4 Science-Backed Insights for Better CEO Media Interviews

For CEOs, media interviews have always carried weight. They shape how investors assess risk, how customers judge credibility, how employees interpret leadership, and how regulators and policymakers infer intent. A strong interview can reinforce strategy and confidence; a weak one can introduce doubt that lingers well beyond the moment it was delivered.

Even before the rise of artificial intelligence, media interviews already had a long shelf life. Search engines ensured that interviews published by reputable outlets remained discoverable for years, shaping how companies and leaders were perceived long after the original news cycle had passed.

That durability has now been significantly amplified by the way large language models work. Large language models ingest, summarize, and retrieve media interviews as part of their training and response-generation processes. They do not simply surface the most recent quote. Instead, they extract recurring themes, dominant frames, and consistent patterns from authoritative sources. As a result, what a CEO says in media interviews increasingly informs how AI systems describe that leader, the company, and even the industry.

Media interviews are therefore no longer just moments of visibility. They are inputs into long-term reputation systems, both human and algorithmic. That makes getting them right more consequential than ever. This persistence also raises the bar for media training: interview performance can no longer rely on instinct or experience alone, but must incorporate what behavioral science tells us about how messages are processed, remembered, and judged.

Behavioral science offers extensive insight into how people interpret, remember, and evaluate leadership communication. What follows is not an exhaustive account, but a small selection of well-established findings drawn from a much larger body of behavioral science, chosen because they are especially relevant to how CEOs perform in media interviews.

1. Select the Right Frame: Motivating vs. Alerting

Every media interview operates within a frame. Framing theory shows that frames shape how people interpret information before they evaluate facts. In behavioral terms, frames guide attention, determine relevance, and influence emotional response.

Positive and negative frames serve different psychological functions.

Positive frames are primarily used to motivate people. They help audiences understand direction, opportunity, progress, and purpose. Positive framing is effective when a CEO’s objective is to build confidence, reinforce long-term strategy, or mobilize stakeholders around a shared vision.

Negative frames serve a different function. They alert people. Behavioral science shows that negative information heightens vigilance and sensitivity to potential risk. Alerting frames are warranted when leaders need to signal seriousness, accountability, or the need for corrective action, such as during crises, failures, or periods of heightened scrutiny.

Problems arise when leaders select the wrong type of frame for their objective. Using an alerting frame when the goal is motivation can undermine confidence and amplify perceptions of instability. Using a motivational frame when alertness is required can erode credibility and create cognitive dissonance for the audience.

Because frames influence how all subsequent information is processed, choosing the wrong frame can cause CEOs to miss their communication objectives entirely, even when their facts are correct. Effective leaders therefore decide in advance whether the interview requires motivation or alertness and frame their answers accordingly.

2. Avoid Talking Negatively About Competitors

Many CEOs underestimate the behavioral consequences of speaking negatively about competitors. One reason this backfires is a phenomenon known in psychology as trait transfer.

Trait transfer refers to the tendency for characteristics mentioned in close association with a person or entity to be unconsciously transferred to the speaker. When a CEO describes a competitor as reckless, unethical, or incompetent, audiences do not simply attach those traits to the competitor. They partially attach them to the CEO as well.

Behavioral studies show that people remember traits more readily than context or attribution. Over time, repeated negativity reflects back on the source, even when the criticism is factually accurate.

There is also a leadership signal at play. From a behavioral perspective, leaders who speak negatively about others are more likely to be perceived as reactive rather than composed. This weakens impressions of authority and control, qualities audiences expect from CEOs.

This does not mean competitors should never be mentioned. Differences can be articulated, but factually and without judgment. Strong CEOs define their organization by its own choices and outcomes, not by disparaging others.

3. Do Not Use Other Companies as a Narrative Crutch

Even when CEOs avoid overt criticism, many still rely on other companies as explanatory shortcuts such as calling themselves the Tesla of a category or the Amazon of a sector. While such comparisons may feel helpful, behavioral science suggests they carry hidden risks.

Using other companies as reference points turns them into a crutch. The CEO’s narrative becomes dependent on another brand’s reputation remaining stable.

From a behavioral standpoint, this is problematic because brand meaning is not fixed. Public perception is shaped by social context, emotion, and identity, all of which can shift rapidly. The reputational liability faced by organizations that once positioned themselves as the Tesla of something amid increasingly divisive American politics illustrates how quickly borrowed meaning can become a burden.

When the reference brand’s reputation changes, the meaning the CEO borrowed collapses with it, often in ways that are outside the CEO’s control.

Behavioral research on persuasion also shows that self-defined narratives are more durable and easier to recall than comparative ones. Audiences understand organizations best when their story stands on its own. The strongest CEO interviews are often notable for how little other companies feature at all.

4. Limit Key Messages: The 3–5 Rule

Even well-framed interviews fail when CEOs try to communicate too much.

Behavioral science has long established that human working memory is limited. When information is novel and cognitively demanding, as media interviews are, people can reliably process only a small number of ideas at once.

In practice, this translates into a practical upper limit of three to five key messages. Beyond that, cognitive overload sets in and retention drops sharply. Messages begin to compete rather than reinforce one another.

Effective CEOs therefore start by defining a single communication objective. This objective pertains to what at least one stakeholder group should know, feel, or do as a result of the interview. Key messages are then deliberately shaped to serve that objective.

When leaders attempt to pursue multiple objectives simultaneously, such as reassuring investors, motivating employees, countering critics, and explaining strategy, the result is message dilution. Too many messages effectively mean no message at all.

This is not about oversimplification. It is about aligning communication with how people actually process information.

Why This Matters More Than Ever 

Because media interviews now shape both human judgment and machine retrieval, clarity, consistency, and discipline compound over time. Large language models privilege authoritative sources, repeated frames, and coherent narratives.

CEOs who understand even a fraction of the behavioral science behind framing, trait transfer, narrative dependence, and cognitive limits are better equipped to use media interviews as strategic leadership tools.

In an environment where reputation is increasingly persistent and cumulative, mastering the science of media interviews is no longer optional. It is a core leadership responsibility.

Written by Jo Detavernier.