public relations Archives - Clapperton Media

If you’re reading this then the chances are that you’ll be in PR and you’ll have noticed the problems you face are multiplying and going off in different directions. The chances are that you’re facing a “credibility crunch.”

Here’s where it starts. You can use AI to write a press release in seconds, but so can everyone else. This has led journalists to become more cynical than ever – only last week on Reddit I was engaging with someone who’d had a pitch rejected by a journalist because a piece of software had identified it as AI-generated (he was quite annoyed because he’d written it himself).

At the same time, AI search engines (like Perplexity and Google’s SGE) are prioritizing “original expert opinion” and “lived experience” to rank brands. So AI content doesn’t help and false positives when people use software to root out the non-human stuff are a real problem.

(We will pause here to reflect that the journalist using software to detect AI was also using AI so more than a little hypocritical – OK, as you were.)

So PR professionals are under immense pressure to put their executives forward as “thought leaders” because they’re human and then we’re back to the spokespeople being terrified by a live mic or cynical journalist with a difficult question. Many will resort to going really bland and slipping into what I think of as “corporate droid” mode in which case you might as well have gone to AI in the first place.

Help your spokespeople to be human

This is where it’s worth getting help and by all means I have a vested interest. There can be good reasons to opt for external input: someone like me can say something to a C-suite director without having to bump into them in the lift the following day, I will have a different set of experiences to most internal PR professionals and probably more experience as a journalist.

If you want to keep it internal, though, be aware that the needs of media training have changed quite a bit. Here are some examples”

Podcasts are a thing so chattier approaches are more acceptable than they were. Just check what’s happening on popular TV; if you’re in the UK then you might be aware that “The Apprentice” is back but instead of the audience-based review aftershow “You’re Fired” we have the podcast-ish “Unfinished Business”. You can read my thoughts on why “podcast” is becoming a meaningless term here but the informality is probably here to stay.
A consequence is that changing topics in an interview and steering away from uncomfortable areas is still a thing but an audience can spot a clunky change of gear at several paces.
Journalists and other media professionals increasingly expect a personal side to an interview. Not only will they appreciate it but a good interview full of engaging stories and individual content will feed the algorithms and help AI-based searches to find it. Until they change it all again.

The same goes for your own pitches. Not only is using AI to generate them a bad idea but it’s worth checking to see whether your style sounds a bit robotic so you don’t join my contact on Reddit and get the boot for being AI when you’re not!

PR teams put enormous effort into pitching stories. Angles are refined, copy is polished, targets are carefully selected, and client messages are aligned with what journalists actually need. When it all works, when the timing is right and the angle lands, that effort should translate into strong coverage.

Yet time and again, the story unravels within the first thirty seconds of the interview. Not because the pitch was wrong. Not because the journalist had an agenda. Not because the story lacked substance.

It falls apart because the spokesperson’s first answer is simply too long and that single moment quietly shifts control of the interview. The first thirty seconds really are make or break time.

Why the first thirty seconds carry so much weight

Forget the pleasantries and scene-setting. The first substantive answer is where the real interview begins. It’s where tone, authority and direction are established.

Journalists do not arrive hoping to improvise. They arrive prepared:

They know what their editor wants.
They know what their audience expects.
They know the angle they need to deliver.

That first answer tells them whether the person opposite understands those realities. A concise, relevant answer that clearly speaks to the publication’s audience signals competence and awareness. The journalist relaxes. They know they are dealing with someone who understands the job and can deliver usable material.

A long, inward-looking response packed with internal enthusiasm and vague messaging does the opposite. At that point, the journalist takes control. They begin shaping the story themselves, steering the conversation toward what they need, not what the organisation hoped to say. The narrative is no longer in your hands.

The comms gap few leaders recognise

Many senior leaders prepare for interviews from a single perspective: their own. They know why the organisation is excited, they understand the strategy and the detail and they see the internal value clearly.

What’s often missing is any serious consideration of the audience. The message hasn’t been translated from “why this matters to us” into “why this matters to you”. So the first answer tries to cover everything, says too much, and lands nowhere. That is the moment the interviewee cedes control. Quietly, unintentionally, and very early.

A simple fix

Whether spokespeople are trained professionally or coached internally, the remedy is straightforward:

Keep the first answer short.
Aim it squarely at the publication’s audience.
Demonstrate instantly that you understand the journalist’s brief.
Offer something quotable.

When you or your client do this well, journalists are far more open to the wider messaging. The organisation’s story shapes the coverage, rather than being reshaped by it. When it isn’t, the rest of the interview becomes damage limitation.

