1 - 0:00:00
You know, sometimes there is something happening in the world. Often enough it's politics, or it can be the most boring story in the face of the earth that affects us.
2 - 0:00:08
All effects of all, and we get well mistreater. So we go to the street and see what people are thinking and sometimes. And you're right, you know sometimes there's not an expert or there's people who don't want to talk about it. They're taking their time in preparing whatever it is, whether it's scandal, whether it's or whatever, and they don't want to. So we go to the people. But it's also a way to challenge people, not talking about things. You know,
3 - 0:00:30
a TV interview. Is among the most intrusive and disruptive requests that a communicator will receive when they're in a challenging media spotlight. But TV also offers the biggest bang for your communications buck when you want to broadly pitch a story or a personality from your organization in a positive light, it can definitely be a schizophrenic medium. If you've ever had to navigate a TV interview or perhaps prepare someone else for one and wondered what the interviewer the TV Reporter had to consider when they were passing the story together well, stay tuned. Tara Overholt of City TV in Calgary, AB is our guest this time. Another journalist offering insights from the other side of the meteor microphone. Here on Speaking of media, the podcast where communicators and the media come together to consider the world of mass storytelling.
0:01:14
I'm your host. Keith Marnoch, former journalist, turned corporate communicator, and I'm hoping that you, as someone who communicates on behalf of your organization, will join me for each episode as we learn from industry experts about tangible ways to share your stories and messages, and also how to avoid getting caught in a negative media storm. Tara Overholt is a veteran TV Reporter who moved from Ontario to Alberta in the last few years. Ann has continued her broadcasting career as a news anchor and Reporter for City TV in Calgary. We connected with Terra via zoom.
0:01:52
And so it's my pleasure to welcome Tara Overholt to the Speaking of Media podcast Tara.
4 - 0:02:00
Thanks so much for taking the time to check in on the podcast from Calgary.
1 - 0:02:04
Yeah, it's great to see you. I hope you're not as chilly as I am, but we'll go with it.
4 - 0:02:09
For those who don't know about your career just quickly.
1 - 0:02:13
How did you find yourself in Calgary eventually? Well, I started off in London ON at. It used to be way back in the day. Chump so many different names of that station and I started as a videographer. I worked in Sports News, anchor news Reporter for about five or six years and getting back. Back into news and then I ended up after about 15 or 16 years at the station I left as the six O'clock news anchor where I had done so many different roles from producing and anchoring and reporting and for sports as well.
0:02:39
And then I moved to Calgary for my personal life and I now work at City TV in Calgary where I am the host and anchor at 6:00 o'clock as well at 11, and I also do some recording as well.
4 - 0:02:58
And so back in the day, you were quite the sportsperson. I know sports athlete that transition was was the news business always in mind for you as you were going through school and trying to find something to hit on,
1 - 0:03:12
you know I really enjoyed my time in sports. It was kind of and at the time I think it was like 2002 and there was a real push to have women in sports. So I like sports. I like watching. I like playing. Am I the girls that I watch on TSN now?
0:03:23
Probably not, not maybe as big of a fan as they are. But it was an opportunity that they brought to me and I said, why not try? Because one of the key things in this business is always to grow and to always say yes to opportunities that are going to allow you to learn and grow. And I will say doing sports was a lot of fun. I learned a lot and I think you really actually learn a lot about storytelling when it comes to telling sports because that's what I was able to do.
0:03:49
I was able to choose the stories they wanted to, especially at Western things like that. My goal was always trying to highlight the stories that maybe you didn't normally see a lot of women sport that really push to try and get women sports. On our station, and to highlight those athletes and what they were doing, there was a real groundswell, I think of interest at that time to really push for women's sports and it pushed to be seen. And I really, truly enjoyed that aspect of it. But after about five or six years of it, I was ready for change and it was also ready for a little bit more responsibility.
