To ambush or not to ambush?

Posted by Kate Betts on 4th July 2026

I’m off to run training in a couple of days where I will start by sticking a camera in the participants’ faces and hurling a load of questions at them.

It is something I very rarely do… but this group have had loads of media training and are gearing up for a big event, so I want them to be on their toes and ready in case they do get ambushed by the media.

I know some media trainers always love to start with the ambush. Only last week I had someone in a workshop who said all he could remember from previous media training was being scared witless at the start and then not learning anything for the rest of the day.

And there is the issue. If someone has gone into fight or flight mode, their brain is functioning at a basic level. The amygdala and hypothalamus have taken over; the thinking part of the brain is pretty much shut down, and processes like decision-making and problem-solving are impaired. So learning is almost impossible.

Media training, like any training, is about the participants learning; not the trainer looking clever.

I want people to leave the sessions armed with techniques that work out there in the real world to help them deal with interviews the best they can. And if that’s all they remember from the session (oh yes, and that it was fun!) I will be one happy trainer.