Why this matters for PR teams

PR professionals invest huge effort in story development, pitching and relationship-building. Allowing coverage to be derailed by an overlong first answer is a costly and unnecessary risk That’s why first-answer discipline is a core focus of our media training. It’s a small adjustment with disproportionate impact, often the difference between “We got a mention” and “We landed the story we wanted.”

Because in media interviews, power shifts early, very often in the first sentence.

And timing, as ever, is everything.

When PR teams prepare a client for a media opportunity, messaging quite rightly takes centre stage. But strong messaging alone doesn’t guarantee strong interviews. At Clapperton Media Associates, we regularly see spokespeople who know their content inside-out still fall short — not because they lack knowledge, but because they’ve missed three critical skills that shape how journalists receive and use their words.

These skills are often overlooked in pre-interview briefings, or dismissed by clients who believe they “sound fine already”. In practice, they make the difference between an effective interview and a frustrating one. Here are the three that matter most:

1. Tone: Expertise Isn’t Enough

A spokesperson can hold every relevant fact in their head and be a world-class expert — but if they sound dismissive, bored, defensive or aloof, the interview immediately suffers.

Tone determines whether a journalist warms to the speaker or braces for a difficult conversation. The goal is to sound engaged and engaging: confident without arrogance, warm without gushing, authoritative without condescension. It’s a balance many senior executives underestimate.

2. Structure: Think, Then Speak

A common issue is that a journalist asks a question and the spokesperson dives straight into an answer with no reflection. To the expert, it makes perfect sense — they can mentally stitch it all together. To the journalist, whose expertise lies in interviewing and shaping stories, the result can feel fragmented, unclear, or unmoored from the point.

Training clients to pause, structure, and signpost before they speak leads to clearer quotes, better coverage, and far fewer follow-up questions driven by confusion rather than curiosity.

3. Length: More Isn’t More

Well-meaning spokespeople often want to be as helpful as possible. If they have 20 years’ experience, they may feel obliged to offer every angle, nuance and historical footnote.

Unfortunately, this overwhelms rather than assists. Long, meandering answers encourage journalists to conflate issues, lose focus, or latch onto details the client didn’t intend to foreground.

Shorter, sharper answers maintain control of the narrative and make it easier for journalists to extract accurate, useful quotes.

Helping PR Teams Reduce Risk and Improve Results

These issues are rarely about lack of skill — they’re about lack of practice. The right training helps spokespeople communicate in ways journalists can immediately use, reducing the risk of poor coverage and increasing the likelihood of meaningful, positive stories.

Clapperton Media Associates specialises in preparing senior leaders, technical experts, and fast-moving startups for exactly these challenges. If your clients are heading into interviews, we can help ensure they deliver with clarity, confidence and impact.

To discuss tailored training for your team or clients, get in touch.

PR agencies large and small are under constant pressure to deliver results efficiently. Yet many teams find that one task quietly drains far more time and energy than they realise: ineffective media pitching.

For many agencies and in-house teams, the cycle is all too familiar. Drafts that don’t quite land. Endless rewrites. Promising stories that somehow never make it out of the inbox. Hours lost to a process that should take minutes, and opportunities slipping away simply because the initial pitch missed the mark. Journalists just don’t care, hence the shruggy image.

At Clapperton Media Training, this is exactly the problem our Pitch Perfect session is designed to solve.

An Investment in Skills — and in Efficiency

When PR managers send junior colleagues to our masterclasses, they’re not just supporting early-career development. They are strengthening their own pipeline. Stronger pitching skills mean fewer rewrites, fewer dead ends and fewer hours spent salvaging work that was never likely to succeed.

This isn’t just training. It’s an operational upgrade.

What Better Pitching Really Delivers

Our training helps delegates understand:

How journalists actually think — and what makes them respond.
What to cut from a pitch to avoid instant deletion.
How to spot weaknesses before the email is ever sent.
How to build long-term media relationships rather than chasing one-off wins.

The result?
Managers spend less time correcting and amending pitches. Success rates increase. Junior staff gain the confidence to craft smarter, tighter, more relevant story ideas. Teams become faster, sharper and more aligned with what journalists genuinely need.

A single story placement can be a success — but long-term relationships built on intelligent, relevant pitching are far more valuable. Our sessions are designed to help PR teams move from the former to the latter.

Upcoming Pitching Masterclass — 8 December

Clapperton Media Training still has places available on our 8th December morning and afternoon courses in London.

For agencies asking themselves where their time and energy are disappearing, this is often the most effective place to start.

For details, or to reserve a place, simply get in touch.