Radio Interviews
My telephone went off at four o’clock yesterday afternoon, a friendly American voice came down the line and, all of a sudden, I was speaking to over a million people, having their breakfast or setting off to work -- coast to American coast.
I had of course been forewarned, just a week before. What do you do when faced with a radio interview? In the past I used to diligently prepare myself: make sure I had all the facts at my fingertips, rehearse the principle themes in my bathtub and generally make myself neurotic so that by the time the microphone was placed in front of me I was a nervous wreck. With experience I have learnt this is not the way to proceed. But nor is the opposite extreme: to do no preparation at all. People are in fact very dishonest about what they do before an interview. The professionals always say they prepare nothing. You know damned well they are lying. Broadcasters have said this to me. I go into their studios only to discover that they are reading from a text, which gives them barely the time to caste a pleading eye up at me.
The answer, of course, is to meet that happy medium which makes you feel comfortable. Some have to prepare like mad, even learn their parts by rote. If you are one of them you are not in bad company. Charles de Gaulle, for example, was one of those professionals who said he never prepared. ‘Paris! Paris brisé, Paris outragé, Paris martyrisé, mais Paris libéré!…’ ‘Vive la Québec libre…’ ‘Je vous ai compris…’, etc. De Gaulle always said that he invented all this on the spur of the moment, in front of the microphone. This was total nonsense. The General had a very good memory and he always wrote his interventions, even his press conferences, down the night before. Churchill, after an unhappy experience in the House of Commons when he stopped in mid-sentence and sat down, red-faced and utterly paralysed, never after 1906 made a public pronouncement without written notes in his hand: even when standing on the top of a car you would notice in the newsreels that he was fumbling around with his notes. Some people need those props, and you are not the smaller for it.
The Blair spin? Not prepared? Don’t you believe it. Every turn of the phrase has been studied beforehand by teams of speechwriters. Sometimes, one is tempted to say that our Prime Minister is over-prepared.
Only experience can tell you what level of preparation is right for you. A beginner has to find this out for himself; my recommendation is to prepare a series of bullet points and stuff them in your pocket. You probably won’t refer to them. But a wave of panic is not uncommon and it is nice to know they are there… Broadcasters are always understanding.
We live in the high-tech era of electronic mail. Ask your producer in advance of the programme if you can field questions on their site immediately after the programme; this could appreciably influence your impact on those listeners who matter most to you: the ones who will buy your books and speak of you at their next dinner party.
How did my interview go? I hadn’t talked about my last published book in months, so I re-read it, jotting down bullet points as I went. When the telephone rang I was sitting at my horseshoe desk with those notes in front of me. But I only once referred to them. I had a fun hour with over a million Americans.
What are your recommendations for radio or television interviews? Tell us about your experiences.
I had of course been forewarned, just a week before. What do you do when faced with a radio interview? In the past I used to diligently prepare myself: make sure I had all the facts at my fingertips, rehearse the principle themes in my bathtub and generally make myself neurotic so that by the time the microphone was placed in front of me I was a nervous wreck. With experience I have learnt this is not the way to proceed. But nor is the opposite extreme: to do no preparation at all. People are in fact very dishonest about what they do before an interview. The professionals always say they prepare nothing. You know damned well they are lying. Broadcasters have said this to me. I go into their studios only to discover that they are reading from a text, which gives them barely the time to caste a pleading eye up at me.
The answer, of course, is to meet that happy medium which makes you feel comfortable. Some have to prepare like mad, even learn their parts by rote. If you are one of them you are not in bad company. Charles de Gaulle, for example, was one of those professionals who said he never prepared. ‘Paris! Paris brisé, Paris outragé, Paris martyrisé, mais Paris libéré!…’ ‘Vive la Québec libre…’ ‘Je vous ai compris…’, etc. De Gaulle always said that he invented all this on the spur of the moment, in front of the microphone. This was total nonsense. The General had a very good memory and he always wrote his interventions, even his press conferences, down the night before. Churchill, after an unhappy experience in the House of Commons when he stopped in mid-sentence and sat down, red-faced and utterly paralysed, never after 1906 made a public pronouncement without written notes in his hand: even when standing on the top of a car you would notice in the newsreels that he was fumbling around with his notes. Some people need those props, and you are not the smaller for it.
The Blair spin? Not prepared? Don’t you believe it. Every turn of the phrase has been studied beforehand by teams of speechwriters. Sometimes, one is tempted to say that our Prime Minister is over-prepared.
Only experience can tell you what level of preparation is right for you. A beginner has to find this out for himself; my recommendation is to prepare a series of bullet points and stuff them in your pocket. You probably won’t refer to them. But a wave of panic is not uncommon and it is nice to know they are there… Broadcasters are always understanding.
We live in the high-tech era of electronic mail. Ask your producer in advance of the programme if you can field questions on their site immediately after the programme; this could appreciably influence your impact on those listeners who matter most to you: the ones who will buy your books and speak of you at their next dinner party.
How did my interview go? I hadn’t talked about my last published book in months, so I re-read it, jotting down bullet points as I went. When the telephone rang I was sitting at my horseshoe desk with those notes in front of me. But I only once referred to them. I had a fun hour with over a million Americans.
What are your recommendations for radio or television interviews? Tell us about your experiences.
posted by SOAF Chairman at 7:15 AM
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