As an anchor on the BBC News channel, Maxine Mawhinney probably spends more time interviewing than anything else. The interviewees will be in the studio or remote – somewhere else in the country or really, anywhere in the world. Sometimes they will be in a different studio, or on Skype or a phone. She will talk to correspondents, reporters, eye-witnesses, politicians, business people … anyone. And news being news, Maxine might not get much notice about who she is about to quiz and what she’s going to ask them about .

Starting her career almost 40 years ago in a local newspaper Maxine has worked in print, radio and TV. She has covered all sorts of stories from court reports in the Bangor (now County Down) Spectator to high politics in the USA as Washington Correspondent for the national UK television network GMTV.

Our conversation started as a discussion on interviewing, but over 40 minutes we covered voice, delivery, presentation, difficult questions, difficult interviewees and how to use Pringles to  improve your voice

We also talked about writing and reading scripts and in particularly sight reading scripts written by someone else.

 

Podcasting for Communities is a guide to help you and your team learn about podcast and community radio production.It is written by Davy Sims a 40 year veteran of BBC, radio, and web production.  The book is available for Kindle from Amazon. Combined with these podcasts and this blog, it is a simple introduction to production and is equally relevant to community radio broadcasters, producers and managers. Read more about it here on this blog.

 

 

Music: Downhill Racer by Blue Dot Sessions is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial License.