Guide
Giving evidence to a select committee
How select committees work, what the rules say about written and oral evidence, what happens on the day, and how to prepare for two hours of questions in public.
Read the guideGuides and tools
Free help for the moments that matter
Practical guides and simple tools for anyone who has to face a journalist, a select committee, a camera or a crisis. Use them on their own, or as preparation for working with us.
Guides
Guide
Preparing for a media interview
What to ask before you say yes, what broadcasters are meant to tell you, how to build messages that survive the edit, and what “off the record” really means.
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The first hours of a crisis
A communications checklist for the moment it goes wrong: the holding statement, the regulatory clocks that start ticking, and how to keep one version of the facts.
Read the guideGuide
On camera from your desk
Camera height, light, sound and background for remote interviews, podcasts and video calls. None of it needs expensive kit.
Read the guideGuide
Media and parliamentary jargon, explained
Down-the-line, doorstep, embargo, lines to take, uncorrected transcript: plain-English definitions of the words you will hear from producers, journalists and committee clerks.
Read the guideFree tools
Free tool
Interview planner
Work out your key messages, proof points and hardest questions, then print a one-page brief to take in with you. Saved in your browser as you type.
Open the toolFree tool
Soundbite timer
Paste an answer and see how long it takes to say, which sentences run long and which words are jargon. Then read it aloud against the clock.
Open the toolFree tool
Tough question drill
Fifty awkward questions from interviews, crises and committee rooms, against the clock. Answer out loud, then see what the question was trying to do.
Open the toolFree tool
Crisis readiness check
Fifteen questions across plan, people, process, channels and practice. Get a score, the gaps that matter most and what to do about each one.
Open the toolThe tools run entirely in your browser. Nothing you type is sent to us or stored anywhere else, so you can use real names and real questions.
Printable
Checklists to download
One-page PDFs to print, pin up or hand round the team. Each one goes with a guide that explains the reasoning and the sources.
From the Experience podcast
The psychology behind the headlines
On Experience, Hilary and clinical psychologist Professor Peter Kinderman take a story out of the news and work out the human behaviour underneath it. These explainers from the show are the ones we find ourselves recommending to spokespeople.
Experience explainer
The illusory truth effect
A claim you have heard before feels truer. Why repeating an allegation in order to deny it can backfire.
On experiencepodco.comExperience explainer
Motivated reasoning
People judge an argument by whether it gives the answer they wanted. Why facts alone rarely win a hostile audience round.
On experiencepodco.comExperience explainer
Confirmation bias
We notice the evidence that fits what we already believe. Worth knowing before you walk into a sceptical room.
On experiencepodco.comExperience explainer
Attribution theory
The explanations people reach for when things go wrong, and why “circumstances beyond our control” rarely lands.
On experiencepodco.comExperience explainer
Authenticity
Behaving in a way that matches what you think, so people can read you. The quality every spokesperson is judged on.
On experiencepodco.comExperience explainer
The bystander effect
The more people who could act, the less likely any one of them does. A useful lens on who owns a crisis.
On experiencepodco.comBeyond the guides
Practise it for real
A guide can tell you what an earpiece interview or a two-hour committee session is like. Rehearsing one is different. Our studio training days put you in front of real broadcast cameras with a voice in your ear, and every session is built around the questions you are actually likely to face.
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