As a reporter for most news organizations, you're trying to project the image authority expertise. Now, you may be with some young hip newsmagazine and everyone's dressed casually, and you're a little looser, but still, you're there to provide information. And you're there to provide your viewers with insights, and facts and information that they can't just get by a quick Google search. And that's why it's important for you to convey authority. I don't mean you have to look like an old gray haired man with a stentorian voice. But you do have to be credible.
There are a lot of different ways of being credible. Not everyone has to have a fancy suit and tie. But there are certain things that will make anyone seem not credible. If you look scared, nervous, uncomfortable in any way, that's going to cut across a cut against your authority that's going to make you not seem credible. So the first thing we're going to focus on here is just ways of making you look comfortable and confident and how to avoid the most common problems. Now, when I see young reporters on camera, the easiest way to spot them is they're kind of frozen.
They're not moving much. They may have the mic like this, what they're saying may be great, the facts may be straight, that maybe maybe well bitten. But he looks scared. They sound scared, because they're not moving. They're not expressive. Their head isn't moving, their face isn't moving, their neck isn't moving, when they're talking.
Their face is just sort of and so they look scared. And what happens is the audience ends up feeling sorry for them. You do not want sympathy from your audience, believe me, unless something horrible is happening to you. I mean, if a character By and splashes you with water during a storm, then maybe sympathy is fine. But when you are reporting on the news when you're interviewing someone, you want to look comfortable in your own style, not my style, not wearing what I'm wearing, but in your style. So that is first and foremost because if you have good information, but you know your tie is like this or something is really out of whack or look stupid or odd.
The visual will trump what you're saying. And people aren't going to notice what you're saying they're not going to get the information, especially if you look scared or nervous or uncomfortable. So that's the first thing we're going to work on right now how to look comfortable and confident anytime you're on camera.