to deal with the media. We know that with the dramatic increase in media coverage of the funeral industry, the chances of a funeral director, in a management position, escaping a media interview in the next two years are virtually zero. Our training is designed to make their interview a positive one which will bring credit to them and the funeral home."
Bill Aaron: "Given that some news correspondents go into an interview with their mind made up as to the content, does your program address how to change the interviewer's mind or do you teach the person being interviewed to stick to the message he wants to portray? Or is there a middle ground that you want to accomplish?"
CFMS: "Excellent question, and one of the principal teaching points of the training. The interview is YOURS, not the reporters! Often, 1 see respondents as "slaves to questions", never realizing that they always - 100% of the time - will know more about the story than the reporter will. That is why the reporter is coming to you. With the exception of the circumstances where it is best to defer to a state or national organization, there is no story without you, per se. Now, the reporter's agenda will most probably be different than yours, but the interview that you give, or the sound bite you make, must be the focal point of the story. Without "arguing with a man who buys ink by the barrel", we show you how to take control of an interview (radio, television, or print) and never again worry about being "taken out of context."
Bob Vandenburgh: "Dealing with the media is obviously stressful, usually because of the urgency of the event. What do you see is the advantage of your video-based teaching courses, when dealing with this subject?"
CFMS: "There are several advantages. They are a convenient way to learn and re-learn, what are fast becoming vital and critical skills in sustaining your competitive edge. Videotape allows the funeral director to learn at his or her own pace and to literally focus on the skills and tools they want or need to use. They are also valuable resources when used as "refresher" courses, so that the techniques can be practiced and the "mental muscle memory" can be honed and retained. And critically, the videos can be reviewed before a scheduled interview. The course also contains audiotapes to listen to in the car on your way to an interview. As you know, just recently there have been some very important interviews within the funeral industry. We have spoken to a few of the folks giving those interviews, and that have used our video training, and they tell us how beneficial it was to be able to review the tape the night before their interview."
David Walkinshaw: "Media skills are certainly becoming more necessary to every funeral director. Can these skills also help me in other areas?"
CFMS: "Absolutely. When I conclude a seminar, invariably a number of participants will tell me that they will be able to use these same techniques to speak in front of a community group or in their boardroom meetings. So many of the media skills taught in the training carry over into the public speaking arena. Since public speaking is ranked as the number one fear on many surveys, it just makes sense to sharpen those skills and to practice coordinating body language with the spoken word."
Bob Vandenbergh: "With the computer making interactive long distance learning possible, do you foresee your programs being made available in this format? And what could this add, if any- thing, to your programs."
CFMS: "A question on the cutting edge of technology! Yes, we are planning on making our video series and even a modified version our "live" seminar available on the internet. Right now we are in communication with the right technical people, as well as education providers such as the Academy for Professional Funeral Service Practice and others, to map out the right strategy. We are shooting for possibly being able to provide the video training online in late 2000. The biggest value we see, besides the obvious convenience factor, is that ifa funeral director is facing an interview and does not own a copy of the video series or has not attended the "live" seminar, he or she may view the training immediately over the internet."
Reprinted
from the APFSP NEWS, DECEMBER 1999
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