How to do live TV

A step-by-step guide to acing your first national TV interview

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5 min read

I’ve now had two experiences appearing on national television. Live TV used to be one of my worst fears, but now that I’ve conquered it, I’ve put together this comprehensive how-to guide so you can, too! 

If you’d like to ace your first TV interview, here are the steps I recommend you follow:

1. Check your email on an otherwise normal day. Come across friendly message from unknown “NBC” email address, inviting you to appear on tomorrow morning’s live show.¹ Spiral into immediate, all-consuming panic.

2. Consider leaving the country and changing your name to avoid responding to said email.

3. Gather yourself. Recognize that family, friends, colleagues, and self will wonder what is wrong with you if you turn down this professional opportunity.

4. Frantically Google the name of the show, its anchors, yourself (?), “how to TV,” etc. 

5. Think back to a media training you once received, and recognize you should come up with 3 “key messages” you want to deliver.

6. Come up with list of 14 key messages. Email NBC producer again to ask how long the segment will be. 

7. Discover the segment will be 5 minutes or less.

8. Whittle list down to 13 key messages (one of which is, really, two key messages combined into one).

9. You’ll need to be well-rested for the morning’s show, so stay up late whispering hypothetical interview responses at your computer screen, lie awake imagining far-flung disaster scenarios, and wake up two hours before your alarm in a cold sweat.

10. You’ll also need to be well-nourished for the interview, so before sitting down at your computer, choke down one bite of a banana and stare blankly at a mug of English Breakfast Tea.

11. As instructed, log onto Zoom 15 minutes before air time. Sit on Zoom alone for 13 minutes, practicing every cognitive-behavioral therapy strategy you can remember. Tell yourself you’ve answered questions about your research before. Tell yourself the worst-case scenario (i.e., you freeze and say nothing, and/or you say something that causes you to be permanently canceled) is unlikely (but not impossible). Tell yourself no one even watches CNBC, right? 

12. Do interview. 

13. Experience immense relief, followed immediately by nagging doubts about what you could and should have said. 

14. Question everything. What even is the point of live TV? Is this actually a useful way to convey information to people? Is this helping anyone? Is this really why you got into this career in the first place? Shouldn’t it feel like it’s less about you and more about the (very important) issues you’re supposed to be discussing? Who, and what, is this really for?

15. Pick up large iced coffee and bacon-egg-and-cheese. Write this post.

Postscript

Last week, I appeared on CNBC’s Squawk Box and a few weeks prior, on CNN’s This Morning Weekend.² I was asked to answer questions about the role of social media in teens’ mental health. As might now be obvious, I had mixed feelings about it.

I was, of course, terrified. At this point, I’ve done a fair number of interviews for podcasts, print media, and other outlets. But live TV? Surely, people who do this for a living have some genetic irregularity that’s converted all the cortisol in their bloodstreams into ice water.³

After the interviews, though, once the relief had worn off, there was a new, complicated feeling. I was excited! I was proud! I was in mild shock that this was my face on a real, actual TV!⁴ But I was also uneasy. There’s something off-putting about personal pride operating alongside real concern, and sadness, about the issues you’re discussing. Something wrong about seeing that face get celebrated for looking professional and shelling out talking points, when it’s not clear who, if anyone, it’s helping. I’m increasingly skeptical that these TV segments are an effective way to learn. Four minutes of pointed questioning behind the (Zoom) glare of flashing lights, it turns out, might not be the best way to educate people on the nuance of a given topic.

During one of my interviews, the anchor asked me why there was so little sense of urgency in addressing issues of social media use and teen mental health. With a little more time and a little less nerves, here’s what I might have responded: I worry sometimes that the research “standard of proof”—clinical trials, large-scale longitudinal studies, definitive evidence—has muddied the waters. That this is an impossible standard to hold for legislative action, one we would never apply in other domains of law-making. That it’s important to understand the nuances of the research, and to be mindful of maintaining social media’s benefits, but that this shouldn’t stop us from taking steps to mitigate the risks.

In fact, maybe we don’t need another psychology professor offering sound bytes to a skeptical anchor. Maybe we just need to act.

The interviews

• Social media's impact on mental health depends on usage and users. CNBC, Squawk Box.

• Kids and social media. CNN, This Morning Weekend.

1. I will admit that I’d never heard of Squawk Box prior to receiving this email. I feel confused about how an actual, serious business show has kept this name for so many years. I can confirm, though, after getting texts from family and friends following the segment, that there are many very accomplished and serious people who watch the show, so it seems to be squawking right along. According to Wikipedia: “The program title originates from a term used in investment banks and stock brokerages for a permanent voice circuit or intercom used to communicate stock deals or sales priorities; it also may refer to the squawk of a bird, like a peacock, which is the logo of CNBC.”

2. The difference in approach between the two shows was fascinating. For Squawk Box, the first time I ever spoke live to a human being was on the Zoom call, two minutes before going on air. No earlier sound check, no prior video call to confirm I’m an actual person with functioning WiFi, nothing. For This Morning Weekend, things were so hands-on that I was asked to text the producer the morning of the show to confirm I was awake. Looking back at my text thread, it appears I wrote “Morning! See you at 7:30!” so I guess we were already feeling pretty familiar at that point? [Also, do people sleep through these things?]

3. Note: my cousin does, actually, do live TV for a living. He is very talented and good at his job, and seems to lead a normal life with no indication that he’s in a perpetual state of fear and panic. I have asked him how this is possible, but remain unsatisfied with the answer. Have not ruled out the ice water hypothesis.

4. My son was also very intrigued by the whole my-face-on-an-actual-TV situation. He watched it together with my parents and husband (we’re on vacation with my family), and when they said “Good job, Jackie!” and shut off the TV, he burst immediately into tears. It’s unclear whether he thought I was disappearing into some distant TV ether, or whether he thought this was the strangest and most boring FaceTime call he’d ever been on with me. But he’s now taken to pointing to the TV and shouting “Good job, Jackie!” at regular intervals, so that’s a win.

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