Performing the News

 Carrie and Megan talk with Dr Elia Powers, Associate Professor of Journalism at Towson University, about his book Performing the News: Identity, Authority, and the Myth of Neutrality.

• 5 Podcasts for Word Nerds NY Times
• Why Does Trump Do That Weird Capitalization Thing? HuffPost (sometimes Gillon is misspelled as Gillion, as per uzh)

Chapters

• 9:58 Interview with Elia

Transcript

Carrie Gillon: Hi, and welcome to The Vocal Fries Podcast, the podcast about linguistic discrimination.

Megan Figueroa: I'm Megan Figueroa.

Carrie: And I'm Carrie Gillon.

Megan: And congratulations to us.

Carrie: Congratulations to us. Yeah.

Megan: Yes, we might be talking right now to people that had never heard of our podcast until a week ago.

Carrie: That's true, yeah. So, yes, welcome to any new listeners who came to us via the New York Times, and thank you to...

Megan: To the New York Times.

Carrie: To the New York Times for mentioning our podcast. I was very shocked. I was like, "Oh wow, and my name is in the New York Times.

Megan: It is, a couple times. And it was in Article 5 Podcast for Word Nerds, which is always fun to be included with the other people that were on there. But yeah, it was quite a shock. Actually, the person that pointed us to that was our guest today, which is fun.

Carrie: Yeah. He emailed us and told us, and he's like, "I'm sorry if you've gotten a million emails." But this sounds like, what? No. It's the first one.

Megan: Yeah.

Carrie: So that's amazing.

Megan: Yeah.

Carrie: We should probably also shout out all the other ones just because there are companions on this journey. The Illusionist, and had been to one of their live shows and it was a lot of fun.

Megan: Oh, you have?

Carrie: Yeah.

Megan: In Vancouver?

Carrie: No, in Boston. Remember when I went to that podcast conference?

Megan: Yeah.

Carrie: Definitely would recommend, Words Unraveled.

Megan: Nice.

Carrie: And A Way With Words.

Megan: They're great. They're on NPR, right?

Carrie: Yeah.

Megan: Every weekend.

Carrie: We've been on panels with them, right?

Megan: Yes.

Carrie: I'm not forgetting that. And then Enthusiasm who were also like, they've been around what, six months longer than us?

Megan: Yeah.

Carrie: They helped us to the very beginning with some advice. So that's very helpful. So we're in good company.

Megan: Definitely in good company. Yes.

Carrie: Speaking of media coverage, we were both asked to talk about Trump's odd tweeting style, and also speech style and you said, no.

Megan: I said I didn't want to sound like some mad woman that's mad at him. I just didn't trust myself.

Carrie: Okay, fair enough.

Megan: But you did, you trust yourself.

Carrie: I responded, yeah. And then I was, "Wow." I got a lot of coverage in that. I was shocked.

Megan: Yes, but you sounded good. You sounded good. You sounded like you know what you're talking about. You didn't sound like a mad woman.

Carrie: No, I did not. And I did say like, "This is actually not my area of expertise, but here are my thoughts."

Megan: But one of the big points that you pointed out was his all caps.

Carrie: Well, she asked about the all caps. And so yeah, I responded to the all caps. So yeah, we're going to talk about two different posts. One on Truth Social and one on Twitter/X. Just notice if you can tell which one is written by him and which one is not.

Megan: Yes, exactly. You don't even have to be a linguist or someone who's been studying the way he speaks at all to tell the difference.

Carrie: No, this is the thing where yeah, authorial style is just so obvious.

Megan: Yeah, absolutely.

Carrie: Here's the Truth Social post. I don't know what they're called. Are they called truths? I don't know.

Megan: It would make sense if they were. It would be a mistake if they weren't.

Carrie: I've never been on. I've only seen people's screenshots.

Megan: Yeah.

Carrie: So this is @realDonaldTrump. "I won the last two debates. One with Crooked Joe, the other with lying Kamala. I accepted the Fox News invitation to debate Kamala on September 4th, but she turned it down. JD Vance easily won his debate with tampon, Tim Walz, who called himself a knucklehead. I'm also leading in the polls with the lead getting bigger by the day and leading it in all swing states. The first thing a prizefighter does when he loses a match is say that he, "Demands a rematch." It is very late in the process. Voting has already begun. There will be no rematch. Besides, Kamala stated clearly yesterday that she would not do anything different than Joe Biden. So there's nothing to debate. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Donald J. Trump."

