My Dad, Tom Mangold, always said, “When I sit down in the chair opposite the interviewee, I need to know even more than they do.” That is something he did, and it’s the standard I bring to media interview preparation today.
He spent decades as an investigative journalist with BBC Panorama. Working on the kind of stories that took months, even years to produce.
I grew up watching him prepare. Files everywhere. Notes covering every surface. Questions written, rewritten, scenarios mapped out. He’d know the story better than the person who’d lived it.
It’s not about catching people out. It’s about knowing the facts.
When you know the subject as he did, the interview changes. You’re not fishing. You’re not guessing. You’re having a conversation with someone who can tell you’re not winging it.
The people I work with now, executives preparing for media interviews, spokespeople getting ready for a crisis often ask how much preparation is enough.
I tell them what I watched my father do for 40 years.
You prepare until you know it better than the journalist sitting opposite you.
Not to control the conversation. To be credible in it.
That’s the difference between someone who sounds like they’re following a script and someone who actually knows what they’re talking about.
Preparation isn’t about perfect answers.
It’s about understanding the story so well that you can have a real conversation about it.
My father knew that. It’s why journalists trusted him, and why the people he interviewed, even when the questions were difficult, respected the process.
The best interviews aren’t performances. They’re conversations between two people who’ve both done their homework.
If your spokespeople need to walk into an interview knowing the story better than the journalist does, that’s exactly what we help build. Get in touch to find out more about our media training and presentation skills sessions.
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