What worries you the most, when you imagine yourself in front of the camera or the radio mic, about to be interviewed? For people unused to appearing on broadcast media the answer tends to be the same, usefully highlighting a communication misunderstanding that, once resolved, will make them much more effective.
My clients, be they sector experts, activists or campaigners, are paralysed by anxiety as they reflexively imagine they’ll be performing for an audience of their peers. Their worst nightmare is ‘getting it wrong’ and losing face.
They fear being judged by their peers when they should be concerned about being listened to and understood by a completely different set of people: the distracted, busy, ordinary mass of people at home who have no specific expertise in their field and often no prior knowledge of the issue they’re addressing that day.
Does this sound familiar? Do you too approach a broadcast interview as if you were about to re-sit your viva or address a conference or a rally?
It is of course possible that your colleagues might tune in or that your former PhD supervisor might catch your performance by chance.
But you’re not talking to them to demonstrate how knowledgeable and clever or committed you are. That is not the point of the interview. The interview is not an exam, a test of knowledge or competence. It is a chance to spread your message, whatever it might be, to a much wider audience.
The most common way to ‘fail’ a broadcast interview is not by making some dramatic ‘mistake’ that hardly anyone will spot but by leaving your audience at home confused and/or indifferent. Your message has not got through.
And here’s another hopefully liberating thought: by this metric you’ll ‘fail’ often, regardless how complementary your fellow academics/ experts/ campaigners might be about your turn on the telly.
Grabbing people’s attention and conveying a memorable or impactful message is the final destination of your broadcast media journey, not its first step.
You will get there by showing up again and again, willing to try and remembering who you’re really talking to.
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