Megan: He signed it?

Carrie: He signed.

Megan: He signed it at the end? Oh, my God.

Carrie: So that was all caps, every single thing, all caps.

Megan: Yeah, I was going to say, good job in conveying that it was in all caps.

Carrie: I'm like, it's so ridiculous like still trying to call. So this was October 9th. So this is relatively recent. He's still trying to call Tim Walz, "Tampon Tim Walz.

Megan: It's not going to stick.

Carrie: It's just like, no one cares, dude.

Megan: No.

Carrie: The people who do care are creeps. I know that is your target audience, but also it's still like not everybody. There's probably plenty of people who are willing to vote for you who don't care about this. It's just weird.

Megan: Yeah, it's really weird.

Carrie: And sounds so babyish like.

Megan: Everything he says sounds whiny.

Carrie: That's true. He is such a whiny baby.

Megan: He is a whiny baby. Yeah.

Carrie: It's amazing. Anyway, so you're going to tell us about a tweet?

Megan: A tweet from @realDonaldTrump. So here we go. It's a little bit longer. "So we are now known all throughout the world as "Occupied America" but to everyone here in Colorado and all across our nation, I make you this vow. November 5th, 2024 will be Liberation Day in America. I will rescue Aurora, and every town that has been invaded and conquered. And we will put these vicious and bloodthirsty criminals in jail or kick them the hell out of our country. In honor of Jocelyn Nungaray, Laken Riley and Rachel Morin, and all of the others that are dead and mortally wounded at the hands of migrants who should never have been allowed into our country, I am announcing today that upon taking office, we will have an "Operation Aurora" at the Federal level. To expedite removals of the savage gang, I will invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to target and dismantle every migrant criminal network operating on American soil. No person who has inflicted the violence and terror that Kamala Harris has afflicted on this community can ever be allowed to become president of the United States." That was from October 11th.

Carrie: Yeah.

Megan: The wrath, it's completely different from what you... It's horrifying. Both are horrifying to me in different ways. This one's scary, scary policy stuff that's going to happen if he's elected.

Carrie: In fact, it's scarier, right?

Megan: Yeah.

Carrie: Because it actually has policy terrifying anti-immigrant policies.

Megan: Terrifying.

Carrie: Like fascistic policy.

Megan: Well, yeah.

Carrie: Versus him calling someone Tampon Tim, and just railing against Kamala. It just it's very different levels of fear.

Megan: It is. Yeah, definitely. I believe him when he says this. I know that it was probably written by someone else.

Carrie: Yes. And as you said, Stephen Miller probably.

Megan: Stephen Miller, yeah.

Carrie: If not him, someone like him.

Megan: Yeah.

Carrie: Because he's not the only one.

Megan: No, no. I think it was this week too when Donald Trump said that migrants were born with bad genes. So he's using eugenics language too, which is not surprising for a fascist.

Carrie: No, no. They love to talk about genes even though they have a zero understanding of genetics. Don't know any genes at all. Don't understand how they work.

Megan: Right.

Carrie: It's just a way of saying, you.

Megan: You, yeah, absolutely. So yeah, two very different ways that Donald Trump comes across, but both terrifying.

Carrie: Both terrifying, yeah. I've seen people call the latter one like, akin to radio Rwanda. That is what it feels like. It really does feel like he's this close to calling them cockroaches.

Megan: Yeah. I'm surprised he hasn't.

Carrie: He probably does behind closed doors.

Megan: Yeah, that's true.

Carrie: Yeah, it's really scary.

Megan: That's awful. That's why I guess we won't talk to you until after the election. So hopefully it's good news. Hopefully, you go out there and vote.

Carrie: Oh, yes. Speaking of voting, I just voted.

Megan: Nice.

Carrie: In our provincial election. So here's hoping that the very, very weird, very right-wing Conservative party does not win.

Megan: Is there a chance?

Carrie: Yes.

Megan: Oh, no. So yeah, get out there and vote.

Carrie: Please vote.

Megan: Hopefully, the next time you hear us we aren't depressed. But we have a really great episode for you today.

Carrie: Absolutely.

Megan: Very, very interesting.

Carrie: Yes, I'm very excited for you all to listen and enjoy.

Megan: Enjoy.

[music]

Carrie: Okay. So today, we're very excited to have Elia Powers who is an associate professor of journalism in the department of mass communication at Towson University. A sports features and podcast editor at the Baltimore Watchdog and an independent podcaster, reporter, producer, and host. He's here today to talk about his book "Performing The News: Identity Authority and the Myth of Neutrality." So welcome.

