Why Municipal Leaders Lose Sleep Before Media Interviews
A senior municipal leader in Alberta didn't sleep the night before a scheduled television interview. When the segment fell through, the relief was palpable. And the interview would have gone fine. He knew the file. He had good instincts. None of that mattered at 2 a.m.
We hear versions of this story from municipalities across the province. It usually has little to do with competence. The anxiety lives in the space between knowing your file and knowing how to perform under a camera.
The Training Gap Nobody Talks About
New councils in Alberta go through orientation. They learn about governance and codes of conduct. Media training isn't typically part of that provincial process. Some municipalities invest in formal media preparation on their own, and we've been brought in to help facilitate those sessions. We do the same for private businesses and organizations facing public-facing communications challenges. But many municipalities don't invest in this preparation, and the gap shows up when it matters most.
Elected officials are expected to represent their municipality publicly from day one. They'll face cameras and reporters in environments they didn't choose, on timelines they don't control. For municipalities that haven't invested in formal preparation, the learning curve is steep and public.
The result is predictable. Some municipalities develop a good working relationship with a local reporter who sends questions in advance and checks quotes before publishing. That's a gift when it happens. It is also not how most media encounters work.
When the stakes rise suddenly, the gap becomes obvious. A provincial policy that drops into your lap on a Friday afternoon, or an issue that puts your municipality in the provincial spotlight overnight. These situations come with a camera crew in the lobby and a deadline measured in hours.
Why the Anxiety Is Rational
The discomfort that municipal leaders feel before media interviews often comes from pattern recognition. They've watched enough interviews go sideways to know the stakes.
And the stakes differ depending on which side of the municipal table you sit on.
Elected officials typically own the "why." They speak to vision and the rationale behind decisions. A reeve who faces a camera is speaking on behalf of every ratepayer in the municipality. That's a weight that lands differently than briefing a committee room.
Administration typically owns the "how." The CAO and operational leads speak to process and timelines. They explain what is being done and when. Their job is to stay in the factual lane. A reporter asking a CAO whether a policy was the right decision is generally asking a question that belongs to council. Knowing where that line sits, and being able to hold it under pressure, is a skill that doesn't come naturally to most people.
Those boundaries are easier to maintain in municipalities with large enough staff to enforce them. In a smaller operation, the CAO and the reeve may be fielding calls from the same reporter on the same afternoon. Someone fills in as spokesperson on short notice because the primary contact is unavailable. The person answering the reporter's call may also be the person who was reviewing a gravel contract that morning.
Most municipalities of 15 or 20 staff don't have a communications team standing by to draft talking points and prep spokespeople. The preparation, when it happens, is ad hoc.
What Actually Helps
Media training works when it addresses both sides of the problem. We think of it as thought and theater.
Thought is the strategic side. It's understanding what a reporter is actually looking for and knowing how to bridge from their question back to what you came to say. We've seen municipal leaders start preparing for interviews differently once they learn this. The dread usually drops.
Theater is the performance side. You are playing a role on behalf of your organization, delivering lines that represent collective decisions. There are physical skills involved. Where to look and how to hold yourself when a tough question lands. These skills respond well to practice, like any other professional skill.
A spokesperson needs both clear messages and the composure to deliver them on camera.
The Real Measure of Success
When we talk with municipalities about what success looks like after media training, two things come up consistently.
The first is reduced anxiety. People want to stop losing sleep. They want to feel prepared enough that an interview request doesn't trigger dread. That's achievable. It requires having a framework that gives you confidence in what you're going to say and how you're going to say it.
The second is message consistency across both sides of the table. The reeve and the CAO will answer different questions. They should. But the underlying message about the municipality's direction and priorities should be coherent. When a reporter hears the reeve explain the "why" and then calls the CAO for the "how," those two conversations should feel like they came from the same organization. In our experience, that alignment rarely happens on its own. It develops when both groups train together and hear what the other side will be saying publicly.
A Proactive Investment
More often than not, municipalities reach out about media training after something goes sideways. An interview that felt like it got away from them, or a quote that read differently in print than it sounded in the moment.
The municipalities that get ahead of it recognize a pattern: they've been fortunate so far, and they'd rather be ready when the call comes than scrambling to catch up.
Customized training is where the value lives. A session built around your actual media environment and the scenarios your spokespeople face lands with weight because it mirrors what they'll encounter on the job. A discovery conversation before any training happens means the session reflects your council dynamics and the media encounters that actually show up in your community.
reVerb Communications provides media training for municipalities, government agencies and private businesses across Alberta. Our training is led by Glenn Kubish, former Director of News and Public Affairs at CTV Edmonton. Sessions are customized based on discovery conversations with your team. Contact us to start that conversation.
