(Third in a series)
A Loyal Reader Asks:
“How can you teach young jocks to ‘be real’ — to break out of the ‘I’m a DJ’ persona and become communicators?”
Have them picture the one person who needs the info most and deliver it just to that one person.
Tell the results of the big game to the die-hard fan who, having just undergone open-heart surgery, missed his favorite team’s performance for the first time in 20 years.
Slowly awakening in post-op he asks the nurse, in a weak, rasping voice:
“Would you turn on the radio? I want to hear who won the game!”
Offer the day’s projected High Temperature to the guy who has secretly been growing tulips to surprise his wife on their anniversary, and he needs to know whether to give them extra water he leaves for work.
Yes, some jocks actually place someone’s photograph atop the console to help them achieve that “one-to-one” feeling.
Although you might suggest this, I do not recommend insisting that your young jocks do so.
When I was on the air, I always had some vague, amorphous image of that “one person” I was talking to. Being required to limit that image to one specific person would have constricted me.
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Hi Dan, I work with volunteers on a hospital station and this issue is one of the most difficult to get across – it’s talking to one person but not the same person all the time -the blank looks I get. In the UK the situation’s not helped by the number of TV personalities who are given radio shows They have no idea how hard proper radio is. Of course, when it’s done properly, it sounds so easy.