From the August 23 to 25 three journalists from the Danish Defence Media Centre and the Press Officer from the Danish International Logistics Centre made up the simulated press (SIMPRESS) which were tasked to train decision makers in received and servicing the press. Seven Danish and foreign ships had accepted the offer to receive media training while participating in DANEX 2010.

The weather was incredibly good as the aircraft landed at Bornholm Airport on Monday morning and the frigate F 357 THETIS was laying majestically in Rønne Havn with the blue Lynx helicopter onboard. THETIS was the SIMPRESS base for the media training. From here the team would be transferred to the participating ships. When the captain had had his turn in the media grinder, the SIMPRESS team would either go on to the next ship or return to THETIS to eat or sleep.

The media training itself went on a special schedule and already began, as the ship received the dinghy with the SIMPRESS team. All journalists should be alive and dry when they got on board. Hereafter they received a security briefing and were lead to a briefing room to get a general presentation of the ship, its tasks and results during the “mission”. Already during the brief, which was carried out by a lower-ranking officer, the journalists would start moving, making demands and trying to get their questions answered.

When the briefing was over the journalists usually got a tour of the ship before interviewing the captain. It is always a special challenge to keep calm when you, bathed in the camera spotlight, is bombarded with questions from eager journalists. All questions were in English, as the exercise works as a NATO operation. This meant that everybody was on foreign ground and gave additional pressure to the interview.

The press off course put their usual annoying questions. Is your education sufficient? Are you 100% sure that you’re shooting the right people? Do you accidentally shoot civilians? What do you do with prisoners? All the captains received daily press clippings and lines to take on the issues. So they had the tools to counter the unpleasant questions posed by the journalists. But having read a message is one thing, another is to block an unwanted question and building a bridge to the message, you want to deliver.

After the captain had been grilled he got personal feedback on his performance in front of the camera and the print media. The focus is on his performance, his ability to follow his own plan for the interview and his ability to deliver the messages outlined by the Commodore.

When SIMPRESS were back on THETIS the journalists started working on transforming their notes to news and articles which were part of the media view during the exercise. Here the captains could see the result of the visit. Where they hadn’t been sufficiently sharp or honest, the journalistic knife was turned in the wound.

In spite of the direct and honest feedback the SIMPRESS exercise and the possibility for training media handling during an exercise was very well received. Even though reality is far worse than what can be recreated during an exercise it can be a good rehearsal for what can happen. The SIMPRESS was hard. Once you’ve tried it you’re better adjusted to the real world media.