What is media training?

Media training prepares a spokesperson to handle questions from journalists under pressure — staying on message, bridging back to the point they came to make, and avoiding answers that create legal or reputational risk. Traditionally it is delivered as a half-day workshop. The limitation is that it happens once, on a date that rarely coincides with the interview that actually matters.

How does AI media training work?

Intorian generates a Q&A set for the issue at hand, then turns it into a live voice interview. The spokesperson opens a link on their phone and is interviewed by an AI interviewer that asks the questions aloud, listens to the answers and follows up. Afterwards the transcript is assessed and returned as a written coaching report with scored dimensions.

Can a spokesperson practise a hostile interview?

Yes. The interviewer runs in four styles — friendly, neutral, hostile and broadcast — at three difficulty levels. Hostile mode interrupts, presses on evasions and returns to the question that was not answered, which is the specific pressure most spokespeople have never rehearsed under.

How is this different from hiring a media trainer?

It is not a replacement for a good trainer; it removes the scheduling constraint. A session can be created and completed the evening before an interview, repeated as often as needed, and run for every spokesperson rather than only the most senior one. The written report gives the communications lead a record of how each person actually performed.

Is the training linked to the rest of the communications workflow?

Yes. The interview is built from the same Q&A preparation used for the briefing pack, and sits alongside talking points, crisis playbooks, adversarial analysis and pre-publication compliance review — so rehearsal, the line to take and the published statement all come from one place.

Rehearse it
first.

Media training that runs at eleven at night, from a phone, the evening before the interview that matters.

Live interviewer · Real pressure · Scored afterwards

The gap

Your spokesperson has read the brief. They have never said it out loud.

Preparation usually ends with a document. Then someone who has never been interrupted mid-sentence walks into a studio and is interrupted mid-sentence. The gap between knowing the line and delivering it under pressure is where reputations are lost — and it only closes with practice.

Read

a briefing pack absorbed alone, silently, days in advance

Rehearsed

answers spoken aloud, under interruption, against the clock

Reviewed

what actually came out of their mouth, scored and returned

How it works

Three steps. No diary required.

Media training normally means finding a date everyone can make. This does not. You create the session, they complete it whenever they can, and the assessment is waiting for you both.

01

Prepare

Build the Q&A set for the issue at hand, then choose the interview style and difficulty.

02

Rehearse

Send a link. They speak to a live interviewer from any phone — no install, no scheduling.

03

Review

The transcript is assessed and returned as a scored coaching report you can both read.

The interviewer

Four interviewers. Choose your weather.

It asks the questions aloud, listens to the answer, and follows up on what it hears. Pick the temperature to match the interview your spokesperson is actually walking into — then raise it.

01

Friendly

The trade-press interview. Warm, curious, unhurried — where an unprepared spokesperson still talks themselves into a headline.

02

Neutral

The straight news interview. Fair questions, no agenda, no help either — the honest baseline for whether the message lands.

03

Hostile

Interrupts. Presses on the evasion. Returns to the question that was not answered — the pressure most spokespeople have never rehearsed under.

04

Broadcast

Live-radio cadence and hard time limits, where a forty-second answer is thirty seconds too long.

What comes back

The bit that doesn't flatter anyone.

A transcript on its own tells you what was said. The report tells you how it would have read on air — where the answer wandered, where the bridge failed, and which question to run again.

Transcript · extractHostile · hard

Interviewer

Your own report flagged this eight months ago. Why is it only being dealt with now?

Spokesperson

I think it's important to recognise the significant progress we've made across the wider programme, and the context in which the team was operating at the time…

Interviewer

That isn't what I asked. Eight months. Why now?

Spokesperson

The finding was escalated in March and the remediation work began in April. It took longer than it should have, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise.

Coaching report68 / 100

Message discipline6/10

Handling pressure7/10

Clarity & concision5/10

Credibility8/10

The first answer reached for context before it answered the question — a bridge with no acknowledgement — which is what invited the follow-up. The second answer was the right one — it conceded the delay plainly and moved on. Lead with it next time.

Illustrative extract · not a real session

The war room

Rehearsal is one wall of a bigger room.

A mock interview in isolation is a training exercise. Wired into the machinery that produces the line, tests it and clears it, the same rehearsal becomes preparation for the specific thing about to happen to you.

01

Q&A Prep & Talking Points

The questions the interview is built from — and the agreed line to take, so every spokesperson says the same thing.

02

Crisis Playbooks & Simulation

Run the scenario before it runs you: the sequence, the holding statement, and who says what.

03

Adversarial & Defamation Analysis

Find the attack line an opponent would use, and the legal exposure in a draft, while there is still time to change it.

04

Press Code & Broadcast Compliance

Measure coverage against the Press Code and broadcast regulations — grounds for a complaint, or your defence against one.

The craft, written down.

Practical guides on preparing spokespeople — the question map, the technique that collapses under pressure, and what changes between formats.

7 min What media training is — and what it actually changes What a session covers, what it improves, and what it cannot fix. 9 min 30 questions every spokesperson should rehearse The question map across six categories, including the uncomfortable ones. 8 min Preparing a spokesperson for a hostile interview Hostility is refusal, not aggression — and how to drill for it. 8 min Bridging, flagging and blocking Answering the question you weren't asked, and the four ways it fails. 7 min Broadcast, print or podcast Why the same answer succeeds in one format and fails in another.

All guides →

Speed without dilution

Put a spokesperson through it.

The most useful demonstration is your own issue, your own spokesperson, one hostile interview. Tell us who and what, and we'll set it up.

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Thank you — we'll be in touch within one business day.

Rehearse itfirst.