PR training run by people who still do the job
We are a working PR agency in Leeds, not a training company that used to do PR. Everything in this day comes from campaigns we ran this year, including the ones that did not land. Your team learns how coverage actually happens now, and how to handle it when the story turns.
What the day covers
Built around your brief. This is the usual shape and any part of it can take the whole day if that is where your need sits.
What journalists want in 2026
Fewer of them, more inboxes, less time. What gets opened, what gets binned, and why most press releases never had a chance.
Finding the story
Turning a product update, a survey or a hire into something a publication would actually run. Mostly this is asking better questions internally.
Writing the pitch
Subject lines, first sentences and the follow up that is not annoying. Practised on your own material during the session.
Building media relationships
How to be useful to a journalist over a year rather than a nuisance for a week.
Crisis and issues
The first hour, holding statements, who decides what, and how misinformation now spreads faster than any correction.
Measuring PR honestly
Beyond advertising value equivalent, which nobody credible defends any more. What to put in front of a board instead.
The part most PR training skips
Coverage used to be the end of the job. You landed the piece, you sent the clipping, everyone was pleased. Now a story lives on in places you do not control, and increasingly it gets summarised by an AI assistant that has decided which sources it trusts.
A correction that nobody reads does not undo a story that everybody did.
That has two practical consequences for a comms team. Getting cited by those systems matters as much as getting published, which comes down to consistency about who you are and where you appear. And when something untrue starts circulating, speed and structure beat eloquence every time.
We cover both, because it is what our own clients have been dealing with all year.
Who it is for
- In-house comms teams doing PR alongside six other things.
- Marketing teams asked to get coverage with no PR background.
- Organisations who have just had a difficult week and never want another one.
- Public sector and regulated teams who need process as much as technique.
What your team leaves with
- Three story angles from your own business, developed in the room.
- A pitch template and a media list approach that suits your sector.
- A one page crisis process with named owners and a holding statement.
- A measurement view that survives contact with a finance director.
- The slides, a workbook and a follow up a month later.
Cost and format
All prices exclude VAT. Delivered at your offices, at our Leeds studio, or remotely, at the same cost either way.
| Format | Length | People | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Half day | Three hours | Up to six | £1,200 |
| Full day | Six hours with breaks | Up to six | £1,800 |
| Additional attendees | Either format | Each beyond six | £250 |
| Crisis simulation day | Full day, scenario based | Any size, quoted | Quoted after a scoping call |
The crisis simulation is a different beast. We build a scenario around your organisation and run it in real time, which takes preparation and is priced accordingly.
Who runs the day
I am Chris Norton and I run most of these sessions myself. I founded Prohibition, the PR, social and content agency behind this site, I have worked in public relations for more than twenty years, and I have been running training since 2009. I have been a member of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations since I was a student, I write for its magazine Influence, and I sat on the CIPR committee for Yorkshire and Lincolnshire for over six years.
I co-authored Share This Too, the CIPR social media handbook. I also co-host the Embracing Marketing Mistakes podcast with my co-director Will Ockenden, which is a long run of conversations with marketers about campaigns that went wrong.
Almost nobody else selling PR training in the UK will tell you who is standing at the front. Most course pages say industry expert and leave it there. You are buying a day of your team’s time, so you should know.
The agenda, hour by hour
This is the full day. The half day is the morning plus one afternoon block. We send a brief form first and rebuild the order around your answers, so treat the timings as the shape rather than a script.
09:30, what a story actually is
Why most press releases are never going to run, and what a journalist is looking for in the first two lines. We pull apart three real releases, including one of ours that failed.
10:15, finding the angle inside your own organisation
Most teams are sitting on stories they have stopped noticing. We run the session on your business, not a case study, and leave with a list of angles worth pitching.
11:15, writing the release and the pitch
Structure, headline, quote, and the email that carries it. Everyone writes one and we edit them in the room, which is uncomfortable and effective.
12:00, building a media list that is not just a database dump
Who actually covers your sector now, how to read a journalist’s recent output, and why a list of thirty beats a list of three hundred.
13:30, media relations and the follow up
Timing, exclusives, embargoes, and how to chase without becoming the person nobody answers. Also what to do when a journalist says no.
14:15, digital PR and links
Where PR and search meet. Earning coverage that carries a link, why some coverage never will, and how to brief a campaign so it does.
15:00, crisis and the difficult day
Online crisis management is one of my specialisms. Holding statements, who speaks, escalation, and the first hour, which is the hour that decides the rest.
15:45, measurement that survives a board meeting
Beyond AVE, which nobody should still be using. Coverage quality, share of voice, referral and the honest limits of each.
16:15, the plan
Your next quarter of PR activity, written in the room, with owners and dates against it.
What our PR work has produced
We are a working agency first, so everything in the room is ours. These are three with numbers attached.
Martin House Children’s Hospice. The Build produced 219 placements and 161.4 million reach, and won the Charity and Not for Profit Award at the PRCA DARE Awards in 2026.
Astonish. 115 pieces of coverage in six months, 90 per cent of which carried a backlink. That is the digital PR session, run at scale.
Black Sheep Brewery. The Drink Cask Beer campaign won the national Digital and Social Media Award at the PRCA DARE Grand Prix in 2023, from 60 placements reaching 11 million people.
Freeths. A LinkedIn Live programme for the law firm drew 1,100 attendees and around 950 leads from one sequence.
|
|
|
Who we have trained
We have delivered PR training and campaigns for the NHS, Yorkshire Water, Transport for the North, Savills, Skipton Building Society, Interflora, Watches of Switzerland, Sealy, Emerald Publishing, Huthwaite International, ENGIE, CEWE Photoworld, Lloyds Pharmacy, WWF, Alzheimer’s Society and Terrence Higgins Trust, alongside universities, local authorities and B2B manufacturers.
