Before you say yes to a media interview: the questions to ask first

By Hilary Jeffs, founder of Jawsmith Training · 28 September 2026

Guest post. Hilary delivers the media training days at our studio, and records Experience in our podcast studio. We also build and run the Jawsmith website.

It's always about what you say first and how you deliver it second. Jawsmith has worked to that since I started it in 2006, and it applies most of all to the moment a journalist rings and asks whether you'd be willing to talk. That short call is where a lot of interviews are won or lost.

Seven questions before you agree to anything

You are entitled to know what you're walking into. Before you say yes, ask:

1. Which programme or publication, and who is the audience? A trade podcast and a national phone-in need different answers to the same question.
2. What's the story, and why me? If they can't say why they want you specifically, you may be filling a slot rather than contributing to a piece.
3. Live or recorded, and where? In a studio, down the line from somewhere else, over a video call, or a reporter at your door.
4. How long, and when will it go out? Four minutes live at breakfast is a different job from a forty-minute recorded conversation cut to thirty seconds.
5. Who else is taking part? A lone interview and a debate with a critic are prepared for differently.
6. What areas will the questions cover? You won't get the questions. You should get the territory.
7. What's your deadline? This buys you time. Agree a time to call back, then use the gap to prepare.

None of this is awkward to ask. Producers ask their own guests the same things every day.

What a broadcaster should already be telling you

UK broadcasters work to the Ofcom Broadcasting Code, and its fairness section sets out what contributors should normally be told so that they give what the Code calls informed consent. That includes the nature and purpose of the programme, what kind of contribution you're expected to make (live or pre-recorded, an interview or a discussion), the areas of questioning, and wherever possible the nature of other likely contributions. If a broadcaster is vague on those points, you are within your rights to ask again.

It's also worth knowing that the BBC tells contributors their contribution may be reused, and may be available indefinitely and globally. Assume anything you say on air will outlive the programme.

Build messages that survive the edit

Decide on three messages before you speak to anyone. Then give each one a proof point: a fact, an example or a short story.

A message on its own sounds like an assertion. A message with a proof point sounds like knowledge.

Numbers work harder as pictures. "We've cut waiting times by 40%" is accurate and forgettable. "A family who waited ten weeks last spring would now be seen in six" is the same fact in a form someone can repeat to their partner that evening.

Then find the one sentence you would most like to see quoted, and make sure you say it.

Write for the clip

A recorded interview is a quarry, and the editor will take a few seconds of it. Broadcast soundbites average somewhere between nine and twelve and a half seconds, roughly 25 to 40 words. The practical test is simple: could any one sentence of your answer be cut out and still make your point? If every sentence leans on the one before it, the editor will choose a sentence that doesn't say what you meant.

Rehearse the question you're dreading

Everyone has one. Write it down, along with the four or five others like it, and answer each one out loud. Then do it again. Out loud matters: an answer that reads well in your head often runs out of road halfway through the second sentence.

Learn to spot the shapes difficult questions come in. The hypothetical ("what if it happens again?"), the false choice ("is it incompetence or a cover-up?"), the loaded premise, the demand for a guarantee, and the request for a one-word answer. Each one has a way through, and none of them requires you to accept the question as asked.

On bridging to your message, one rule: answer first, then bridge. If you cannot answer, say why. Audiences can hear a dodge from a long way off, and so can the presenter.

On the record, off the record

These phrases sound precise, and they are not. Different journalists use them to mean different things. The safe approach is that you are on the record unless you have explicitly agreed otherwise, with that journalist, before the conversation started. Saying "that's off the record" after the sentence has left your mouth doesn't make it so.

Practise where it feels real

Most of this can be prepared at a desk. The part that can't is how it feels when the red light comes on, the presenter is in your ear on a slight delay, and the question you dreaded arrives. That is why I run my studio training days somewhere with a proper earpiece, cameras and playback, so the first time a client hears a producer counting them in is a rehearsal and not the real thing.

If you have an interview coming up, start with the seven questions. Then practise the answer you least want to give, out loud, until it stops frightening you.

From Granary: Hilary's media training days run at the barn with a real talkback rig, three cameras and playback on the wall screen. Hearing the producer in your ear explains why the earpiece matters, and interview formats explained covers live, as-live, pre-recorded and down-the-line.

Sources

• Jawsmith, Media interview guide, checked 28 September 2026
• Ofcom, The Broadcasting Code, Section Seven: Fairness, checked 28 September 2026

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The picture at the top of this article is an illustration generated to show the set-up. It is not a photograph of a client or of a real job.