I may have been worked up about my first voice report, but that wasn’t nearly as scary as my first live newscast about 50 minutes ago.
We get into the room, sit down and rehearse a little bit. The tech comes in, gives me a run-down on what’s going on–around 5pm he’ll get a 30 warning from the station, he’ll warn us, then we’ll hear the sign on music, and we’ll be good to go.
A couple minutes before 5pm I see him get up and rush over to our side. “25 seconds” he warns up. Uh…what? Now? Already? I thought I was going to get more warning! And I’m the one speaking first, meaning I can’t sit back and let my partner handle it. I put on my headphones, hear the music, “Good evening, I’m Jayn Newell…”
My heart was beating so hard during the first story that it’s a wonder I managed to get through it. During the second story I tried to calm myself down a little bit, but my mic was still on so I was afraid to try breathing exercises. The forth story was a voicer, and at that point I actually got a chance to really calm down. I was rushing through parts of some stories, but I would notice and remind myself to slow down again.
I have another one to do next Friday. Hopefully, that’ll go fine and not scare me half to death right before going to air.
I was called upon to participate a few broadcasts on TV and radio through a previous job. The very first one I ever did was a radio phone-in programme on the BBC’s local station for Manchester in 1994: the presenter fielded phone calls from about local rail services and I chipped in every now and then with my (ahem!) “expert opinion”. One of the callers was someone I had written to a few days earlier, so I knew exactly what he was on about! Surprisingly, I didn’t find it nerve-wracking at all, especially because it was just me and the presenter in an otherwise deserted studio in a basement on Oxford Road (although I could see the legendary broadcaster Anthony H Wilson doing something in the adjacent studio). The fact that I had had absolutely no training and that there were probably - ooh, dozens of people listening didn’t faze me at all.
But, of course, I was merely a passenger. Gawd knows how I’d have coped if it had been just me addressing the goodly folk of Manchester! Hope your next one goes well, Jayn!
Congratulations, and welcome to the broadcasting community!
I don’t have the stage fright gene, or the open mic terrors. But don’t ask me to host a program! Especially without benefit of preparation or anything to read! I’ve only done it once, 26 years ago, and I was so terrified and at a loss for what to say that I went into panic mode, and I have no memory of what happened for the whole hour. That was just brutally scary! Luckily, everything I say on the air now is pre-recorded and edited up nice. But I know how nerve-wracking it is the first few times. It does get better, and hopefully soon you won’t be shaking when you go on. Good luck!
Well, fortunately we don’t do anything un-scripted this year. Everything were send on air we write in advance, so that wasn’t a worry. I just had to read the script in front of me. I wasn’t too nervous until right before we went to air and got our 30 second warning. I’d already had a voice report to record earlier that day, and I did pretty well on the performance aspect (though the scripting sucked–my own fault). I’ve finally learned to slow down most of the time, which is kinda big because I’ve always been told I talk too fast.
I just wasn’t expecting to go on air that soon. We got our warning a few minutes before 5, so it was early. Hopefully next week won’t be a repeat of that (though I know we weren’t the first group to have that problem). At any rate, I may try and talk my partner that time into being the first one to speak, which should take some of the pressure off me