0:04:17
And so there was an opportunity interstation and it made sense and I got to do the weekend anchoring. But then I got to also kind of run things a little bit more and I got to take the helm of making editorial decisions. And you know. But later on, I was the 11:00 o'clock anchor and I was producing and so then you're kind of not in charge, but for lack of a better term. There are no supervisors at night, so you're the one leading the show and melding it and trying to make it make sense.
0:04:44
In a new sense, so I really enjoyed that opportunity to kind of be part of something a little bit bigger than just the sportsbook side.
4 - 0:04:56
Yeah, so going back to sort of those early days. Can you remember times? And again, we've got Tara Overholt here on the speaking media podcasts and our audience often tunes in IS is made up of communicators, so again, we're trying to sort of make the connection or have a better understanding for them in terms of how they can deal with the media and so on. Can you think back to the early days of terror when you were starting reporting more than anything else? What were the things that made it really difficult for you to put a story together?
1 - 0:05:25
You need to have certain things fall into place that other types of platforms don't. Right, you really do and things have definitely changed even in the last.
2 - 0:05:34
Like when I was first starting out as a general time Reporter. So will say maybe 2005 2006 people didn't have social media like Facebook was just really starting to take so you had to call people constantly and we didn't even have like blackberries or smartphones at work yet, so we couldn't be out in the field. And be producing things at the same time. So you had to like make your phone calls. Hope that they would call your producer as you're trying to go out and shoot other interviews and things like that. So timing used to be one of the hugest things that was incredibly difficult nailing people down.
0:06:02
It can be incredibly intrusive too. Like hi, I'm Tara from the news. Would you be willing to come on television and tell us your views on this in the next hour? Because I have a deadline and it needs to be edited. You know, I can even just look at things how things have changed even with covid and.
0:06:18
Endemic now everybody's used to zoom everybody's at home. We've actually had more luck in getting people to talk to us in the past year because everyone's available and everybody knows how to use zoom. They're not afraid of it, so it's not like what can. I just do it on the phone. Everybody uses zoom or everybody uses FaceTime or whatever.
0:06:37
What have you? So that has been a game-changer because really, at the end of the day,
1 - 0:06:45
I always say reporting. Is 85% problem-solving? You are constantly problem-solving. You're like OK. I'm in interviews. Three people for this story.
0:06:52
OK, I gotta reach out to them about it. This I've got to get this video. I've gotta get you to know, and it's it's like you're a puzzle of putting your peace your story together. And then if one person backs out then you don't have the balance story. Then you know if if you have technical failings which everybody does.
0:07:08
No, there's always. It's just like, OK. How do I recover this story? And then sometimes you interview somebody and you're like this isn't even a story in the story completely changes for you and then you're trying to make it all make sense. So I always say that you need to be a problem solver.
0:07:27
So when you're dealing with communicators, I think that if you can help us solve problems, you are going to make our life so much easier. And that's a good thing because when our lives are easier and I don't mean that you need to make. Life easy for the press, but it makes a smoother story. You know instead of me just going back like I, I know that they said something about XY and Z Bang Bang Bang Bang. You're just banging out a story to try and get it for that deadline of five-six o'clock, whatever. What have you you are.
0:07:58
You know you have time to be thoughtful. You have more time to be to edit your words versus just like and they said this. So the more time you have, the more time you have to sculpt something to make it pretty to make it sing to make it. BS Story rather than just the report good and you know. And again if there. If the communication side of things or the person who you're interviewing is feeling like there well prepared,
4 - 0:08:24
then if you've got more time than you can be more like you're saying, it's probably better value for both of us.
1 - 0:08:32
If that's happening. One day you could be out in the middle of a cow field. The next day you could be interviewing, going to a prime minister's press conference, or there can be a scandal at the hospital you don't know everything and you have to be OK with not knowing everything you know and we have to remember that we write for a grade eight or nine level because that's, you know, people don't pay attention. They're doing 17 other things while they're watching. We're ingesting any kind of media, so it's OK to ask that kind of dumb questions. Allow us to until an interview, we need to expect that we're going to ask some really dumb questions so you have a sense when you're and I,
4 - 0:09:15
I find it fascinating so the whole covid thing with people on zoom and remote connection and so on. It actually does change your new site,
2 - 0:09:24
your Newsday. I guess your news collection. It has it's it's I feel bad for infectious disease experts who. There's this one that we bug at the University of Calgary. Craig Jenny and he has a night. One day I asked him like so how many zoom calls do you usually do in a day and he's like, oh, I had to create a whole setup because he's like half of my job now or if not more, is just constant. Every single channel, every single outlet you know wants to get your $0.02 on whatever.
