Picture this. A journalist sits down with the founding partner of an architecture studio and asks a simple question: "What does this project change for the people who'll live here?"

The partner knows every detail. The structural system, the approvals process, the façade studies, the energy model. And so the answer comes: five minutes of technical terms, internal acronyms and process. When it's over, the journalist has a full notebook and no story. What was the message? What would a reader take away from that answer?

It happens all the time, and not because the expert lacks knowledge. Quite the opposite. When you live inside a subject, it's easy to forget what it looks like from the outside.

That's exactly the gap media training is designed to close. It prepares a person to represent their firm, explain complex ideas in plain terms, and respond with good judgment, even when the conversation heads somewhere unexpected.

What journalists actually need from experts

Cision's 2026 State of the Media Report, based on a survey of 1,899 journalists across 19 markets, offers a useful window into newsrooms today. Accuracy, fact-checking and fighting misinformation came out as journalists' number one challenge. Almost half also point to shrinking budgets, staff cuts and heavier workloads. And when asked what they value most in a story pitch, access to experts sits right at the top, alongside original research and embargoed information. [1]

Two more findings stand out. Two-thirds of journalists rely on content from PR teams for story ideas, yet 72% say fewer than a quarter of the pitches they receive are actually relevant to them. [1] In other words: journalists want to hear from experts, they're short on time, and they have little patience for anything they can't use.

For anyone who speaks on behalf of a firm, that creates a clear responsibility: offer information that can be understood and verified. Take an interview about a new sustainable building. Saying it's "high-performance" doesn't help much. Explaining what it does differently, how its performance is measured, and where its limits are gives the journalist something real to work with.

Preparing is also learning to listen

Good preparation starts long before the interview. It begins with understanding three things: the format (a print feature, a podcast, a live panel, a two-minute TV segment), the topic, and the audience. A design magazine reader, a real estate investor and a local radio listener want very different things from the same project.

From there, the work is about building a few clear messages, each one backed by evidence: a number, an outcome, a concrete example from a real project. Then comes practice with three kinds of questions:

• The predictable ones. What's the project about? Why does it matter? What makes your approach different?

• The uncomfortable ones. Why is the project behind schedule? What about the neighbors who opposed it? Why did costs go up?

• The ones nobody can answer yet. What will the area look like in ten years? Will this approach work everywhere?

Practicing all three makes a huge difference. The predictable questions are where your message lands. The tough ones are where trust is won or lost.

Answer first, then add context

One of the simplest habits media training teaches is also one of the most powerful: answer the question you were asked before expanding on anything else.

Say a journalist asks about a delay on a hotel opening. Responding only with how fast the brand is growing can come across as evasive, even if it's true. Explaining what happened, what's being done about it, and what still needs to be solved gives the journalist far more valuable information, and makes you far more credible.

Knowing your limits is just as important. When a figure hasn't been confirmed, say so, and explain how and when it will be verified. If the journalist gets your title wrong or mixes up two projects, correct it kindly. And above all, listen carefully. Many interviews go sideways not because of a bad answer, but because of a good answer to a question nobody asked.

Not just for interviews

These skills go well beyond press interviews. They matter on a panel at a design week, in a podcast conversation, during a site visit with international editors, or in a meeting with a potential partner. In every one of those moments, the person speaking represents decisions and commitments that others will interpret, repeat and remember.

A few questions worth asking before your next one:

• Can you explain your latest project's impact in two sentences, without technical terms?

• What are the three questions you'd least like to be asked, and how would you answer them honestly?

• Which numbers or results can you back up on the spot?

• Who is the real audience behind the person asking the questions?

In the end, that's what good communication does: it takes everything a firm knows and brings it into a conversation where people can understand it, question it and actually use it.

Sources

[1] Cision. 2026 State of the Media Report, results press release, May 13, 2026.