Quite a few years ago I was standing…because I was not invited to sit down…in my boss’s office at KYW-TV in Philadelphia. He was giving me advice about presenting news on tv. It was early in my career, I was impressionable, and I remember every word he said to me.
“We all have somebody we don’t like talking to. Maybe it’s your neighbor, or the guy next to you at work. There’s something about them that turns us off…they talk too loud, we hate the way they blink, they raise one eyebrow kind of weird, whatever. When somebody’s on tv, they need to know what it is about them that could annoy people and get rid of it. You (now giving me his prized advice) have got to make yourself easy for EVERYBODY to watch.”
So, I took his advice for a while. Of course it makes you paranoid as hell. Am I raising one eyebrow and looking weird? Am I shouting? How long can I go without blinking..long enough to give a full report? What if somebody notices I am not blinking?
Time passed and I matured and I realized what he was really saying: Be like the others. Be typical. Be unobjectionable. Don’t be too individual. You have brown hair, that’s enough.
My successes didn’t start to happen until I threw his advice, and that of all too many people like him in tv…over my shoulder. If you have any sense of yourself, any identity at all, any self-respect…if you’re human in other words…there is no other choice.
And it’s also obvious how times have quickly changed. Now to have even the most polarizing personality is an asset. It’s the barometer of a hit when the audience is divided into those who “love it” and those who “hate it.” If not polarizing, at least be quirky.
So I have come to know this: take away everything about you that could annoy someone and you take away anything that someone else will love.
His was the worst advice I ever got.
As for the boss, he left the station shortly after dispensing that sage advice and as far as I can tell never resurfaced in tv in a significant way. But I am sure wherever he is all of his neighbors and coworkers find him absolutely…uh, palatable.