Video: Body Language for TV News Reporter

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Learn about appropriate body language for TV news reporter with expert journalism advice from an experienced broadcast journalist in this free television career video clip.

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athol Jan 09, 2009
Where is this man's credibility? He urges reporters to "give an authoritarian appearance." For the record, authoritarian means despotic, dictatorial, bossy or overbearing. Hardly appropriate goals for a news reporter. And what's with the gigantic shirt collar?
athol Jan 09, 2009
Where is this man's credibility? He urges reporters to "give an authoritarian appearance." For the record, authoritarian means despotic, dictatorial, bossy or overbearing. Hardly appropriate goals for a news reporter. And what's with the gigantic shirt collar?

Video Transcript

BILL ALBIN: Hello, I'm Bill Albin. And on behalf of Expert Village, I'm going to teach you what you need to know to be a local news reporter. In this clip, we're going to talk a little bit about how you present yourself, things like posture, facial expressions and hand gestures. When you want to speak with people, oftentimes, you use your hand to express yourself or do things with. You want it to look natural, and you want to illustrate certain things and point things out in a very specific way. These are all things that all of us do all the time. Now when you're doing this as a professional, you want to make sure that it doesn't look staged. It doesn't look fake, and that this actually means something, like using your hands to express yourself. For example, it should not be fake, basically. Also your posture, stand up straight. People will look to you to be an authority on certain issues. If I'm talking about an important issue dealing with money, crime, politics, that sort of thing, people expect me not to slouch. They don't want me to be like staring off into space. They want me to address the issue in a serious fashion, and so that--for that reason, I need to maintain a certain posture. I need to give an authoritarian appearance, something that take--it shows that I take the issue seriously, and I expect you to do the same. Facial expression is also important. You wouldn't smile when you're talking about someone hurt. It doesn't--you should care about the issues you're addressing. You shouldn't give your opinion about them. I shouldn't say I feel this way or that way about a certain politician or a certain issue, but you should have appropriate expressions to the story itself. If you're talking about someone who's died, you wouldn't be laughing when you talk about it. When you talk about fluffy kittens, put a smile on your face. They're fluffy kittens, who doesn't like those? So you have to make your expressions, make your posture and your other gestures and your physical activities appropriate to every story that you do.

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Body Language for TV News Reporter

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