Speaking on television

Television is a picture carrying an argument, and most of what decides how you come across has little to do with the words you chose. Sound, stillness, eye line and light do more work than any of it.

If a producer has your number, the decision is yours and needs nobody’s authorisation, including the decision to say no.

Before anything else. Television is permanent, clippable, and it reaches people who were not looking for you. Thirty badly framed seconds can circulate for years without the question that prompted them. That is a reason to find out what you are walking into, not a reason to refuse. Being nervous is the correct response, not a sign you are unsuited to this.

What to ask before you agree

Say yes to nothing on the first call. Producers work fast and warmly, and agreeing on the spot is how people lose control of the week that follows.

Rule 1: ask who else is on. It is the most useful question available. Somebody who agreed to discuss antisemitism, then finds a hostile guest opposite, has been booked into a format rather than an interview.

Ask these, and write the answers down.

“Who else is on with me?”

“Is it live, or recorded for later?”

“How long have I got, roughly?”

“In the studio, or on a link from home?”

“What’s your first question likely to be?”

You are allowed to ask that last one, and producers answer more often than people expect. You are also allowed to say no, or yes on a condition.

“I’ll do it as a one to one. I’m not doing it as a debate.”

If the format changes after you agreed, that is a fresh decision, including in the corridor on the day.

“I’d have said no to that. Can we talk before I sit down?”

How long you actually get

Less than people expect. A studio interview commonly runs two to four minutes, and one answer inside it runs fifteen to thirty seconds. A panel gives you two or three turns of about twenty seconds.

Rule 2: one point per answer. Fifteen seconds is roughly forty words. Put two ideas in that space and the viewer keeps neither.

The shape of a short answer, and the drill for rehearsing one aloud, sit in getting on the radio.

The camera does not stop when you stop

Whenever you are in frame, you are on air. Reaction shots filmed while somebody else talks get used constantly, and are often what people remember.

What your face does while you are attacked matters as much as your answer. Look at whoever is speaking. Aim for still and unbothered.

Three things read badly. A smirk, taken as contempt whatever you meant by it. A hard head shake, which makes you look rattled. And nodding along, the expensive one: a nod while somebody attacks your community looks like agreement, and the clip carries no record of your objection.

Stillness

The camera magnifies movement, so ordinary animation in a room reads on screen as agitation.

Sit back into the chair rather than on its front edge. Both feet on the floor. Hands in your lap or lightly on the table, and left there. Swivel chairs invite swaying, which is what people most often notice about themselves afterwards.

If your hands move when you talk, holding them still is genuinely difficult, and pinning them looks frightened. Small gestures below chest height are fine.

Where to look

In a studio, look at whoever is talking to you, never at the camera. The camera will find you. Hunting for the red light makes you look shifty.

On a remote link, look at the lens, because the lens is where the viewer’s eyes are. There is no interviewer in the room, which is why the two pull opposite ways. Every second you watch the face on your screen, the audience sees you looking away. Cover the picture of yourself.

Setting up a remote link

Do this the day before, not twenty minutes before.

Camera at eye height. A laptop flat on a desk shoots up into your nose, and that angle makes anybody look worse. Stack books under it until the lens is level with your eyes.

Light in front of you, not behind. A window at your back turns you into a silhouette. Face the window instead, or put a lamp behind the camera pointing at you. Overhead light alone leaves shadows under your eyes.

Now look at what is behind you, carefully. Everything in that frame is broadcast to everybody watching, and archived. Certificates carry your full name. A window can show a recognisable street. Post on a shelf, a school photograph or a company sign identifies your home or your workplace to somebody hostile.

A blank wall costs nothing and gives nothing away. Choose it deliberately, rather than settling for whichever room was tidy.

What to wear

This is about what the camera does, rather than about taste.

No fine stripes, small checks or tight patterns, which strobe on screen. Nothing pure white next to your face, which cameras handle badly. Mid tones and solid colours do the job.

No logos, and nothing naming an employer you have not cleared this with. A branded fleece puts your organisation on air next to your opinion, and that is a conversation to have beforehand.

When you are talked over

You will be interrupted, on a panel especially. The audience is watching who is being reasonable far more closely than who is winning.

Rule 3: stop, do not fight for the floor. Two people talking at once produce a clip in which nobody says anything, and whoever raised their voice comes off worse.

Stop your sentence. Stay still. Let them finish, then come back.

“I’ll let you finish. Can I answer the point that was put to me?”

“That’s the third time. I’ll be quick, and then it’s yours.”

Then make the point in one sentence, because the interruption took your time.

This can backfire. Give way every time to a determined opponent and you say almost nothing. After giving way twice, take the third turn and hold it.

The question with a falsehood inside it

Some questions carry a premise you reject. “Why does your community refuse to condemn this?” The danger is not the question. It is that an answer built out of its words hands the clip a caption.

Rule 4: never repeat the false framing, even to deny it. The denial travels with the framing attached, and the denial is the half that gets cut.

Weak: “It’s not true that we refuse to condemn it.”

Strong: “People spoke out within a day. Here is what they said.”

State what is true instead of denying what is false. Substitute, then keep going.

Being visibly affected

It is legitimate to be moved by something that affects you, and viewers can tell that apart from losing control. A steady voice with feeling in it persuades more than a performance of calm.

If you feel it arriving, slow down and finish the sentence shorter than you planned. Asking for a second reads as human.

The safety part

Read this before you accept, not after you appear.

Television is permanent, clippable, and it reaches people who were not looking for you. Assume the worst thirty seconds will be extracted, captioned by somebody hostile, and passed around without the question. For anybody speaking on this subject that is the ordinary outcome.

Your face and your name become searchable in a way a post is not. If your safety depends on not being widely recognisable, television is the wrong medium, and declining is reasonable rather than a failure of nerve. People at risk from an employer, a landlord, a family situation or a hostile local network have good grounds to say no.

Settle three things before you agree. What name you go on air under. Whether your workplace is named on screen. Who at home or at work needs to know beforehand.

Then expect a wave of replies, and decide now who is watching your accounts for the next forty eight hours. What to answer and what to leave alone is in answering hostile replies. Read it before you appear.

What this page cannot do

It cannot make you good on camera. Nothing written down does that. The only thing that makes the second one easier is having done the first.

The cheapest practice there is: prop your phone at eye height and record ninety seconds answering one hostile question. Watch it back with the sound off, where the swaying, the nodding and the eye line show up.

Ninety seconds, recorded tonight

Two questions answered without scrolling. What do you ask the producer before you say yes to anything? And what is the one point you would want left in the clip if everything else you said were cut?

Then fill this in, on paper, with a date and a time, not a week.

If it is ____________ (day) at ____________ (time), and I have finished ____________ (what you are doing beforehand: the school run, dinner, parking outside work), then I will prop the phone at eye height in ____________ (which room) and record ninety seconds against one hostile question.

Then the coping plans, which are what make the first half work.

If a producer asks me to confirm while we are on the phone, then I will say “I’ll come back to you within the hour”, and ring back once I know who else is on.

If a clip of me starts circulating out of context, then I will leave it a full day and read answering hostile replies before writing anything.

One recording tonight, a plain wall chosen in advance, and five questions on a card.