Failure to meet either of these criteria should be grounds for disqualification as a spokesperson. Common sense dictates this conclusion. If you are unable to express yourself in clear, concise and credible sound bites, the chances are your words will be distorted, taken out of context or misunderstood. And if you are not available to answer a reporter's questions, then your point of view will not be published or broadcast, and the resulting media coverage will likely be unbalanced and biased against you.

At the same time, not everyone who meets the two essential criteria for being a spokesperson should automatically be entitled to give interviews whenever the media call.

If all qualified spokesperson were entitled to decide on their own to give interviews, then you might have two, three, four, perhaps as many as a dozen people talking to a reporter working on a single story, without any one person in the organization knowing what everyone else was saying.

It's inevitable that at some point in this chaotic process contradictions would arise, confidential information would be inadvertently leaked, or one or more of the spokespersons would be goaded into discussing topics for which they were unprepared or would fall into other pitfalls. Confusion would reign, not only in the mind of the reporter, but within the organization as well. The probable result would be inaccurate and harmful media coverage.

The solution is to create a spokesperson structure that would serve two primary aims. One is to ensure that your organization will be able to maintain control over the messages it conveys to the media. Two is to ensure that information given to the media and the subsequent media coverage are truthful and will generate an accurate and balanced public perception of your organization.

The best way to achieve these objectives is to designate a Prime Media Contact. This is a full-time position; or if the incumbent has other responsibilities, responding to media enquiries must take priority.

The Prime Media Contact, who requires the full confidence of top management, fields all media enquiries. Everyone in the organization must be trained to direct media calls to the Prime Media Contact, who will then give the ensuing interviews.

At times, however, it will be appropriate or advisable for the Prime Media Contact to designate someone else to handle an interview. This is where designated spokespersons enter the picture.

These are strategic employees who are trained to give media interviews when called upon to do so by the Prime Media Contact. These employees are what you might call Secondary Media Contacts.

They would include the organization's top executive (President, CEO or Chairperson), other executives (Chief Financial Officer, Legal Council and other Senior or Executive Vice-President), and depending on the nature of your organization, department heads, branch-plant managers and technical experts.

Each of these people, regardless of title, must meet the two qualifying criteria before being permitted to speak to the media.

There are a number of reasons for turning an interview over to a Secondary Media Contact. The reporter may be writing a highly technical article that goes beyond the competence of the Prime Media Contact; the story may be highly sensitive, volatile and threatening, thus requiring the voice of the senior executive to enhance credibility as the organization strives to protect its reputation; the reporter may be writing a human interest feature that focuses on one or more of the organization's employees.

Whatever the circumstances, the actual decision as to who should speak to the media in any given situation must be based upon a determination of how best to ensure the most effective media coverage.

Is the Prime Media Contact able to answer the reporter's questions satisfactorily? In addition to quoting the President in the news release, should he or she also answer these particular questions from this particular reporter at this particular time? In meeting the reporter's request to profile the organization, which particular individuals will present the most accurate and desirable image?

These are among the questions that must be answered when preparing your media initiative or when picking up the pone to find a reporter at the other end of the line. And these are communications questions that can be answered most effectively by a communications expert; i.e., your Prime Media Contact.

In practical terms, this means that the Prime Media Contact determines who would be the best person in any given set of circumstances to speak to the media. And the Prime Media Contact will either choose himself or herself or select someone from among a full roster of Secondary Media Contacts, otherwise known as designated spokespersons.

It also means that the contact name appearing at the bottom of your news releases is that of the Prime Media Contact, regardless of who else might be quoted in the body of the release. It would then be up to the Prime Media Contact to handle the ensuing media enquiries or to turn one or more of them over to the appropriate expert or executive.