Well done Paul Hayes, CEO of the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse. He has achieved prominent coverage in the nation’s media with not only a peak-time interview on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme (the programme that sets the news agenda), but also a half page article in today’s Times newspaper.
So what key message did Mr Hayes give about the way Britain deals with drug abusers? Sadly, we can’t tell you. Why? Here is an excerpt from the Times article, an opinion piece by Melanie Reid: “This year’s award for Least Impressive Interviewee on National Radio goes to Paul Hayes.” Gulp. Read on, and we find: “(he) was jobsworth personified. Complacent, patronising, and absolutely unable to explain why only 3% of the 200,000 plus addicts are cured each year.” No, Mr Hayes is not one of our clients. If he was, he’d have learned the golden rule of media interviewees: understand your audience, target your audience, talk to your audience. Ms Reid’s article was not about ways to get addicts off drugs. It was about public outrage that £300 million of taxpayer’s money is spent on methadone. She’s a journalist. She knows her audience.
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