Military AircrewA forum for the professionals who fly the non-civilian hardware, and the backroom boys and girls without whom nothing would leave the ground. Army, Navy and Airforces of the World, all equally welcome here.
The first thing I would do is to distinguish between media training, where you learn principles and acquire skills, and the use of SIMPRESS on exercises etc, where you practise those skills. The SIMPRESS I have worked with are usually mainly real journalists and are worth their weight in gold for practise and consolidation, but you need to be trained first. Media training now tends to be focussed on particular (usually high-ranking) individuals, and so often the benefit of SIMPRESS is lost as they are leading an untrained lamb to the slaughter.
I'm glad you've met some Simpress. The RAF's budget for this is less than 1 per cent of that of the Army or Navy, so you (assuming you are RAF) won't often see them and get experience of your fizzog/dulcet tones/strategy for winning the war if only the brass would listen to you etc appearing on TV, radio or in print until it happens for real. By then you may be wishing you'd had some practice beforehand.
Not enough people seem to understand the distinction between media training and simulation and it can tend to be senior officers (who have other opportunities for media training) who get interviewed when it might prove more useful to use the same resources to give units the experience of hosting 'embedded' press in the field.
Dan - you might have better luck posting this question on ARSSE or Rum Ration as more of them there might know what Simpress is in the first place.
Tyne: Having been on the receiving end of a couple of simpress trainees during JMC/NW I must say it was interesting to note that they both arrived with firmly entrenched mindsets and were not REALLY prepared the listen to the (necessarily) detailed answer to a complex question. Finally I asked the main one whether she wanted to have the "corporate" answer or did she really want to understand the situation she asked about. With no reply forthcoming, I said I'd better things to do than talk to a closed mind, AND I had a couple of briefs to write and left. The Ancient Mariner
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I used a local college of journalism about 3 or 4 years ago to provide simulated press (didn't have the word SIMPRESS in them days) at a locally generated major Station Crash ex.
We found them extremely good value (well I did), and they certainly sharpened up some of the higher-paid help at the simulated press conference.
They even produced (isn't DTP wonderful!) a 4 page A3 sized "newspaper" after the event, which also put the Station's operations in a local context - they'd gone down the local pub and got some vox pop from the people in the bar!
Some of the "meeja trained" wheels suddenly saw it differently when they saw their faces and their words in print! - and were thankful I think that only about 6 copies were printed!!
Is there an outside contractor that does this for the RN, RAF and Army? Or is it ad-hoc - organised by local station commanders, regiments, warships etc?
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I have been in contact with the Crown Media team and they are all real journalists who are contracted in to support exercises the MoD having now moved away from students and local contracts.
Dan,
I will be starting work at the Defence Media Ops Centre a week on Monday if you want an inside track on how the MoD use SIMPRESS but with Crown having a contract for at least the next 12 months you may be pushing on a closed door.
I have come across Simpress on both JMC and a Neptune Warrior. Was not impressed, the attitude seemed to be one of "lets get all the dirt possible" with very little thought of any news reporting. In fact after a couple of days we all just thinned them out and ignored them. We were all receptive at first but just got threaders with their attitude. Shame really.
Ralph - what do you mean by dirt? Were they digging for dirt - for exercise so to speak? Or were they acting out of role and generally being arses?
When I have acted as Simpress I have often asked probing and difficult questions - but for the real world always took the attitude of what happens on ex - stays on ex. Therefore out of the real world media. That includes a genuine MARPOL incident which would have made for quite a decent story
I think students let the thing down by not being real journos. Many I worked with had never been to a press confernece for example. Sometimes the stuff they did was farcical. I had to remind myself that they were students and probably doing their best in the circumstances.
If you are part of a training package that for example a CVS is undergoing for ORI - you need more than students to do the job.
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