Prohibition has won more than 45 industry awards, and we are part of the Worldcom Public Relations Group, which gives clients access to 110 offices across 45 countries.
What our clients say
We hold an average rating of 4.9 out of 5 from 18 verified client reviews on Clutch.
“We were impressed by their depth of knowledge in a rapidly changing environment.”
Kian Scott-Loach, Head of Digital, Terrence Higgins Trust, February 2026
“They’re a bunch of friendly people who feel like a natural extension of the marketing team.”
David Sharples, Communications Manager, Black Sheep Brewery, January 2025
“When Prohibition says they’ll do something by a certain date, they get it done.”
Marketing Manager, Feather Down Farms, May 2025
Dates, and why we do not run public courses
We do not publish a schedule of open courses. A public course has to be pitched at the average person in the room, so a third of your team is bored and a third is lost. Every session we run is private to one organisation and built on your own stories.
We can usually be with you within three weeks of agreeing a brief, and sooner for a half day. We deliver at your offices, at our Leeds studio, or remotely, and the cost is the same either way.
What it works out at per person
A full day at £1,800 for six people is £300 each, with additional attendees at £250. Accredited PR qualifications in the UK run from around £550 to well over £8,000 per person, and public one day courses sit in between. If you are training a team rather than an individual, a private day is almost always cheaper, and it is built on your press office rather than a worked example.
We are not an awarding body and we do not pretend to be. If your team needs a CIPR or PRCA qualification, go to an accredited provider. If they need to be better at the job by next month, this is the day.
Questions we get asked
Are you actually a PR agency?
Yes. Prohibition runs campaigns for clients every day and won PRCA DARE Charity Campaign of the Year in 2026. The training is a side of the business, not the whole of it.
Can you do media training with a camera?
Yes, as a separate day. Spokesperson practice on camera needs its own session and a different setup.
Do you cover crisis on social specifically?
Yes, and it is usually where the room gets loudest. For teams whose main worry is false information spreading, our AI training goes deeper.
We are a small team with no PR budget. Is this wasted on us?
Usually the opposite. Small teams get the most from it because they cannot outsource the thinking.
How many people can attend?
Six is the sweet spot and twelve is the ceiling for hands on work. For bigger groups we usually run the same day twice.
Can you invoice against a purchase order?
Yes. We are used to public sector and large corporate procurement, and we hold professional indemnity and public liability insurance.
How much does PR training cost in the UK?
A half day for up to six people is £1,200 and a full day is £1,800, both excluding VAT, with extra attendees at £250 each. That is £300 a head for a full day with six people. Accredited qualifications run from roughly £550 to over £8,000 per person.
Can you run PR training in-house for our team?
Yes, and it is the only way we run it. Every session is private to one organisation and built on your own stories, your own releases and your own media list. We deliver at your offices, at our Leeds studio, or remotely.
Is this media training for spokespeople?
No. This is PR skills training for the people doing the work: finding stories, writing releases, pitching journalists and measuring coverage. If you need spokespeople prepared for camera interviews, that is media training and a different specialism.
Do you offer a PR qualification or accreditation?
No, and we will not pretend otherwise. We are not an awarding body. Attendees get a certificate of completion and the content is mapped to CIPR CPD. If your team needs a CIPR or PRCA qualification, use an accredited provider.
Do you cover crisis communications?
Yes. Online crisis management is one of my own specialisms and it gets a full session on the day: holding statements, who speaks, escalation, and the first hour, which is the hour that decides the rest of it.
Will you work on our own press releases?
Yes. We ask for recent examples before the session, including the ones that were never picked up, and we rewrite them together in the room. That session is usually the one people remember.
Do you run PR training in London, Manchester or Leeds?
Yes. We are based in Leeds and most of our work is in Leeds, Manchester and London, but we deliver across the UK and we do not add travel to the price. Remote sessions cost the same as in person.
Can you train people who have never done PR before?
Yes, and we would rather not mix complete beginners with experienced press officers in one room. Where a team spans both, we usually split it into two shorter sessions so nobody is bored and nobody is lost.
How soon can you deliver the training?
Usually within three weeks of agreeing a brief, and often sooner for a half day. We send a short brief form first and ask for recent coverage and releases so the day is built on your material.
What happens after the training day?
Your team keeps the slides, the workbook, the templates and the quarter plan written in the room. We also answer follow up questions by email for a month, which most teams use at the first awkward decision.
Where this sits in the wider programme
PR teams usually pair this with content marketing training for the owned side, measurement training to prove it worked, or personal branding training when the story needs a human face. If the immediate risk is misinformation, start with AI training.
You can also browse all our training courses, training by sector, training by platform or formats, levels and prices. To hear how senior marketers talk about the campaigns that went wrong, there is our podcast.
Brands we have trained and worked with
Training and campaigns delivered for the NHS, universities, local authorities, charities and B2B manufacturers, alongside the brands below.
PRCA DARE Awards 2026 winners. The Charity and Not for Profit Award for The Build, our campaign for Martin House Children’s Hospice, which produced 219 placements and a reach of 161.4 million. Prohibition has won more than 45 industry awards.
What about AI in the press office?
Media research, first drafts, monitoring and crisis preparation all change with these tools, and some of them change for the worse. We cover the whole comms workflow in AI training for PR and communications teams.
Tell us who needs training
A trainer replies inside one working day with cost, dates and an honest view on fit.
