Media Training for Municipalities

By Grant Ainsley | Tips | [comments] | Posted [date]

I think municipal politicians have difficult jobs and so do the people who lead municipal administrations. I have a lot of respect for the people who work for cities, towns and counties, but they rarely get a lot of love from the public.

Municipal politicians have no party to fall back on, so they're not told what they should be saying and municipal services like roads, garbage collection, parks and policing affect people more than most services from provincial and federal governments. There's a lot on the line.

I was recently on a podcast aimed at municipal leaders. Many of the things I talked about should also be able to help anyone doing media interviews.

The Local Government Cafe Podcast

I’ve done media training for close to 40-municipalities across Alberta. These are cities, towns, counties and municipal districts. I’ve worked with both politicians and leaders in administration and have really enjoyed doing so. I work with some municipalities a few times a year, because they realize it’s really communications training and not just media training.

In the summer of 2023 I did a media training workshop for Medicine Hat City Council and the city’s administrative leaders. I don’t do a lot of training in the summer, but it was nice to get down to Medicine Hat for a couple of days in August.

I got to meet the City Manager for Medicine Hat Ann Mitchell and have kept in touch with Ann. She asked me to be a guest on her Local Government Cafe Podcast and I jumped at the opportunity. Ann does the podcast with her colleague Susan Gardner.

While the podcast did focus on media relations for municipal leaders, many of the things I talked about also apply to those in the private sector, or working for associations.

You can listen to the podcast here and of course course, feel free to download it wherever you get your podcasts.