Who is this service for?

Often working alongside public relations agencies, we help executives up to and including the C-suite prepare for media interviews to ensure they are productive and the executive's voice is heard. We also help executives preparing to deliver keynote speeches and our value goes beyond this as many of the skills are transferrable to other stakeholders.

What actually happens?

A team often including an experienced journalist and a camera expert will offer input and advice on what journalists, podcasters and other media professionals will need. The core of the sessions, however, is a practical interview session under lights and playback/feedback on the spot. We do this at least twice.

How long does it take?

A basic half-day session will take three and a half hours for up to three delegates.

How much does it cost?

Costs vary but a three-person half-day session will cost £2320 plus VAT. This excludes travel. Extras can include the hire of premises or indeed a full-blown TV studio if required.

What is your catchment area?

We are based in London but over the last couple of years we've worked in Greece, Bahrain and elsewhere. Just ask – we can probably make it work!

public relations Archives - Clapperton Media

Guy writes:

Coffee with a prospective new trainer for the roster last week (very promising) threw out an interesting question. I’d been talking about media training a fair bit as you’d expect and she just asked, quite straightforwardly: “What exactly *is* media training? I think I know but I’m not 100 per cent certain.” (I should add that we were talking about her helping me with presentation training so this was a fair question).

So I thought, time for a quick Q and A about what media training is and what it’s not.

OK then, what is media training?

Media training is practical help for anyone needing to speak to the media, from the c-suite to a marketing manager on a stand at a trade show. The idea is to ensure those spokespeople have tools and techniques to focus on the messages they need to deliver and make sure they aren’t ambiguous. We offer a hands-on session: you’ll practise interview skills and have your messages tested by a senior journalist.

When do you need it?

There are a number of media interactions where you can risk being led off-topic so that something other than your focus becomes the headline. You might have a product launch for which you’ll need to stay with a simple message, an announcement of a new board member which is likely to be more personality-led, or financial results, where only direct factual answers are going to work.

So, what happens at a session?

We start with a good briefing on exactly where you need help beforehand. We will run through what makes a good story, we’ll look at a few good and bad interviews and we’ll give you a practice interview or two for each delegate and feed back. We’ll put you on camera if required and you’ll have input from senior media professionals.

So you help people lie to the press?

You’ll probably be able to find someone who will help you do that but it won’t be us. We’ll help you cut away some of the irrelevant chatter so that your message is clear but the easiest way to ensure you’re consistent is to tell the truth and stick to it. Dishonesty actually involves a lot of covering your tracks even before you get to the ethics of not telling lies.

Right. So I’d use you instead of a PR company?

No, often it’s the PR company that brings us in. Their role is to set up the interview sessions in the first place; they’ll find the opportunities, they’ll help prep you for exactly who those interviewers are, they are invaluable. Some of them will train and prep you themselves; others will look for a specialist and that’s where we come in.

So this is like crisis communications training?

Not quite: we build crisis handling into every session, but there doesn’t have to be a crisis for you to want your media engagements to perform well for you. The best time to prepare for a crisis is significantly before it strikes!

Isn’t this going to sound really scripted?

We hate scripted interview answers. If you need to make a prepared statement we recommend you identify it as such at the outset. You’re much better off memorising a few bullet points that you need to establish and using whatever wording comes to you on the day. Scripted answers reek of insincerity.

What about podcasters? Are they different?

There is certainly overlap between podcasters and other forms of interviewer. Podcasts are mostly longer-form and more conversational than a more traditional set-up, though, so there’s a greater risk of an interview drifting. Don’t try to turn it into something it isn’t, but beware the relaxed chat that tempts you to speculate that the new CEO won’t last, or whatever! We have a dedicated podcast interview training offering.

What if I can’t make it in person?

We do a lot of virtual training, particularly when clients are international and spread across different countries. You’ll get the same practice at handling tough questioning as if we were in the room..

A client says this is the same as presentation training. Is that right?

Not really. Standing in front of a crowd and presenting to them is something we can help with but it’s not the same as sitting in front of a journalist or podcaster and staying focused. Spokespeople can get enthusiastic and chatty and accidentally make an announcement too early or name a client who was supposed to be confidential, which can cause all sorts of issues. Those risks are not associated with presentations.

…which brings us neatly back to the coffee we opened with. As mentioned above, that meeting centred around presentation training which we offer as well. If you’re not sure where your clients stand or how skilled they are in media or presentation skills, it’s worth having a look at our Spokesperson Checkup service in which we’ll spend an hour or so evaluating someone and reporting back in confidence. It’s a great starting point – speak to you soon!

Why do people use external media and presentation trainers like us, for example last week when lead trainer Guy Clapperton was joined by Paul Angell on camera duty and Martine Croxall on presenting skills in the afternoon?

Guy’s summary of what happened is here but there are a number of reasons to get outsiders to help with sessions like this. The first is that if you want a full-time current BBC presenter like Martine, you’re just not going to be able to stroll in and hire them. Likewise an award-winning documentary maker like Paul to help with your skill set. If you want their help, it’s going to be on an engagement-by-engagement basis.

The other reason is even simpler. If you’re in PR either internally or externally and the chief exec or whoever needs to hear some hard truths about their skills with the media. If you tell them and they don’t like it, you still have to see them the next day – we, on the other hand, can say what they need to hear and vanish – making your job easier!

If you want to know how else we can make life simpler for you, just get in touch.

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.