Media Training

Being interviewed by a journalist can often be quite an intimidating experience. As many of the participants in our media training courses point out – even before we’ve had the chance to mention it – a slip of the tongue or an unfortunate comment can cost you your job.  Obviously, there are also distinct benefits to engaging with the media, otherwise no one would do it.  You can raise the profile of your organisation, sell a product or service, position yourself in the market place, sway public opinion, talk to regulators and opinion formers and flag up an issue that you believe needs to be addressed – the list goes on.

How to take control of a media interview

Doing a media interview means that to some extent you’re playing in the media’s playground and therefore by their rules.  A journalist who rings you up to bark questions at you with a short deadline or a reporter who arrives at your office in a whirlwind, complete with camera operator and lights telling you what they need from you can be quite intimidating.

However, when you come to do an interview you have rights.  You’re the expert after all, and you’re being invited to contribute to a report, not banged up in the nick.  Here are five things that you can ask of a journalist that you might not necessarily be aware of.  We can’t guarantee that he or she will always oblige but it’s certainly worth asking.

1. What’s your angle?

Obviously, you should never do an interview without knowing what it’s about – although many people only ask this question after the interview.  But as well as checking on the subject matter (and the journalist plus the outlet and who else is contributing) you can also ask the reporter about their particular approach, in other words, the angle they’re taking. 

For example, one of our media trainer/journalists has just done a report about companies donating to charities. That’s the subject.  The angle was that companies are being asked to support charities focussed on more obscure and niche causes.  Another of our media trainer/journalists recently did a piece about the Gold Coast and the Commonwealth Games.  Here the angle was about how the local government and other institutions are hoping to benefit from the Games.

Can I check my quotes with a journalist?

This is really for print interviews.  Note that it’s a request, not a demand.  “I was recently at a press conference when one of the speakers mentioned that they’d expect to check our quotes before we published anything,” says Simon Brooke, one of our media trainer/journalists.  “It was met by a derisive laugh.  In fact, half of us had already tweeted what he’d said.”

However, if you’ve done an interview with a print journalist you can always offer to look at your quotes as a service to help them to report you accurately.  A little modesty or self-deprecation helps here.  Explain that, “I’m conscious that I’ve thrown a lot of stuff at you,” or “I realise I talk quickly when I’m passionate about something,” or “I know some of this is quite detailed and technical.”  Emphasise too that you’d just like to check the facts and that you’re not going to try and insert any marketing blather or turn it into an advertisement for your organisation.

3. Can I come back to you on that?

This only works for print and recorded broadcast interviews – obviously you can’t say it if you’re live on air.  But it’s still a key piece of advice for doing media interviews and it’s surprising how many people feel that they have to be able to know everything that the journalist asks them there and then. Your preparation should have covered the basics, including, of course, your key messages with examples to back them up, but there’s very likely to be something that the journalist throws at you that you hadn’t thought of.  It’s much better to promise to come back to them rather than trying to wing it. The journalist would also rather you did this.

More questions that you can ask a journalist

Again, you need to put this as a question to show that you’re being helpful rather than laying down the law.  Often the journalist will say “Actually, I’m not sure, yet.”  Even then, you can always use the opportunity to repeat and re-emphasise your key messages with a comment such as “I suppose from our point of view the most interesting point here is that…” or “Whenever I talk to people about this issue, they’re always most interested to know about…”   Just make sure that you then stick to your message and don’t add another point that might detract from what you’re trying to say.  As we remind people on our media training courses “message discipline” is essential in any media interview.

5. Can you move the camera, please?

This is really only appropriate if the TV reporter has come to your office or is meeting you in a public place.  If the sun is shining in your eyes or you’ve noticed something behind you that doesn’t fit in with your message or you’re simply uncomfortable with standing in the middle of a busy pavement then just ask if you can move.  

“I once did a TV interview with a politician who was boasting about business confidence in the area but didn’t notice that we’d managed to position him to get a couple of ‘To Let’ signs in the background,” says Simon Brooke.

How gain control of a media interview

Now, don’t try this one if you’re speaking to the nation live, obviously. However, if you’re doing a recorded interview for a package, in other words delivering a soundbite and you don’t feel that you’ve done your best you can always offer to go again.

The performance by the former boss of the British Dental Association is now part of media training folklore.  Quite whose advice he was following in this extract we’d love to know but normally the reporter will you let you do another take because they’re as keen as you are to get a neat, articulate 10 to 15-second clip.  


We can’t guarantee that the journalist will play ball when you make these requests but it’s always worth asking.  We point out in our media training courses that if you do it in a friendly way and make it clear that you’re aware that this is a two-way street – they want some relevant, interesting content and you want the chance to promote your organisation and put your message across – they may well be willing to go with it.

After all, with media interviews as with anything else, you won’t get if you don’t ask.