0:09:51
What have you is the latest in covid but it has made it so much? Easier in that fashion that people are set up,
1 - 0:10:03
you know, lots of people have ring lights or they know how to you know. Set up a nice light so it's. Gathering that information has become easier.
2 - 0:10:13
In a sense, it doesn't always look as good for television entertainment. We don't have our B roll and things like that of them walking in or the classics playing on the computer visuals, but it really does help in the gathering of information.
4 - 0:10:28
Because one of the things I can recall as a communication person who would prep people to be on the air is that unlike other media television like you say, the walk and talk, the two-shot all those other things can really be sort of. It can put people off like they're not used to TV and sort of being on-air and so on. And those elements can sometimes take away from the very simple messages that often they're trying to convey, and they get kind of like, you know, mesmerized by the system. Like you say they are now. Conducting interviews day-to-day, their meetings like this and now this is kind of just like another meeting for them.
0:10:58
So what tips you off to somebody who is or isn't prepared when you talk to them? Are there? Are there things that stand out to you and like you say you may not know something too much about something and you may be trying to ask some simple questions, but every story needs to have a little bit of newsworthiness be a conflict or some sort of element that's kind of bringing it forward? And there's obviously people that you run into. Could do it well and who doesn't anything that in particular comes to mind when you talk about traits or elements of people present to you from a television POV.
1 - 0:11:37
Being well-prepped shows it's a day of thing. It's really hard to prep somebody who's never done TV before. If if if they don't have the time right, you know. Or if they don't have a person telling them what to expect, you know I have a lot of the time. If I'm interviewing somebody like me, just give me a couple of questions that you're going to make. Absolutely, I want you to sit on these.
0:11:56
I want you to ruminate. I want you to sit in the shower before we have the interview. And say them out loud, and the key really honestly is to think about them like even last night I was thinking about what I was going to say to you just because you want to kind of get words formed, sentences, formed, ideas that you want to talk about, and it takes. It's like your third draft, you know often enough in an interview. I sometimes ask a person the same question three different ways because they're not giving it to me the right way, because in you know he means.
0:12:28
So. It's like the first draft. They're kind of like, well, you know. Who they might stumble over their words the second time I'm trying to get them to frame it the way that I want it for television purposes, and then the third time they've gone from, you know, four cents to two. And you're like there you go. That's what I needed. Not everybody speaks in sound bites and you don't want just somebody who is a 15-second clip, 15-second clip and no actual nuances or any kind of actual information.
0:12:52
But practicing helps and being prepped, and whether you're communicating communicator, you know, prepping someone for an interview, it's giving them the obvious questions. And because it's television, they might want you to walk into you, know how many times I've had to explain that to people and say like I, now we need this. You know when I try to say like you know, you know when I say Joe is an expert on Sciences or whatever, we need to have some visuals of you and then it kind of registers to them. But it takes a lot of time out of our day if we're coaching them. Whereas I feel like somebody should have given them a heads up.
0:13:28
So at the end of the day, I would say prep. It's interesting that you say you know you sense that you've got an answer that you like,
4 - 0:13:40
or that you can use or that fits within your story on this side of the media microphone. I am what I'm telling people is that here are the two things that we want. Maybe one thing that we really want to communicate, and it's not terrible to try to keep saying it, or to you know, circle back to it bridges. We would say you know I'm hearing and this is great. I'm hearing sort of both sides of you know the give and take on the interview and. I think it's valuable for communicators to understand that I often say that you know interview, especially the kind of we're talking about, is not necessarily a conversation.
