Hosting Tips

More media-making ideas from Youth Radio’s newsroom… Here are Belia Mayeno’s tips for hosting panels and roundtable discussions. Belia’s a Youth Radio graduate and former associate producer, and she’s been filing stories for NPR since she was in high school. Now Belia goes to school in New York and helps coordinate writing workshops for incarcerated youth through Voices Unbroken.

Whether you’re hosting a discussion or interviewing someone one-on-one, remember that you are a character alongside your guests. You are not a neutral interrogator, but an engaged conversationalist, and very often moments of genuine connection between you and your interviewee translate into great radio. That said, when you’re working on a story, if you fumble through your questions, you can always opt to cut yourself out of the final mix, and include only your interviewee’s voice. When you’re hosting a live roundtable discussion, interview, or podcast, you can’t eliminate your own voice. Your on-air personality and skill are crucial.

*HOSTING TIPS*
By Associate Producer Belia Mayeno

*Be Prepared. Keep in mind that the people we are interviewing have limited time. If you have not done some basic homework, you will be wasting their time, and they won’t appreciate it. Good reporters learn quickly that there are stupid questions — the ones we could easily have answered with a bit of prior research.

*Go into the interview just thinking of it as a relaxed (but still professional) discussion. Youth Radio does not tend to do the super-official formal interviews, or the kind of confrontations that we’ve come to associate with journalism due to the ambush-camera techniques of some TV broadcasts. The vast majority are all about something simple: You want to learn more about a subject or person, or both, and the person you’re interviewing wants to help.

*Remember that the interview is about the other person, not you. It makes a good discussion if you share a little of your own experiences and personality, but bring up stuff about yourself in the context of a question.

*Listen to the answers!!! This may sound obvious, but some interviews are a disjointed bunch of questions that leave obvious follow-up points hanging in the air. Sometimes it’s better to skip a question you’ve planned to ask in order to go more deeply into some angle.

*Don’t be afraid to jump in when you don’t understand! Keep your audience in mind. One reason you are conducting this interview is to explain it to your listeners. If your subject uses terms or gives explanations that confuse you or might bring up possible questions for your audience, politely interrupt and ask for further explanation. Never be embarrassed about not knowing something.

*A person who’s used to being interviewed will often frustrate you with canned replies, what are sometimes called “talking points.” You’ll ask Question A and get the answer to an entirely different question. Politely pursue the original subject question. One way to do this is to say, “I’m sorry, I guess my question wasn’t very clear. Let me try again.” And ask it again, perhaps in a different way. It’s better to get a direct non-answer, such as “I’d rather not talk about that,” than an indirect one.

*If time allows, ask two questions at the end of the formal interview: “Who else should I speak to about this topic?” and “What have I not asked you that I should have asked you?” The first question helps you find other people who may be helpful but who may not have been on your list. The second often, but not always, brings out a point or two that could add something to the interview.

*Right after the interview/panel, make note of a few of your favorite moments or points in the discussion. If they stand out to you, they will probably be interesting for your listeners as well. Do it while is still fresh in your mind, so you can write down any observations or ideas that you can use for the intro.