Most bad interviews aren’t caused by a hostile reporter. They’re caused by a spokesperson who hasn’t decided what they came to say, hasn’t anticipated the two or three questions they don’t want to answer, and hasn’t said any of it out loud before the recording started. Preparation fixes all three.
1. Should you even do the interview?
Before you prep a single answer, decide whether you should be the one giving it. Saying yes by default is how spokespeople end up defending decisions they didn’t make, in words they’re not actually authorized to use.
Say yes when the topic sits squarely inside your mandate, the facts are settled enough that you won’t have to walk anything back next week, and talking builds a relationship with a reporter you’ll deal with again. A trade reporter asking about a product you already announced is an easy yes. So is a routine explainer on a topic you handle every week.
A written statement is the safer choice when the story is moving faster than the facts, when a live answer risks getting ahead of an ongoing legal or regulatory process, or when the reporter’s angle is clearly adversarial and a tight, pre-approved quote will serve you better than anything you could improvise on the record. A statement lets you control every word that goes out under your name. An interview doesn’t.
Loop in legal or leadership before you answer — not after — whenever the likely questions touch litigation, personnel actions, financials that aren’t public yet, or anything you’d have to guess at because you genuinely don’t know the answer. “Let me confirm that and get back to you” is a perfectly good thing to say live. Guessing on the record is not, and it’s usually what turns a routine story into a correction.
Who makes the call matters as much as the call itself. In most organizations it should be the communications lead, not simply the most senior person in the room — they’re the one who actually tracks the reporter’s history, the current news cycle, and how your last on-the-record answer landed. Write down who has that authority before you need it. If nobody owns the decision, everyone assumes someone else made it, and the interview gets booked by default.
2. Research the reporter, not just the outlet
The single highest-return thing you can do is read the reporter’s last several stories. You’re looking for their beat and angle, the kinds of sources they quote, whether they favor accountability framing, and any prior coverage of your organization or sector. A reporter who has spent two years covering safety failures will ask about safety, whatever the stated topic of your interview is.
Also confirm the logistics that change your answers: outlet and audience, format (live, taped, phone, email), length, deadline, who else they’re talking to, and whether anything is on background.
For a longer walkthrough of this step, see how to research a reporter before an interview.
3. Decide your three messages before anything else
Write down the three things you want a reader to remember if they remember nothing else. Not ten. Three. Each one should be a short, plain sentence you would be comfortable seeing in a headline, supported by a concrete proof point — a number, a date, a specific action taken.
Vague claims (“we take this seriously”) are what get cut. Specifics (“we replaced the supplier in March and retested every batch”) are what get quoted.
4. Write the questions you hope they don’t ask
List every question you’d rather avoid, then answer each one out loud. This is the step people skip, and it’s the one that determines whether you sound composed or caught out. Include the obvious hostile framings, the “isn’t it true that…” constructions, and the question about the thing that happened two years ago.
For each, decide what you can say, what you genuinely can’t (and why), and how you’ll say the second one without sounding evasive. “I can’t get into personnel specifics, but here’s what I can tell you about the process” is an answer. “No comment” is a headline.
5. Written and email interviews
A reporter asking for answers by email isn’t asking for less rigor. Research the reporter, decide your three messages, and write out your hard-question answers exactly as you would for a live interview. The prep doesn’t get lighter just because the format looks lower-stakes.
What changes is precision. In writing you can choose the exact word, check a date against the record, and have someone else read the answer before it goes out. Use that room. A written answer with a fuzzy number in it is worse than a live answer with the same fuzziness — you had time to check, and it shows that you didn’t.
What you lose is the chance to clarify a misread question in the moment. If a reporter’s written question is ambiguous, don’t guess at what they meant and answer the version you wish they’d asked. Ask them to clarify, or answer the question as written and state the assumption you’re making. A live interview lets a garbled question get fixed with a follow-up. An email doesn’t — your answer is what runs, assumption and all.
Route the draft through the same review your live talking points would get — but budget real time for it, not the ten minutes you have left before the deadline. A written answer that goes out with a wrong figure is harder to explain away than a live misstatement, because there’s a timestamp proving you had the chance to catch it and didn’t.
Deadline pressure works differently too. A live interview has a hard start and end time; a written one has a due time that’s easy to treat as soft until it isn’t. Confirm the actual deadline, not the one you assumed, and don’t let a round of internal legal or leadership review quietly eat the time you needed to actually answer well.
