Most media training is sold as a day. Seven or eight executives in a room, cameras set up, a consultant walking everyone through positioning and narrative. We have sat through plenty of these and run the alternative, and the day-long format has three problems: you cannot get busy executives to give you a full day of actual attention, people do not admit what they are bad at in front of colleagues, and the trainer leaves before anyone finds out whether it worked. We do 30 to 45 minutes with each person, one at a time, and then stay for the interviews.
What is wrong with the standard format
Nobody is really in the room. Book eight executives for a day and you get eight people half-watching a screen while answering email. The value of media training is concentrated attention, and a full day is the format least likely to produce it.
People will not be honest in a group. The whole point is to find where somebody is weak — the question they cannot answer, the topic they get defensive about, the habit of filling silence. Nobody volunteers that in front of their CEO or their direct reports. One-to-one, they will tell you within five minutes.
The consultant leaves. A firm comes in, runs the day, delivers a polished session, and goes. There is no next call, no transcript, no feedback after the interview that actually happened. You cannot measure whether it worked and nobody is accountable for whether it did.
An hour of specific preparation beats a day of general preparation. Narrative and positioning work is real work, but it is not media training. Media training is somebody asking you the question you are dreading and telling you honestly how the answer landed.
What we do instead
30 to 45 minutes, one person at a time. Booked individually, over several weeks. Slower for us and more scheduling work, but it is the only format where people are genuinely present.
Their talking points, not a generic framework. We go through what this person specifically will be asked, given what they do and what the story is.
We ask the hard questions and give the feedback directly. No group observation, no performance for peers. Just: here is what you said, here is how a reporter will use it, here is what to say instead.
Then we stay. We are on the actual interview. We capture the transcript. We review how the answers landed and feed that back to the person who gave them.
That last part is the difference. Most media training has no feedback loop at all — you are trained, then at some later point you are interviewed, and nobody connects the two. Running it in-house means the person who prepared you hears how it went and tells you.
"The reporters who answer fastest are the ones we've sent something useful to before without asking for anything. That's not a tactic you can start the week you need coverage."
Kayla Haines, Media Relations, Salient PR
What actually gets covered in a session
The three questions they are dreading. We ask for these up front. The dread is information: it marks the places where somebody has not decided what they think.
One number and one story. A specific figure and a short concrete example are what survive editing. Abstractions get cut and then paraphrased, usually badly.
Answer length. Broadcast needs ten to twenty seconds. Print needs a sentence that can be lifted whole. Long answers get trimmed and you do not control where the cut lands.
Company language, removed. "Solutions", "leverage", "ecosystem". If you do not supply words a reader uses, the reporter will supply their own.
What they will not discuss, and how to say so. "I'm not going to get into that" is a complete answer. "No comment" reads as guilt.
Bridging, used at most twice. Moving from a question you do not want to a point you do is a tool, not a default. By the third bridge you sound evasive, and most training teaches it as a reflex. That is the single most common way trained spokespeople sound worse than untrained ones.
The mistakes that produce bad coverage
Answering the question you prepared for. Reporters notice instantly.
Filling silence. The pause after your answer is often deliberate. What you add to fill it is the quote.
Fighting the framing. If a question contains an error, correct it plainly and move on. Arguing with the premise becomes the story.
Assuming anything is retroactively off the record. It is off the record only if both of you agreed before it was said.
Treating a friendly reporter as a friend. They are doing a job. Warmth is not agreement.
Format-specific notes
Broadcast. Say the point first. Repeat the key phrase — only one version airs. Assume the camera is live at all times.
Print. Complete sentences, because they get quoted whole. Offer to send a figure afterwards rather than guessing.
Podcast. The highest-risk format, because ninety relaxed minutes produce material you will not remember saying. Also the format where genuine expertise lands best, and substantially easier to book than most people assume — across 143 podcast responses we tracked, 60 moved toward a booking and only 24 were flat declines.
"Of 143 podcast responses we tracked, 60 moved toward a booking and only 24 were flat declines. Podcasts are the most under-used channel in B2B because everyone assumes they're harder to land than press. They're easier."
Kayla Haines, Media Relations, Salient PR
Who needs it
Anyone who will be quoted. Usually the CEO, whoever runs the technical function, and a customer-facing leader.
The person who most needs it is reliably the one most confident they do not. Being fluent in front of employees does not transfer, because employees do not ask follow-up questions.
How to tell whether it worked
This is the question almost nobody asks, and it is the reason to run training inside the programme rather than buying it as a one-off.
Did they get asked the question they were dreading, and how did the answer read?
Did the quote that ran match the point they intended to make?
Did the reporter come back to them again? Being asked a second time is the strongest signal a spokesperson is genuinely useful.
If your training provider cannot answer these, they were never in a position to. That is the argument for a feedback loop over a workshop.
Does AI search change media training?
One practical consequence: your quotes outlive the article.
A well-phrased, self-contained quote in a credible publication now feeds what AI systems say about your company. A peer-reviewed study of generative-engine optimisation (KDD 2024) found that adding direct quotations, statistics and cited sources measurably improved how often a page was surfaced in generative answers — by up to 40% on the authors' benchmark, with the size of the effect varying by subject area. A poorly-phrased answer gets repeated for years by summaries rather than disappearing with the news cycle.
The adjustment is small: give one clean sentence that states your position in full, without needing the question for context. It survives editing, and it is what gets repeated.
The short version
- The full-day group session is the wrong format. Nobody is really in the room.
- People will not admit what they are bad at in front of colleagues. One-to-one, they will.
- 30 to 45 minutes each, individually, beats a day in a group.
- Bridging is a tool, not a default. Three bridges and you sound evasive.
- Have one number and one story. Abstractions get cut.
- The trainer should still be there for the interview. Otherwise nobody knows if it worked.
- Podcasts are easier to book than press: 60 of 143 responses moved toward a booking.
Salient PR runs media training inside our earned media programmes rather than as a standalone workshop, one spokesperson at a time, with the same team on the interviews afterwards. Outreach figures come from our own database covering December 2025 to August 2026.
Sources
- Salient PR podcast outreach tracking, 143 responses
- Salient PR outreach database, Dec 2025 – Aug 2026
- Aggarwal et al., GEO: Generative Engine Optimization, KDD
If you have a spokesperson who needs preparing — Salient PR is a technology PR agency working with technology companies. See how we work or start a conversation.
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Why the full-day group media training session is the wrong format, what to do instead, and how to tell whether it worked.