0:14:13
Both sides have objectives here, and they do not necessarily sort of like trying to trick each other, but the reality is that you're trying to get a story, and the person who's being interviewed should have in their mind the story they want to tell. When something's a little bit more controversial or a little bit more challenging. For people, anything you do differently too.
1 - 0:14:35
To prepare, would you be less likely to ask a basic question to someone who you know you're really going more for content too than for information? You know it. It depends on the on the situation.
2 - 0:14:47
If you're part of a scrum, you might not waste your question on something like that. A lot of people will use questions.
1 - 0:14:54
One is a throwaway question. Let's just, you know, make sure your mikes working for leave. You're comfortable, you're not stumbling, you know just to warm up, you know, a nice little pitch in and then we'll get to it and it's just to make everybody feel like OK, you got #1 and under your belt. If there are nervous person. If there are seasoned professionals at this unit there, politician or they're whatever, you might not. If you don't have the time, you might not be wasting your first question.
0:15:20
It's funny how you really just sometimes have to roll with the scene and the. Access, and sometimes you're expecting one thing and you get something completely different every once in awhile you get somebody who might be in something controversial and you have great access and the person's open. And it's funny how something a person who is open might change the story. Would you have an example of something like that?
4 - 0:15:46
Even generic sort of like you're going in and suddenly your day gets,
1 - 0:15:49
your story is turned upside down because of what someone may have revealed or. What I notice that sometimes I really like to be able to have a little bit of 1 on one time with the person. If if you have the time, whether it's an expert in science, whether it is a police officer, whatever would have you politician somebody you're interviewing. If time allows and you're allowed to, you know sometimes there's PR people lurking, but if you can and I get it, they're doing their job. But if you can just kind of get to a personal level. Sometimes the most random question of talking about the weather or talking about the thing or talking about their kids.
0:16:21
And they tell you something interesting. That somehow isn't in and when I speak about and into your story, it is the thing that I start with. It is that, oh, there's my clip off the top. Oh, this is how I'm going to get into either. Who this person is or the world around us.
0:16:43
You know whether it's Joe was. In shoveling, you know for his neighbor today, and this happened, and then you can kind of. It's a weird intro, but it's interesting and it's not just the generic of this is happening in our world today. So sometimes if we have those opportunities to actually just talk one on one as a person, you get to get this interesting. Oh, it was his birthday today.
0:17:09
OK, something interesting that somehow changes. You're in. It doesn't necessarily change the story, but it really changes the tone or. It humanizes the person, which is half of our job as well, is to humanize something. To make it interesting, so people will learn and listen.
0:17:26
What's your? What's your process in terms of figuring out who you do talk to in a day time again with communicators listening?
4 - 0:17:35
How can they make their experts if they have them more obvious to you? This is assuming they want to talk to you,
1 - 0:17:41
but basically trying to what's the first thing you do or what are the things you think about in terms of access to people? You know a lot of the time we're looking for experts,
2 - 0:17:51
whether it's political experts, whether it's signed right now, scientific experts, or, you know, we've also had Black Lives Matter movement, so we're trying to find people to talk about race and trying to talk about Inter racial relations. Things like that. I mean, social media has helped a lot because we have way more access now to people. You know, the traditional concept of going through a gatekeeper sometimes doesn't happen anymore, because we can find people on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter. That are, you know, I've done it at night where I'm like, hey, let me know if you ever want to talk about this, you know, and sometimes it doesn't happen from that story.
0:18:25
But it might happen later on. But it would be amazing. PR people, whether you're at the University or whether you are at fronting for an organization, if you could create a relationship with people and and really relationships do actually matter. If you create a relationship with somebody at whatever station, whatever paper would have you,
1 - 0:18:48
were you checked in? And he said, what are you guys looking for? Because things change. I can say in the last year our focus for what we want to cover has changed because we saw the reckoning of Black Lives Matter on our streets. You know we had a lot more people speaking out about racial injustice and we looked at the people that we constantly go and we all have our people that we go to because you know they've got the ring like they're ready to go. They will be there. They'll talk to you.
