What I Learned from 20 Years in TV News
When people ask me what I do for a living, I tell them I’m a broadcast journalist and communications consultant, and that I’ve spent the majority of my grown-up life working as a TV news anchor and reporter at stations all around the country. And then they inevitably ask one of two things:
“What’re your co-anchors REALLY like?” and, “Who does your hair and make-up?”
If they’d already recognized me from being on TV, 9-out-of-10 times their initial response was, ‘You’re so much TALLER in real life!” (which is easier to react to than, “You look so much BETTER in real life!” I’m never sure how to respond to that one.)…followed by, “Who does your hair and make-up?”
The fascination with hair and make-up, above all else, left a lasting impression on me and taught me two things: appearance definitely matters, especially when it comes to successfully conveying your message. And, in a world of super glossy, super-straight locks, my ‘cave-woman curls’, as my friends call it, would likely never be a career asset.
It also got me to thinking about all the other weird and wonderful aspects of my TV career and the unique lessons they taught me. So I began writing them down. The list grew longer and longer…and some of the stories, stranger and stranger. But as I read them over, I realized, maybe they‘re not so strange. Maybe, as unusual as many of these stories may sound to the rest of the world, the lessons they contain can apply to most any career. So I started to take a closer look…and began with lesson number one, from TV News:
Sometimes It IS, In Fact, All About The Hair.
Sure, it’s a running joke in TV news. But like it or not, appearance DOES matter, especially in the age of YouTube. Anything distracting about your appearance, distracts from your message – and lights up the ‘call sheet‘. Most companies have some internal version of tracking customer feedback. In newsrooms, that’s ‘The Call Sheet.’ It’s simply a daily record of phone calls and emails sent in by viewers who have something to say about that day’s shows (and believe me, people always have plenty to say). Those comments are then usually posted somewhere on the station’s website – or perhaps on a bulletin board by the cafeteria just in time for the lunch rush – for employees to see. And nothing lights up the viewer call sheet like a bad hair day. Or a bad tie. Or the wrong shade of lip stick. Or, even once, a backwards toupee (nothing distracts from your message like a backwards toupee. But my personal favorite was the anonymous viewer who called like clockwork every week to complain one of my eyebrows was higher than the other, and could someone please fix that? I was sorry to inform her that, until someone invented eyebrow correction surgery, I was not, unfortunately, able to fix it.) The top appearance tips I received from countless TV news consultants over the years:
- keep hair simple and well-groomed
- keep jewelry subtle
- keep make-up soft and natural
- stick to solid clothing colors and avoid prints.
So I quickly learned that if I wanted viewers to hear what I was saying, I had to first try to make sure they weren’t distracted by how I was appearing. And that I needed to start every day with my pride – and sense of humor – screwed on tightly. Especially on a bad hair day.
….up next, Lesson Number 2: Why Good Writing Is Crucial
