Your Public Best - Lillian Brown [88]
• If the other people you are on the air with are saying much more than you, you can get the attention of the interviewer more often by silently signaling with your hand to him or her that you want to speak.
• Don’t be afraid to relax during a radio interview. You’ll come across over the airwaves as a sincere and likable person if you do. If you have to cough during a broadcast, turn away from the mike and muffle the sound in the crook of your elbow. Or ask in advance if there is a “cough button” on your mike that you can press to deaden the sound.
ATTENDING A MEDIA TRAINING SEMINAR
To further enhance your media skills, you might decide to attend a training seminar or workshop. If you do, be sure to select one that is suited to your individual needs.
Determine how the workshop will relate to your own individual goals. Study the methods used by the training staff, and find out about activities in which you will participate. Attend with an open mind, and consider the learning experience an opportunity to add skills to those you already have.
A good media training seminar that includes dealing with television reporters should have you appear on a real video camera in a variety of simulated situations. For example, you might give a short statement from a podium, participate in an interview, take part in a panel discussion, or answer hostile questions from colleagues posing as members of the press.
An “ambush interview” might be staged in which the hapless trainee is surprised outside the door by a gaggle of lights, cameras, microphones, and tape recorders, with “reporters” shouting questions that are intentionally unfair or embarrassing.
Looking at yourself on video tape reveals the often brutal truth and gives you an opportunity to really see and hear yourself as you appear to others on tape. If what you see and hear comes as a bit of a shock, remember the distortions inherent in microphones, lights, and lenses. With the instruction you receive covering basic techniques, you should be able to critique your appearance and performance dispassionately.
Ask yourself questions about your own impressions of how you looked and came across on tape. This will provide valuable insights about your public persona.
For example, was your hair sticking up in the back or coming down over your eyes, and was that all you noticed on the first viewing of the tape? Did your plaid or red tie distract you from looking at your face? Was some other detail of your appearance distracting or overpowering? Did you notice a double chin that you’ve been ignoring, and now you know it’s time to lose a few pounds? Did your facial expression look closed up, defensive, arrogant, or impatient? Did your body language or gestures express a negative message about finding yourself in that particular press situation?
Or, on the other hand, did you appear to be friendly yet in command of the situation? Did you come across as calm, fending off rude questions with a smile and a sense of humor?
What did you see that you want to improve on?
I know a spokesperson for a major business magazine who tells me that he appears frequently on TV and radio, gives quite a few lectures, and talks often to reporters. He says that he had worked to improve his public self, but that the single most important thing he had done to improve himself for the public eye was to get video-taped by a media consultant. He had thought, up until that experience, that he “looked okay” and “talked okay,” but that the tape “horrified” him because he saw all sorts of things that were wrong—his tone of voice, his fake-looking gestures, his sloppy posture, etc.
In a good seminar, you will be given an opportunity to make a second appearance on camera so that you can benefit from suggestions that have been made by your trainers and colleagues as well as what you have learned in class. You, too, will become a critic of other performers, able to understand the obstacles they have overcome.
All of your questions should be answered. Anything that you have always