Authors: Marion Appleby
Are We Live? (10 page)
‘Do I sometimes set out to wrong-foot people? Yes.’
Jeremy Paxman on his interviewing style
‘And for tonight’s weather – it’s April, what do you expect?’
Jeremy Paxman at it again
It’s an important job that takes verve, intelligence and significant powers of concentration. If you’re keen to take the plunge and become a newsreader, whatever you do, learn from the mistakes of these professionals.
Remember to pause
The script:
This is
BBC World News
. I’m Jonathan Charles [PAUSE]. Kept hidden for almost two decades and forced to bear children …
How it was read by the newsreader:
This is
BBC World News
. I’m Jonathan Charles, kept hidden for almost two decades and forced to bear children.
BBC World News
Try not to fumble your words
News host:
Thank you very much, Rob. I’m back with a look at the head-weather …with the headlines …after a look at …the weather, with Rob McCowd …er …McCowdrey. Oh. God.
BBC World Service Television
Do your homework
President Obama
[after confirming the death of Osama bin Laden]
:
… May God bless the United States of America.
Fox News host:
President Obama, speaking from the east room of the White House, telling us, the nation and
the world,
President Obama is, in fact,
dead.
Fox 5 News
This wasn’t the only time this happened – over fifty different TV hosts mixed up Osama’s death with the death of the president.
Untie that tongue
News anchor:
Prime Minister’s Questions now from Tony Black, Tony Blair,
back
with some bleary-eyed nose …er …bleary-eyed news …I’m getting this all wrong, aren’t I?
BBC
Six O’Clock News
Read the script
The following exchange occurred on US television during a traffic report that involved two unruly cows.
News anchor #1:
Not many cars were moving, but moo-ing could be heard on the Capital Beltway around Washington, DC, earlier this morning. A tractor-trailer transporting Black and Gus – [one of the cows is shown on-screen] there’s Black or Gus – was stopped on the side of the Beltway while the driver changed a flat tyre.
News anchor #2:
[Sarcastically.] Wow, I wonder if those cows named Black and Gus were actually Black Angus cows, perhaps?
Anchor #1:
Oh …er, yes.
Anchor #2:
You know, it’s just a possibility.
Anchor #1:
[Equally sarcastic.] Are you saying I misinterpreted something?
Anchor #2:
No! [Gesturing to his co-host’s script.] That was a government source, wasn’t it?
[They both giggle.]
GHOSTS IN THE MACHINE
Irreverent subtitling, creative on-screen graphics, studios plunged into darkness during a broadcast: if there’s going to be a technical spanner in the works, you can bet your bottom dollar it will happen live on TV.
The live broadcast might be going down without a hitch; the presenters delivering their lines with faultless aplomb; the guests behaving with complete decorum. But there’s still room for error …
‘Andy Murray has become Midge Ure.’
BBC Wimbledon coverage (it should have read ‘mature’)
‘The Chamber of horrors is starting to lurk.’
BBC News (it should have read, ‘The Chamber of commerce is starting to help.’)
‘They love to nibble anything that comes into the shed, like our willies.’
BBC News during an outside broadcast with a pig farmer (who was wearing
wellies
)
‘Well, that’s twenty-two minutes Gordon Brown had the Queen in her private quarters.’
Sky News reporting on Gordon Brown’s meeting
with
the Queen
