Three tips for more human media statements (with a dash of secret sauce)

Ryan Tippet | November 27, 2025

When an organisation wants to send a ‘safe’ media statement, they can often sound vague, robotic, and defensive.

These kinds of statements can be a turn-off for readers. Over time, they erode trust. And, often, such a defensive approach misses the chance to show personality and humanity.

In today’s blog, we look at how three plain language rules can put media statements on the front foot — and how a secret fourth ingredient can turn them into opportunities.

We’ll also check how well AI tools like ChatGPT go when asked to provide comment for a news story. Can AI sound more human than real examples we’ve ripped from the headlines?

Unfiltered opinions drown out safe statements

Picture this: an angry ratepayer calls up his newspaper and demands to speak to a journalist. He unloads 10 minutes of unfiltered commentary about the local council’s maintenance of a walking track after wet weather.

As she listens, the journalist jots down a draft headline.

‘Complete and utter muppets’: Council slammed over track mismanagement

Having endured the man’s rant, she asks the council for their comment by the end of the day. Here’s what she gets back in an email from a spokesperson:

While challenges with track maintenance have been noted, they are being addressed with a comprehensive recalibration of Council’s operational framework.

When the story is published, how will ‘recalibration of Council’s operational framework’ stack up against ‘complete and utter muppets’?

Robotic comments miss an opportunity

A media request is a chance to say something substantial, create a human connection with readers, and contend for prominent column inches in the newspaper.

But when media push them for comment, organisations often elect to play defence. That’s understandable. They may be facing difficult questions or sensitive topics. Public sector organisations walk a tonal tightrope just to stay neutral.

By using many words to say very little, organisations can appear responsive and transparent — while avoiding the jeopardy of more frank comments.

However, this tactic has a downside: journalists and readers alike see straight through it. If a media statement stinks of PR hand-waving, editors will just stick it at the end of the news story. This lessens the statement’s impact, and allows other voices to set the story’s tone.

Use three rules to transform defensive statements

Using plain language to turn bureaucratic waffle into more human statements can put an organisation back on the front foot. Done well, this can turn a challenging news story into an opportunity to connect with readers.

To do this, let’s look at the common elements of defensive media statements. Then, let’s invert those elements with plain language. Now we’ve identified three rules to transform defensive statements.

Using these plain language rules, here’s how we might revise the council’s statement from earlier:

We’re aware of the current challenges at our walking tracks, and we have a plan to fix them. Our operations overhaul will free up resources to focus on managing local tracks.

Then add a splash of colour to go further

To take this transformation a step further, we’ll deploy our secret weapon: the careful use of extra colour in our statement.

By ‘colour’, we mean informal or idiomatic language that paints a picture. For example, think about ‘complete and utter muppets’ in the draft headline from earlier. The most interesting statements will earn a more prominent place in the article. And that can have a big impact on how readers interpret the story.

Here’s our council’s statement again — now with a fresh injection of colour.

We’re aware our walking tracks have become a little unkempt after recent bad weather. But rest assured: the days of muddy treks are numbered. Our operations overhaul will free up more resources to focus on managing local tracks.

With this statement in hand, the journalist might pen a new headline, reframing the story from ‘grumpy ratepayer’ to ‘proactive council’.

‘Muddy treks’ days are numbered’: Council’s plan to fix ‘unkempt’ trails

Let’s apply these steps to real examples from the news

Now, let’s look at a few real media statements picked from news stories here in Aotearoa.

With our three rules, we’ll turn these robotic statements into more human ones. Then, we’ll inject some colour for prominence and personality.

How well does AI craft ‘human’ statements?

According to Muck Rack, three-quarters of public relations pros use AI tools like ChatGPT in some part of their work.

That means there’s a real — and growing — chance that media statements in your local paper are AI-generated.

Let’s see how good AI is at sounding human. We fed the scenario from the start of this blog into three Large Language Models (LLMs) and asked them to write a media statement. We didn’t give them any extra advice on tone or style, and we trimmed out the nice fluffy stuff about ‘understanding frustrations’.

Here’s how they went.

ChatGPT:

The recent weather events have indeed posed significant challenges, but we are actively reallocating our resources to expedite necessary repairs and improvements.

Gemini:

We are finalising a project to reallocate our operational resources, which will free up dedicated crews to begin comprehensive repair work on the tracks very soon.

Claude:

We’ve recently restructured our operations team, which will enable us to dedicate more resources to track maintenance in the coming weeks.

These are slightly better than the example we started with. They use active sentences (though they could be shorter). They use slightly more straightforward words. And they all use personal pronouns.

But the long sentences and formal word choice still sound distant, and a tad defensive.

When we asked them to add colour to their statements, the LLMs went a bit overboard.

ChatGPT called the recent weather:

‘a spanner in the works’, stressed that staff were ‘not sitting on our hands’, and described the tracks as needing ‘TLC’.

Gemini said tracks had taken:

‘a real battering’ and the council was ‘gutted’, but staff were ‘rejigging’ operations.

Claude called the weather an:

‘absolute hammering’ and said ‘muppets’ was probably ‘the polite version of what people are thinking’.

So, while a little tinkering can go a long way, there’s no substitute for human judgement of just what sounds ‘human’. It may be too soon to hook your media enquiries inbox directly up to an LLM — for now.

Plain language is key to getting your point across

Adopting plain language principles can help you and your organisation connect with readers and get your point across clearly. That’s true of media statements, website copy, annual reports — whatever it is you write for your customers or constituents.

To learn more about applying plain language in professional contexts, check out our Business Writing Essentials workshop

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