A Man of Honor by Cynthia Thomason

Author:Cynthia Thomason
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2019-09-10T18:28:37+00:00

* * *

THE TOP OF the iPad screen didn’t alarm Jeremy much. Comments for Jeremy. That could mean anything—good or bad. But the first comment shocked him into preparing himself for what was to come.

“Flat voice?” he said. “You thought my voice was flat?”

“Well, yes, for the purposes of WJQC, at least. Another station might feel differently.”

She was doing her best to deliver a crushing critique under a sheen of politeness.

“Brooke, a flat voice is a flat voice, no matter what microphone picks it up.” He shook his head. “I always considered myself the locker-room cheerleader for the Wildcats, saying things like ‘come on guys, more effort’ or ‘put your heart into it.’ A guy can’t say stuff like that with a flat voice.”

“I’m sure you were great at building enthusiasm for a football team,” she said. “But speaking in front of a still camera with a bright red light is a lot different.” She sighed—sighed, as if she was pulling on reserves from deep within to broach this subject.

“Let me try to explain it this way,” she said. “Years ago, voice training for TV was a fairly simple activity. Men were told to use a low, masculine timbre throughout the broadcast. Women were told to always sound like they were in their kitchens explaining how to cook.” She smiled. “Thank goodness those days are over.”

“Yeah. Now we’re supposed to weep and wail and grind our teeth,” Jeremy said.

“No, of course not. Newscasting took a different turn when popular anchors managed to deliver news, good and bad, as if they were sitting in a chair next to the listener. And they did it by eye contact, honest presentation and trust building. They eliminated the monotone of their predecessors and became...well, human.”

“And after one test, I’ve suddenly moved us all back to the subhuman age.”

She cocked her head to the side and narrowed her eyes at him. “Am I going to have to deal with this childish sarcasm for the rest of the afternoon?”

Okay, she was right to be upset. But he’d thought he had nailed that test. And the dinner and drinks afterward. “All right, I get it,” he said. “So what do I have to do to correct my faults?”

“One simple solution is to record your conversations. When you are talking to your kids, for example, set your phone to Record and play it back when you’re alone. That’s probably about as honest as you’re going to get in dealing with people on a face-to-face basis.”

“You mean I should talk to the viewing audience like I talk to my kids?”

“No, not exactly. You’re taking me too literally. But you should try to establish that kind of intimacy.”

“I don’t know. I can try. What else?”

She scrolled down her iPad screen. “Recognize that the human voice has peaks and valleys. It’s supposed to. A voice inflection can change in the middle of a sentence to become more listener friendly. Vary your sentences. We try to do that for the anchor before

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.