I was out last week with two BBC documentary producers and a Channel 4 camerawoman, and we were talking about what makes a good interview.

All three of my dining partners were dismayed that, the day before, I had been at a mental health charity training its staff on how to give good broadcast interviews.

"Don't train them!" said one BBC producer. "We much prefer the conversation to be natural; it makes for better radio."

"It's horrible when someone comes to an interview, already knowing what they want to say," said another. "The listener isn't served that way."

It's a mantra in good media relations -often parroted by myself- that charity communications staff should work hard to give journalists exactly what they want. Meet their deadlines, give them the information they need, give them something to film, put up your best spokesperson, and smile sweetly even if they fail to name check your organisation - again. After all, the journo isn't going to bend over backwards for you.

I wonder whether that applies to not doing interview training?

I think good charity media interviews are, at least in part, about preparing your key messages, and then ensuring you get at least some of those messages across in the interview. That approach, say broadcast journalists, makes the interview stagnant and boring.

My response is that we're just doing our job. A broadcast journalist's commitment is to listeners or viewers, to make the most informative and entertaining programme they can.

A charity communicator's job is different: to get OUR message across in the most effective way possible.

Sometimes that coincides with the journalist's aim. Sometimes journalists give us sufficient air time to really debate and develop the issues with the audience.

But more often they want pithy and short sound bites, or they give us 10 seconds to sum up our issue. With that much room to manoeuvre, we have to get our issue across in the space we've been given: and that means key messaging.

It's our job to get those key messages across, even if it does make cruddy radio.

PS. The BBC does have some fantastic resources - aimed at its own journalists - that are particularly useful for charity communicators.

BBC Training and Development
Free online courses, aimed at the BBC's journalists but just as useful for us. Find out how THEY train to ask the questions in interviews, or what THEY learn about good camera angles.

BBC Producers Guidelines
So revealing my journalist friends said it shouldn't be made available to the likes of us. Find out how BBC journalists are obliged to tell both sides of the story, how they have to give your issue fair treatment, how they should treat contributors and more.

BBC Style Guide
So is it 'the Government', or just 'Government', or even 'government'? The BBC Style Guide is your ultimate resource for checking spelling, clichés, that you've got collective nouns right, that you're avoiding jargon and also avoiding those wonderful superlatives. There's no better free download to print off and use on a daily basis.

Gideon Burrows is editor of ngo.media, a copywriting agency for charities