Elia Powers: Thank you, both. I appreciate being here.

Carrie: How could we not, when we're both in here?

Elia: That is true.

Megan: We are, we are quoted. But this is an interesting topic anyway. It would have been a perfect topic even if we weren't in your book.

Carrie: No, this is what Hyber said in her wheelhouse, very, very interesting.

Megan: It's very interesting.

Carrie: In fact, there's also the very first person other than yourself that you talk about is our former guest of our show too.

Elia: Indeed, I heard the episode.

Megan: Yeah.

Carrie: Yeah. Also cited in the book.

Megan: Yes.

Carrie: Dion Braxton, so thank you so much. Our first question is always the same one, why did you want to write this book, and why now?

Elia: So a couple reasons. One, I'll just start with the personal. I think all, but God, there's probably, has some personal reason to take all years-long projects. When I was younger, I had a pretty severe stutter, and always also talked fast. I continue to talk fast, that hasn't really changed over the years. But I was really interested in getting into broadcast journalism, radio or television. No one ever told me in so many words, "You shouldn't do that because you don't have a voice for radio," as they say. But I picked up on that through just who I heard on television and radio. I just had a sense that I didn't necessarily fit into what a typical broadcast journalist sounds like. So years past, I ended up going from print journalism into my current career as a professor teaching journalism and podcasting. I started to see a lot of journalists coming forward with stories about feeling for whatever reason, they didn't fit into radio or TV because they didn't have the traditional news anchor voice, or the public radio voice.

So I started to do some research just about speech disabilities and journalists, and their feeling of whether they felt accepted or not. I just feel like there hadn't really been a full narrative told around journalist experiences and how they get a sense of how to sound professional. Finally, like I said, I teach a podcasting class now, and I have had no voice training other than a week at a podcasting workshop. I want to be supportive of students, but I also didn't really know exactly what their norms were in the news industry. So I wanted to just frankly be able to be more informed and tell them, "Here are some of the things you have to think about when you're doing on and duration, and also here's the way that the industry is changing." So those are the three main reasons why I embarked on this year's long project.

Carrie: So you talk about what you don't know, like what the norms or anything. But it turns out, sure there are norms, but as you mentioned in your book, there's no actual institutional, "You must have to do these things in order to be a journalist," right? Like to be a lawyer or whatever, you have all these hoops you have to jump through. So I found that really interesting. I hadn't really thought about it, but you're right. There isn't almost no bar to entry in some ways, but then there's a bunch of bars that you talked about in this book.

Elia: Yeah, exactly right. Like journalism differs from law and medicine and other professions where there's a lot of codes of conduct and barriers of entry. Everything is very formalized. And right, as you're saying, in journalism people pick it up through osmosis. It's mostly, oh, you hear through back channels, or you get a sense of the society, it was sound or people tell you and conferences or whatnot. So yeah, but it's very much, it's never written down anywhere really in handbooks. It's all very much word-of-mouth.

Megan: Yeah, I used to work at Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at ASU, as a student worker. I remembered the students that took the broadcast journalism classes, how they would change. All of a sudden, I would see that they had a different hair color. Then I would see that they started talking a little bit differently as the semester went on. So it's in these institutions, there may not be like a playbook, but there is a playbook in a way, right?

Elia: Yeah. And every person who's taught a broadcasting or podcasting course, they all have a couple students who they can remember who, like they talk just normal and conversation like they're 20, and then all the sudden you say, "Oh, go record yourself." And all of a sudden they're trying to do their best like Walter Cronkite or Diane Sawyer impression. It's like oftentimes very over the top. It's almost like they watched Anchorman or they watched maybe a more modern show with the journalists and they're like, "Okay, this is what I'm supposed to be doing because this is what's normalized."

Carrie: Yeah. When I read that part of the book, the thing that came to my mind actually, which is so horrifying, but I thought about Alex Jones. So I listened to a podcast about him. I do not listen to him directly. But when he's trying to sound like, "Oh, this is a really important thing." He puts on this really over-the-top anchor voice, and it makes me laugh every single time because it's so pompous. It's also like, "Dude, this is not your lane. You're a conspiracy theorist, just stick with that."

Megan: I've never listened to him, but I can imagine what you're talking about.

Carrie: It's worse than you can think, I think.

Megan: Really?

Carrie: Yeah. So, what do you mean by performing the news?