6. Build bridges that don’t sound like dodges
Bridging is moving from a question you were asked to a message you came to deliver. Done badly it’s transparent and irritating. Done well it acknowledges the question honestly first, then adds context.
- Acknowledge, then add: “That’s a fair concern — and it’s exactly why we changed the process in March.”
- Reframe the premise when it’s wrong, calmly and immediately: “The number in that report isn’t one we recognize; here’s what our audit found.”
- Answer first. If you can simply answer the question, do it. Bridging on an easy question makes you look slippery on the hard ones.
7. Common mistakes even experienced spokespeople make
None of these are prep failures exactly. They’re habits that creep in once someone has done enough interviews to feel comfortable, and comfort is usually where the sloppiness starts. Watch for them in yourself as much as in anyone you’re coaching.
- Over-scripted answers. Memorizing a paragraph word for word makes you sound like you’re reading, because you are — just from memory instead of a page. Know your three messages cold and let the exact sentence come out a little differently each time.
- Answering the question you wish they’d asked. Bridging to your message is fine. Skipping the actual question to get there isn’t. Reporters notice, and the story becomes about the dodge instead of the topic.
- Filling silence with more talking. A pause after your answer is not an invitation to keep going. It’s often a reporter’s way of getting you to add something you hadn’t planned to say. Finish your answer, then stop talking.
- Treating the interview as over before it is. Some of the most damaging quotes on record came after someone said “great, thanks” and kept talking while the recorder was still running. Assume you’re on the record until you’ve actually left.
- Skipping the debrief because the interview went fine. “Fine” is exactly when people skip writing down what they’d change, which is why the same avoidable stumble shows up again three interviews later.
- Correcting the record too late. If you realize mid-interview that an earlier answer was wrong or incomplete, say so immediately — “actually, let me correct something I said a minute ago.” Waiting until after the interview to email a correction looks far worse than fixing it live.
8. Rehearse out loud, ideally with someone playing the reporter
Reading your notes is not practice. Saying the words is. Sentences that look fine on paper fall apart when spoken, and you only discover which ones by hearing yourself. Rehearse against an interviewer who pushes back, interrupts, and asks the follow-up.
Aim for answers of about 20–30 seconds. Long enough to be substantive, short enough that the reporter gets a clean quote instead of choosing one for you.
9. The last five minutes
- Say your three messages aloud one final time.
- Confirm ground rules, spelling of your name, and your title.
- Decide your one-sentence answer to “is there anything you’d like to add?”
- Remember that nothing is off the record unless you agreed to it in advance.
10. Debrief afterward
As soon as it ends, write down what you were actually asked, which answers landed, and which ones you’d rewrite. That record is what makes your next interview better — and it’s the part almost everyone skips.
Frequently asked questions
How long does it take to prepare for a media interview?
A routine interview on a familiar topic needs roughly 60 to 90 minutes: reporter research, three messages, and answers to the handful of questions you would rather avoid. A contentious or crisis interview needs more, and should include legal or leadership review and a live rehearsal.
Should I accept the interview or send a written statement?
Do the interview when the topic is inside your mandate, the facts are settled, and talking builds a relationship with a reporter you will deal with again. Send a statement when the story is moving faster than the facts, a live answer risks getting ahead of a legal or regulatory process, or the angle is clearly adversarial and a tight pre-approved quote serves you better.
What are the three messages and why only three?
They are the three things you want a reader to remember if they remember nothing else, each a short plain sentence backed by a specific proof point. Three is the limit because a spokesperson who tries to land ten points lands none, and reporters quote the specific sentence, not the general assurance.
How do I handle a question I can't answer?
Say what you can, name what you cannot and why, and offer to follow up. 'I can't get into personnel specifics, but here is what I can tell you about the process' is an answer. 'No comment' becomes the headline.
Is anything really off the record?
Only what you agreed was off the record before you said it, with that reporter, explicitly. Assume you are on the record from the moment you connect until you have actually left, including after someone says 'thanks, that's all.'
Doing this for a real interview? Press Prep automates this checklist: it researches the reporter, drafts your likely questions and talking points from your own documents, runs a live mock interview you can practice out loud, and scores the debrief afterward. See preparing for a TV interview or crisis interviews for format-specific advice.