0:19:13
Which is, you know, key, but we have to remember that we need to have, not just. White men or white women? We need to get voices of, you know, other people and people who look. Like our world in our in our community speaking as experts and right now, if I was a PR person, whether whatever I'm working for that would be in the back of my head because we just keep constantly going back to oh, I know this person. They talk about politics all the time and I've seen a shift.
0:19:41
In the last little while where it's trying to get female voices and people of color, and it's incredibly important to continue that not just at a national level, but at a local level as well. One of the areas that I talk to communicators about is when there's a brewing story that's come along quickly that's of high interest,
4 - 0:20:06
but is difficult to kind of piece together, either because you're having a difficulty as a Reporter trying to access experts or people, particularly to the story, but you don't want to let it go. And maybe it's a little bit less of an issue when you've got a set time for newscasts. But for example in Ontario where you've got a couple of all news network or I guess, nationally, we've got all news networks. You know that you're up against it as a someone who's going to be identified or a responsible party. I guess in a story and you're not responding.
0:20:35
What I say is that if you're not responding and they can't even get experts, don't think the story is not being covered and in some cases, you will go to the non experts you will go to the person in the street to talk about something just to get a reaction and try to get whether you know the newsworthiness or trying to get the emotion out of it. Can you talk about or think about the times when you use people in the street? To color or to compliment a story,
1 - 0:21:02
you know, sometimes there is something happening in the world, often another politics, or it can be the most boring story in the face of the earth that effects us all effects of all,
2 - 0:21:11
and we get without mistreater. So we go to the street and let's see what people are thinking and sometimes. And you're right, you know sometimes there's not an expert or there's people who don't want to talk about it. They're taking their time in preparing whatever it is, whether it's scandal, whether it's or whatever, and they don't want to. So we go to the people. But it's also a way to challenge people,
1 - 0:21:32
not talking about things. So if your organization is under the microscope or your politicians are under the microscope for something and they are not talking about it in Alberta
2 - 0:21:43
we had Aloha Gate where several of our ministers went to Hawaii for Christmas and they weren't talking about it and there was on Twitter with a hot fire and there were people who were just like I found this person. You know, they're they're playing Sherlock Holmes and they are, you know, tracking down where people are, and Instagram and. Things like that and that would be a time that you might go to the street and say what do you think about people going to Hawaii when they're telling everybody to stay at home because it challenges the politicians were going to keep with this narrative. We're going to let people say what they want unless you have something to say so often enough. That is, you know sometimes it's temperature.
1 - 0:22:26
Take. You know you're just trying to see how people feel. If people really care, but sometimes it can also be a way of filling the void until the person who's responsible or the people in charge or under the microscope finally come to an answer. What's your view on in those kinds of situations when a company or organization would issue a statement?
4 - 0:22:49
So basically they're meeting you halfway. There are not not commenting, but they're also not responding to what you're really asking. Specially in television. And again, maybe this is different from a year ago, but you know a company comes out, you're pressuring them or or criticizing them. They come out with a statement rather than giving up someone that you can dialogue with. How do you treat that?
0:23:13
Is that? Do you feel less inclined? The need to sort of balance that story?
2 - 0:23:19
Or how do you deal with that? I hate statements. I will just say that working in television statements. They let the air out of your story. You know we try so hard and we're competing so hard as so many other things. Try and create a story that has life to it.
0:23:34
It's not just won't won't want, but once you hit a statement from an organization, it lets the air of a story like it really just. It's like hurt. You know you've got all this sound and video and people and emotion. And in a statement they say and it's always this verbose academic thing. That is clunky, like don't get me wrong.
0:23:56
I'm sure that your English degree has been put to great use here, but you know, once again I'm writing it a grade eight grade,
1 - 0:24:06
nine level. With feeling and emotion and sound and video. And then we come upon a statement board which is such a jerk to the ear because it's not written for the year it's written for the I. I mean I understand why they write it that way. There a they don't want to sound that they don't know how to communicate anything beyond the grade level? Specially get something from the University. Often enough it's very academic and flowering.
