Media training is where you pit your wits against the trainer – or, if it’s expensive enough, against a journalist moonlighting from her day job with a major media outlet – who’s asking you difficult questions about your business, brand or organisation.

All in a safe environment, captured on tape, and then reviewed to identify areas of improvement.

You’ll then be furnished with hints and tips and tools to help you improve your performance. If you’re lucky, you’ll get a second go at it, so you can put some of the stuff you learned into practice.

Nothing too threatening, of course, just a taster of what it might be like – leaving you with the reassuring feeling that, if media engagement were to come your way, you’d be better prepared.

It is, however, just the tip of the iceberg.

A good media training session should, of course, include what we’ll call ‘live fire’ exercises. You should get the practice in and – as far as we’re concerned, anyway – it should be difficult.

It should be uncomfortable. It should instil a healthy respect.

Above all, it should demonstrate the importance of the rest of the session’s content.

Acting as a spokesperson, and being prepared to do so, is not an end in itself. Arguably, there’s no real need for spokespeople, trained or otherwise.

The only time that spokespeople are needed is when there is something to say.

A story to be told. Messages to be communicated. A position to be detailed. An issue or incident to be clarified. An audience to be influenced.

This, then, is the other two-thirds of a good media training session.

• What makes a story
• What do the media want to hear
• Who’s your audience
• What are your messages
• What do you want to achieve

To be familiar with all of this is to be familiar with how media relations works, allowing you to be more targeted, to achieve against your objectives, to make the most of each and every opportunity and – above all – to make the best use of your time.

Interview technique is extremely important.

However, you can be the best, most effective interviewee in the world – but if you don’t know why you’re doing it, how it works and what you want to achieve, then you might as well not bother.

Get in touch if you’d like to be an effective spokesperson as well as a good one.