Most people prepare for a media interview by anticipating questions. That’s the wrong unit of preparation. The interview will edit your answer down to a fraction of what you said, regardless of the question, so the thing worth preparing is what survives the cut.
Why the cut is the whole problem
This isn’t a new pressure that arrived with social media. Researchers analysing US network evening news found that the average uninterrupted soundbite from a presidential candidate fell from 42.3 seconds in 1968 to 9.8 seconds in 1988, and by the later period, fewer than one in a hundred soundbites ran over 40 seconds, against nearly half two decades earlier (Adatto, 1990). That compression has only continued since. Whatever you say in a three-minute answer, what runs is nine to fifteen seconds of it, chosen by someone else.
Once that’s the starting assumption, the preparation changes completely. You are not trying to give a complete answer. You are trying to make sure the nine seconds that gets used is the nine seconds you intended.
What the eight lessons cover
What to decide before a journalist ever calls. The single highest-leverage lesson in the course: the preparation that happens once, before any specific interview, so you are never starting from zero under time pressure.
Message design. Building the two or three sentences you actually need reported, phrased so they are quotable on their own rather than dependent on the question that preceded them.
Bridging. The technique of moving from the question you were asked to the message you need to land. Done well, it doesn’t read as evasive; done badly, it’s the first thing a trained interviewer notices and pushes on.
The hostile question. What to do with a question built to provoke a reaction rather than extract information, without either taking the bait or looking like you’re dodging.
Format differences. Broadcast, print and podcast each edit you differently, and each rewards slightly different preparation: a print journalist can quote you at length; a broadcast producer has nine seconds.
On camera. Eye line, stillness, and the physical habits that read as confidence or its absence on screen, independent of what you’re actually saying.
What not to say. The specific phrases and structures that hand an editor a clip you didn’t intend to give them: “no comment,” speculation, and answering the question you wish you’d been asked instead of the one you were.
The mock interview. Rehearsal under real conditions: interrupted, recorded, timed, because message design that only survives in a calm room in front of no one is not ready yet.
Who this is for
Spokespeople and leaders facing broadcast, print or podcast interviews, planned or otherwise, and anyone in a regulated sector where the wrong nine seconds has real consequences. This is not a course in avoiding scrutiny; it assumes you have something honest to say and helps make sure that’s the part that gets reported.