0:24:30
You're like, oh, that's a little a lot of sentences is and I'm not really sure what you said so. And often enough they are very vague. They're very were. This is basically an acknowledgment that you have spoken to us. Yes, yeah so. But I under.
0:24:46
I mean, I understand they have the two brains where I can sit there and I can understand why they put out statements. You know, it's a very vague sounding. We are looking into this. We have. We are doing our due diligence.
0:24:59
Well I think the other part of it is not is also legalese right?
4 - 0:25:06
So sometimes the lawyers are companies or organizations we get involved as well, and trying to just kind of. Like you say, sort of keep it vague so that they keep their options open in terms of talking about it and so on. So so looking ahead. So when we if and when we ever get out of Covid is going to be difficult for you to get back into the swing of
2 - 0:25:26
going out and trying to find people physically when you don't have the excuse of not too well, it's just. It's so funny because my well my schedule I work at night so I worked with three to midnight shift and it's so funny because my life is just coping a lot of the time because every day pretty much we have a press conference at 3:30. And it's our, you know, medical cheap officer helps and that's what I do and that's my life and you know I slowly work on things throughout the week to try and get in a story that's you know, a different take on something else but. I think we're going to go back to I think will be a hybrid. I think there really will be because now that people know how to do it, they're not afraid of it.
0:26:07
And also people are so used to now doing this. Zoom zoom interviews. But also, you know like as much as we were talking about how people were kind of awkward years ago with the whole concept of B roll of OK, Now I need to shoot the inner mean because so many people have a phone now and they're constantly talking to their phone and taking selfies. People are a lot more digitally aware. And more comfortable in front of a camera.
1 - 0:26:32
Then probably they've ever been before because they have and they watch and they digest whether it's tick Tock or Instagram or whatever would have you. They are ingesting so much more media now so there everybody is a little bit more media savvy in some fashion.
4 - 0:26:47
Tara, I really want to thank you for taking the time to speak to me on the podcast here. Enjoy it and it was great to engage with you in terms of the work you did when you were in London, and so happy that you're doing so well in Calgary and you're finding new life out there and in good times. And I know that my audience really appreciates being able to kind of be taken in into the reporters corner. And you know, the journalism side of trying to communicate. And I think the insights that you gave today were really great, really relatable, and I'm sure that people will.
2 - 0:27:20
Will benefit from them, so thanks again for being on the podcast Fantastic. It's been great to connect me.
3 - 0:27:27
Care overhaul from City TV in Calgary? And so once again, the theme of relationships between communicators in the media has once again highlighted itself. Here in this episode. You know you really can't broadly communicate without engaging media, so you need to engage on a regular basis and not just get stuck on a story that may be in front of you on any given day. Over the long run, this will spawn the benefit of having people you know at the other end of the phone line. People who can actually help you achieve your communication goals, especially when you find yourself the focus of a negative or difficult story.
0:27:58
Also, in this episode we discovered that general assignment reporters are not necessarily experts on every subject. Perhaps not a shocking revelation, but do take time as a communicator to educate regular beat reporters about your business, just like the way you would reach out to people outside of your organization or routine stakeholder groups. To tell them what you're up to. We hope to keep bringing you the best in the business from both sides of the media microphone. Who will help you better understand and develop your messages and stories.
0:28:26
For now, thanks for connecting. Speaking of Media is available on all podcast platforms. Plus we've now added a feature on YouTube. Just search Speaking of media there. I hope you will listen like comments and subscribe to the cast as that will help us expand the show's reach and attract quality content.
0:28:41
Please consider joining our Speaking of media communicators discussion group on Facebook. You'll also find us on Instagram. LinkedIn under my profile and on Twitter at Media speaking. I'm Keith Marnoch and through other episodes. I look forward to our next time together when we will be Speaking of media.