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Media training at a PR company today and I was reminded I was getting older - but for once I didn't mind.

We were discussing the old, old story that happened when the Guardian misheard singer Patti Boulaye offering her support for the Conservatives. She said it was good that young people were in favour of a party; the paper reported that she was speaking in favour of apartheid.

It's a long-dead issue. The thing that appealed to me most, though, was one of the younger trainees having to ask what apartheid actually was. Half of me said, oh no, am I that old? The other half was actually quite pleased - it may be a sign of age, and we shouldn't ignore the lessons of history, but the further away that pernicious regime and its policies gets, the better.

I was media training yesterday, a good session with talented people. So I'm telling them about the difference between news, features and columns, and I mention blogs and podcasts in the bit on columns.

Blogs? Says one of them. What are they?

He was even more lost on podcasts. Are they important, he asked.

Well, probably, was the answer. But once tested I realised that I didn't have any proper data to back this up. Nor, given that I write a fair bit about technology in relation to business, should I assume that my knowledge of new media is commonplace or that my assumptions about its importance have any basis other than 'I come across it quite a lot'.

Anyone with any solid research rather than a gut feeling is welcome to get in touch.

I'm out talking to a group of PRs this afternoon under the auspices of The:101. This is a group of journalists who want to tell people how we really think, rather than how you use your e-mail to talk to people instead of actually making contact.

It's a good idea. My only slight reservation is that journalists are as disparate as any other profession and the idea that we can be categorised and spoken to as a group in a generic way and that this should stay meaningful is something of an illusion.

Of course, that's why PR is a tricky job. I'll give my views and with a bit of luck a fight will break out between me and the other speakers when we disagree about something...

I had a great experience media training recently. The client was very receptive, and so was their external PR - the session was stimulating for both sides (hint: I love it when this happens).

Then the internal PR walks in.

So we do a practice interview, the client and I. "Not bad," says the internal PR. "But I'd like to hear more of the company name."

I can see why, I say, but someone dropping loads of company mentions in for the sake of it is going to find their quotes on the proverbial cutting room floor. Answering the question, as the client had done, was the better way to get into print. "No, I'd still prefer it with more company mentions. It'll get in."

Hang on. I've been a journalist since 1988. It doesn't make me the world's great expert, but it gives me an idea of what's certain to be dropped or written off as company puff before a piece is collated and written. "Well, we can agree to disagree..."

Anyone else wanting to hire me just so they can sit there and argue, please note the day rate remains the same.

An interesting point came up at a briefing I held last week. The client had been effectively villified in the letters pages of a well-known newspaper by a customer. The customer, a known letter-writer, had been with the client for many years but had decided to have a go in the press. What, they wanted to know, should they do?

It was a good question and I freely admit, not one I'd come across before. My main experience has been in training people to deal with journalists, not engage in mortal combat across the letters pages of the Nationals. My suggestion was to talk to the customer and assume the old adage about something being last week's news and therefore this week's chip wrappings would hold good. The alternative is to conduct your private business in public.

It was one of those sessions, though, that I really enjoyed because it made me think beyond my usual role as well as making my client do the same. I hope there'll be many more of those...

Tomorrow I am media training. This means briefing people on how to handle queries from the media in all shapes and forms.
It's interesting work but before I get too blase about it I have to remember some of the stuff that actually happens when people get it wrong. Here's a link drawn from the real life experiences of a number of journalists.

Even with a daily blog like this, you realise there are some things that would have been better if you'd planned and structured them a little. Next month I must remember about interest rates.
You see, by the time this comes out you'll be aware if you're in the UK that the Bank of England has kept interest rates at 4 per cent.
Now, that probably doesn't seem all that funny. But if, like me, you'd had a press release on Monday from one small business group warning that a rise would be a disaster, followed by another from another group on Tuesday saying a small rise wouldn't be a bad thing, followed by still another group yesterday proclaiming that the five per cent rate would put people out of business, you'd have allowed yourself a little smirk. It was phrased so angrily I had to check the news sites in case it had actually happened and the news sneaked out on a Wednesday for once.
Then the announcement today - no change. A couple of small releases of the 'oh, that's OK then' nature, and no doubt a lot of red faces among the original release writers.

Just wrote this opening paragraph. Won't be using it, had to get it off my chest:
So, how safe is your IT consultancy, assuming you use third party people? The Federation Against Software Theft has put out warnings this month suggesting people should vet them very carefully to prevent outsourcing to anyone with pirated and illegal software. Granted, FAST admits this is a theoretical possibility rather than something that has actually happened to anyone, ever, but that's no reason to call the drongo who sent the press release out a time-wasting, panic-spreading, non-event-announcing idiot.
Thanks, I feel better now.