Hello, I’m Roger Johnson and I present North West Tonight, which is the BBC’s regional news programme in the North West of England– and I also present BBC Breakfast at weekends.
One the first things news presenters have to do as soon as they get into the newsroom is to get across what is happening in the world.
We look at newspapers, we look at social media, we look at the news agencies and the wires and we look at the internet.
Before a programme begins. I go over the script very carefully to make sure everything is clear, in fact I often write many of them myself.
It helps to make sure they make sense and also that they are written in a way that suits the way that I speak and I read.
So changes are inevitable. I also look at the suggested questions that have been prepared for interviews and sometimes make changes to those questions or even make up completely new ones.
I also spend some time reading those scripts out loud. This is really, really important, because often mistakes that you don’t notice when you are reading on the computer, can jump out at you when you are reading it out loud.
And it also gives you chance to try out difficult pronunciations or difficult phrases so if there’s a particular word which keeps tripping you up, keep practising it.
I struggle with “defibrillator” it’s a word I always have to say it out loud before I say it for real. “defibrillator”.
Before I go into the studio to present I do need a bit of makeup. Studio lights are very harsh and without it presenters can look shiny and pale!
Now let’s take a look at the studio in which I’m sitting.
These are cameras in front of me that are filming me. My autocue as you can see is on the camera, so the words I have to read are right in front of me.
Behind me, are the screens.
Now these use real images, they are just like giant TVs so we can out any picture that we want into them.
Rehearsal time is really important for a TV programme because it gives everybody in the team a chance to make sure they know what they’re doing everything is working as it should be before we go live on air.
You might be the presenter but you can only do your job with everybody else in the team doing theirs, so it’s important that everybody has a chance to go through how things should work.
So my top tips for presenting:
- *Make friends with the camera.
- *Be yourself - don’t fake it because the viewer can always tell if somebody is a fake. But, having said that:
- *Be confident - even if inside you don’t feel confident. Don’t let the viewer know, make sure you present a confident air, and most of all:
- *Enjoy yourself - If you get the chance to be a presenter you are doing a job that lots of people would absolutely love to do so make the most of every minute. It is a great job. And really enjoy yourselves.
Good Luck!