0507 – Personality and Rapport

2022.05.22 – 0507 – Personality and Rapport PERSONALITY AND RAPPORT Good presenters are ones who establish rapport with their audience. “A lot of people have complimented me for sounding warm and I think that’s important… warm but authoritative at the same time. You can read really bad news without emoting about it but on the other hand not being cold and too factual either and I think I’m very happy when people say that because that’s what I’m aiming for. (I’m) calm, even though you’re not feeling calm but you sound it because you have to be. Not emotive. You have to be good at giving bad news without dramatising it. You have to deliver something impartially but also with warmth. You want it delivered by somebody who’s not going to react to what you’re reading in any kind of emotive way. You don’t want to sound angry about something, even if in your head you are. You don’t want to sound very, very sad when something very sad has happened: because it is a sad thing it doesn’t need the newsreader to load it up with their sadness either. So, you have to be very concerned and warm but also slightly set apart. You’re talking to a friend. (It’s like) some news has happened and you’re driving along and you see someone you haven’t seen for a little bit and you say ‘oh my goodness, you’ll never guess what’s happened’ and it’s that kind of thing… but you don’t dramatize it. Don’t sound as though you’re about to burst into tears if it’s a really sad story, the story speaks for itself. You are a conduit. You have to deliver it calmly but without sounding like an automaton.” Susan Rae, BBC radio 4 newsreader/announcer, “You’re On The Air” podcast December 2020 Such rapport defies satisfactory definition. It is a kind of chemistry that exists between presenters and their audience. A ‘focused energy’.