Author: Guy Clapperton

At Clapperton Media Training, we spend a lot of time helping senior executives navigate media interviews. Often, the biggest challenges aren’t about confidence or messaging. They’re about assumptions.

One training session from the past year illustrates this perfectly. During a media training session with a senior executive in the financial transactions sector, a particular phrase came up in a practice interview:

“Fiat currency.”

For those unfamiliar with the term, it refers to currencies such as the pound or dollar that derive their value from collective agreement rather than being backed by a physical commodity like gold.

It’s a standard term in financial circles. Nothing unusual there.

However, when the client’s PR adviser suggested that not every journalist would be familiar with it, the response was blunt:

“Why would I want to talk to morons?”

Let’s park the tone for a moment. There is, arguably, a point worth considering. If every journalist covering that executive’s sector fully understands terms like “fiat currency”, then simplifying language might feel unnecessary. But that’s not how media works in practice. Journalists are not a uniform group of specialists. Even within business and financial media:

• Some are new to the beat

• Some are covering adjacent sectors

• Some are generalists with a wide brief

The journalist who reaches your ideal audience may not be the deepest technical expert in your field. And even if they are, their readers or listeners may not be.

The “first day” problem

Every journalist has a first day. At some point, they are covering a topic they don’t yet fully understand. That doesn’t make them incapable. It makes them exactly what they are supposed to be: curious. And that curiosity is what drives good interviews.

If an executive assumes knowledge that isn’t there, two things happen:

• The message becomes harder to follow

• The journalist starts to shape the story themselves

That’s when control of the narrative begins to slip.

Not knowing something is not the issue

Describing someone as a “moron” for not understanding specialist language is obviously unhelpful. More importantly, it reveals something deeper: A lack of empathy for the audience.

Journalists are experts in:

• Asking the right questions

• Finding the story

• Communicating clearly to their audience

They are not necessarily experts in your sector. Nor do they need to be.

That gap is where the opportunity lies.

What this means for spokespeople

The most effective spokespeople understand one simple principle:

Your job is not to demonstrate expertise. It is to make your expertise usable.

That means explaining terms without patronising, avoiding unnecessary jargon and meeting the journalist where they are Crucially, recognising that clarity is not a compromise. It is a skill.

Where preparation makes the difference

This is exactly the kind of issue that benefits from proper preparation.

A well-briefed spokesperson understands: who they are speaking to, what that person is likely to know or not know and how to address them fluently. Better still, structured media training allows executives to experience these moments in advance and adjust their approach before it matters.

The bottom line

The problem in media interviews is rarely the complexity of the subject. It is the assumption that everyone else understands it in the same way.

Executives who recognise that gap and bridge it effectively are the ones who:

• Get their message across

• Build stronger relationships with journalists

• And ultimately see better coverage

And it all starts with a simple shift:

From speaking to impress, to speaking to be understood.