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I learned something about talking that morning in Miami Beach, whether you’re on the air or off: Be honest. You can never go wrong, in broadcasting or in any area of speech. Arthur Godfrey told me the same thing about how to be a successful broadcaster: Let your listeners and viewers share your experiences and how you feel.
When I made my debut as a television talk show host, also in Miami, I had a similar experience—the only other time I’ve been nervous on the air since that first day on the radio.
I had never been on TV before, and I let that make me anxious. The producer sat me on a swivel chair. Big mistake. Because of my nerves, I kept swiveling back and forth, and every viewer out there could see it.
It got to be amusing, so I went with my instinct. I put the viewers in my position. I told them I was nervous. I said I had been in radio for three years, but this was my first time on television. And somebody had put me in this swivel chair.
So now everybody knew my situation, and I wasn’t nervous anymore. That made me talk better, which made me more successful on that first night in TV, all because I was honest with the people I was talking to.
A person recently asked me, "Suppose you were walking down the hall at NBC News and someone grabbed you, sat you down in a chair in a studio, shoved some papers at you, and said, ’Brokaw’s sick. You’re on,’ and the light came on. What would you do?"
I told them I’d be absolutely honest. I’d look into the camera and say, "I was walking down the hall here at NBC when someone grabbed me, handed me these papers, and said, ’Brokaw’s sick. You’re on.’ "
When I do that, immediately the whole audience knows I’ve never done news, I don’t know what’s coming, I’m reading something that’s strange to me, I don’t know which camera to look at—now the viewers are all in my boat. We’re going through this together. They know I’ve been honest with them, and that I’m going to give them my best effort.
I have successfully communicated to them not only what I’m doing, but the dilemma I’m in, and now I’m in a much better position with them than I would have been if I had tried to fake it. Conversely, if I’m on top of the world and everything is great and I am able to communicate this to my audience, I have them with me for the same reason—I am making them a part of my experience.