98. How to get the news voice with Kendall Gilding

A clear, credible, articulate voice is an essential tool for every broadcast news journalist. 7 News presenter Kendall Gilding generously shares her industry knowledge and experience with the 'newsreader voice.' If you're a journalism student this is a must-listen.

Transcript

Hello Hello, welcome back to That Voice Podcast, or welcome if it’s your first time with us, today I’m going right right back to episode 2 with the gorgeous, angelic, talented, amazing, lovely, all the positive adjectives for Kendall Gilding  - who is a newsreader for 7 news.

 Now you might have heard in the intro, I used to be a radio and television news journalist and many of the beautiful people I work with 1 on 1 are aspiring or professional journalists. And you’d almost be hard pressed to find a newsroom in the country that doesn’t have someone I’ve worked with. And I love giving back to my old industry – and really being that mentor that I wish I’d had when I was a young journalist.

In our sessions of course we get your voice sounding amazing, but a lot of it is chatting through what your goals are, and how we’re going to get there, focusing on what really lights you up. From a practical point of view that includes editing email pitches, resumes, showreels all that jazz. If you’re a journalism student sitting there refreshing seek hoping to get a job that way, then get in touch because that’s not really how it works in broadcast news land. With this knowledge, I’m proud to report that 100 per cent of the journalism students I work with get their foot in the door of the industry, if not a full-time job by the time they graduate. So if you’re a journalism student or a journalist looking to move onto your next role get in touch. I have special rates exclusively for journalists. I also have an online course called Miked Up – and if you’re still a student this is something you need to do before working with me one on one. I’ll put all the links in the shownotes.

Now let’s dive way back into the archives to my chat with Kendall Gilding and we’ll pick it up where I asked if interns in the newsroom ask her about her voice.

Kendall: They are most surprised if say if they come down to the studio and watch the show, they're, they're surprised about the newsreader voice. Like it is, it is very much a thing and they're shocked from, I've been talking to you all day. You sound completely normal, but in an instant, you know how to put your voice on to that broadcast standard. They don't ask about it so much, but it is actually my number one tip. Anytime an intern is asking for advice about getting career ready, if they are serious about radio or television, my number one advice is just start getting voice coaching because there are so many tips that you will not learn yourself. Like there's so many things that even just with experience in a newsroom, you're actually not going to perfect your voice just by voicing all the time. There are skills and strategies you need. So it's always my number one tip and I still get voice coaching now. We have someone come into our work and you know, everyone in the newsroom essentially can still get a time slot no matter how many - 20 years experience - they can still sit down and get just a few critiques on maybe words they're not saying correctly or letters they're not enunciating. It's, it's a, it never ends.

Sally: Yeah, I say voice is a bit like fitness. Unfortunately you can't just go to the gym for a week and say that's it, I'm fit the end. It's something that you have to stay on top of.

Kendall: 100% and it's funny because when I first started this role, I remember thinking every time I, I covered updates say for the 6:00 PM readers, I couldn't like get the script out in the time that was allocated. It had been written to a certain length and I would always run out of time. I couldn't physically read the words fast enough and I was like, I feel like I'm reading like a race call or what's going on. But it is a fitness that I had not yet developed and throughout my career now that - the whole bulletin is timed to the second because it is live now, my producers are going, wow, you're a lot faster than your read rate because it's a fitness that you just build up. And if you go on holidays as I have recently done, you come back and you've got to, it's like taking three weeks off from the gym. You've got to kind of get back into it. You haven't lost all of the muscle. But you've lost a lot of it and you're starting again.

Sally: Do you think it's a challenge for a lot of young journalism students and journalists that as we've talked about, it is such an important skill? Like you say, it's your number one tip yet, even though you do have people coming into the news room from time to time and there are voice coaches around it isn't that accessible, is it?

Kendall: No. And I'm often surprised by maybe some younger journalists or you know colleagues that I even have that I'm always curious why people don't put more emphasis on voice. Why it isn't considered something we all should be working on more often. And it's not something you really talk about. Once you kind of have the job, there's no one kind of coming around and you get your script subbed by a producer and they check your words and say, yep, cool, this is good to go. But no one says afterwards, hey, like just some tips on, you know, perhaps you could have voiced it like this and often for any of us you can get very singsongy or you fall into patterns of your own that become maybe even your flavour. But truthfully you're actually not voicing the story to the best of not your ability, but maybe to the best way that it could have actually been done based on the content. So it is really interesting that it actually becomes very forgotten about despite it being, I would still believe the actual most important part of even what we do in television.

And of course I am on the same page with that. Isn’t Kendall just delightful to listen to. Gorgeous voice,

If you listened to this ep, you’re a journo student or professional listening to this ep – and going ugh – maybe I need to get some voice coaching. Hit me up. I’m one of the country’s only voice coaches who understands first-hand what it’s like to step into that news booth and as many of my students have told me, I’m a valuable sounding board because I’m not affiliated with any network. I am on team YOU, and I would love to help you grow your confidence and tell the story with a gorgeous, clear, credible voice. Remember, I have a special tab on my website just for JOURNOS.