Media Training

It’s always a big issue in media coaching – do you have to answer a journalist’s question?  As part of our media coaching sessions we’ll usually do a role play press interview with the participants.  As we tell them, we’ll do it in exactly the same way as we do during our day job as journalists, although we won’t publish it course. Instead, we’ll give detailed feedback on the story that we would have written well as the messages that came across and how they appeared to us as experienced, working journalists.

Very often we’ll ask a difficult or left field question towards the end of the interview since this is what could easily happen in real life.  We work closely with Comms teams and PR companies and they’ll brief us on difficult issues.  The interviewee will usually feel obliged to answer our query – or at least to have a go at it.  This is almost always where they lose control of the interview and end up giving us a great story.  Unfortunately, it’s very often not one that will suit them. 

We did a media skills course recently with a large financial institution.  Towards the end of the role play press interview our media trainer/ journalist asked one of the course participants, a board director, about their views on Brexit.  Very helpfully and interestingly they suggested that Britain’s departure from the EU wouldn’t actually be a problem for the firm as it benefits from growing markets in the Far East.   This was a great story that would have made headlines in the Financial Times and other publications.  However, it wasn’t so good for the firm – and certainly not for the poor interviewee.

Media coaching tip – journalists don’t expect you to answer every question

The point is that we’d obviously expect the interviewee to answer a question about the agreed subject of the interview.  But there’s no obligation to comment on something that is outside this remit.  We often call this the “while I’ve got you here, minister” question.  This is because senior politicians appearing on Radio Four’s Today and other programmes will often be asked to talk about something that is current and – vaguely – relevant to them.   It might be an embarrassing comment made by a colleague, for instance, or something that the government is proposing.

Politicians are usually warned beforehand by their media teams about this risky, live issues and have lines to take ready.  With business people this is not always the case.  During an interview on Today to talk about new apprenticeships Sir James Dyson was asked about Brexit.  Instead of sticking to the topic the engineer and industrialist waxed lyrical on the subject. Within a matter of hours his comments were on The Times online.

But, of course, not answering a question goes against the grain for many of us.   We do a lot of media coach for lawyers, for instance.   They’re trained to answer a client’s questions accurately and comprehensively – and so they should.  We point out, though, that we’re not clients.  If anything, journalists don’t want a detailed answer to a question.  We just want the top line.

Similarly, we do media training for the luxury sector.  If you work for a luxury hotel saying “yes” to a guest and being helpful is in your blood so, of course, you’re going to try to answer a question as fully as possible. As we point out to the luxury hotel staff that we train, we’re not guests (and with journalists’ salaries as they are we probably never will be) so there’s no need to help us out by giving us an answer to what we’ve just asked them.

Doesn’t it sound shifty if I don’t answer the journalist’s question?

But doesn’t it sound shifty and evasive if I don’t answer a journalist’s question, people often ask during our media coaching courses.  The short answer is that it depends on the question and how you do it.

If you’re being asked a direct question about something that you’re responsible for and it’s part of the subject that we’ve agreed to speak about then yes, you must.  This example of Richard Madeley trying to get Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson to answer a simple, direct, yes-or-no question is quite toe curling. 

If a journalist asks a finance director, for instance, why profits are down by 20 per cent this year then that FD had better be ready with an answer.  How he or she then moves the conversation on to something more useful is up to them. On the other hand, if he or she was asked about Brexit or about a competitor then no, there’s no need to answer the question.

What if I don’t want to answer a journalist’s question?

What, we’re often asked in our media coaching sessions, should you do then, if a journalist asks you a question that you don’t want to answer?  Simple: you tell them in a friendly but assertive way that you’re not going to do so.  Then, very importantly, you tell them why.  This could be because it’s outside your remit.  Just exampling that it’s a matter, for example, for the regulator or the government.  It might simply be an issue that you don’t want to get drawn on such as Brexit or a competitor, as we’ve mentioned above.  Again, just be honest and say so. 

Must I answer a journalist’s question during a crisis?

Surely, then, during a serious incident or a crisis, you’ll have to answer the journalist’s questions. Actually, not always.  As we explain in our media training courses, in a crisis you’ll be expected to provide factual information that you’re confident is correct.  But you’ll also be asked questions that neither you, nor probably anyone else knows the answer to.  In a crisis as the media scrambles to fill airtime and column inches speculation is often rife. 

Get drawn into surmising what could have caused the incident or what might come out of it and, as we explain in our crisis media coaching workshops, you’ll lose control of your communication and create unwelcome headlines.   As we wrote recently mishandling a crisis really can cost you dear. 

A good way to make a crisis worse is get drawn into responding to journalists’ questions when you should just stay mum.  So, here too, just be polite but firm and explain why you don’t want to answer certain questions.  

We’ve had a lot of interest in a blog we wrote about five requests that you can ask of a journalist that you might not be aware of.   As we advise during our media training courses.  Take control of the interview and don’t be afraid to lay down terms to the journalist. This includes stating clearly the questions that you are and aren’t happy to answer.  So when people ask us during our media coaching courses whether you always have to answer a journalist’s questions – we explain no, not if you know what you’re doing.

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