Elia: Yeah. It's a good question because some people have looked at the title and be like, performing. I don't perform, I'm a journalist. I just present the news. So the performance, not to get too deep into the academic literature and communication, but Erving Goffman is actually a sociologist, talks about this front stage-backstage self-presentation we're always performing depending on what audience we're speaking to. In journalism, that's very true because not only are you performing a version of yourself when you're in the office, when you're in meetings and just behind the scenes, but if you're on air, you're also performing for this imagined audience out there who's listening to you. So a lot of journalists I spoke to, sometimes you hear people say, "Well, so and so anchor sounds exactly the same on air that they sound in person." Like you're going to be shocked, "Oh okay, that's what you actually sound like." But more often than not, my experience has been, there's a performative nature to actually speaking on air.

A great example of this, I mentioned one of the chapters, there's this hashtag customer service voice on TikTok where this isn't just journalism, this is people in customer service and other front-facing professions will literally show themselves talking normally. Then they will snap their fingers, put on their performative voice. It's just, you can see so starkly the difference between the two. A lot of news anchors have gone viral on TikTok just sharing what they do to go from their very accented regional voice to their everywhere, but nowhere geographically, unidentifiable newscaster voice. So what I mean by performing, it's just basically the version of yourself both in voice and also just an appearance that journalists put on when they are in front of the public. The norms differ, again, very much depending on whether you're in public radio or local TV, or in podcasting, there's obviously a whole different ball game, which we could talk about later if you want. But that's what I mean by performing.

Megan: I'm just thinking that I'd totally do this when I call anywhere to ask for a service rendered. Like calling to the vet to ask about something or whatever. I have this voice that I change into. I don't really know if I do it for podcasting. Carrie, do you think I do?

Carrie: You change a little bit because everybody does.

Megan: Yeah.

Carrie: We sound different when we are talking to the audience versus when it's just the two of us going, "Oh, wait. Maybe we should hug.

Megan: Yeah, exactly.

Carrie: I wouldn't say it's a huge change, but it is a change.

Megan: There's a change, yeah. That's so interesting. So what is it that you mean by performance neutrality?

Elia: Right, so when we talk in journalism about neutrality, usually the default is that we're talking about reporting, right? Don't involve yourself in the story. Try to be down the middle. Don't anger both sides or please no one, but I'm not talking about that type of neutrality. What I'm talking about, what I keep hearing from journalists use things like, "I was told by a producer, I needed a tone down the way I spoke. Maybe I sounded too young or there are a lot of code words that are used too urban, too excitable. There's a lot of examples of that. But this idea of flattening your voice, almost trying to hide a little bit about not just your personality, but also your background in your identity, so that's the flattening. There's also the second, the sense of trying to sound placeless, right? This idea of trying to be, I think one former NPR programming director is the one who just said that this ideal is to be ambiguously genuine. Meaning to be, they sound like a real person, but they don't sound like they're a specific age or that they're from a specific place.

So again, the idea of neutrality, I was trying to figure out, what's a term that I could just come up with that would encapsulate this idea that you're trying when you're on air in some cases to, again, sound generic, sound widely acceptable. In doing so, especially journalists from historically marginalized backgrounds, that's who I mostly talked to in this book, they feel like to do that often means to hide where they're from, how they're used to talking and either to do that in order to be viewed as professional. You mentioned Dion Braxton, your former guest, and that was one of the first ones. He was one of the first people I spoke to for the story. He went to my university and never taught there, but we crossed paths. But he was basically saying, "I was told in no uncertain terms that just the way that I sounded wasn't acceptable and I needed to be more broadly acceptable to people all across the US. So when I talk about neutrality, I'm tired of just talking about this idea of trying to be unidentifiable almost, geographically and broadly acceptable. That's the idea here.

Megan: Unfortunately, for historically marginalized groups that is ultimately, it could be racist because I'm thinking about radio where you can do linguistic profiling. You can suddenly meet someone and be like, "Oh, I didn't know you were black. You sound white."

Elia: Yeah, I heard there was a horrifying story where again, both ways. So, some journalists were told basically they sounded too black. Not in those exact words, but that was the clear implication. Other times people on radio would say, "Well, we want a diverse sounding host because the host doesn't sounds diverse." Which meant that they didn't sound a black enough. It was like there are all these stereotypes around how somebody of a certain race or ethnicity should sound. But as I mentioned, looking at a lot of other people I talked to said I'm right. There's not obviously one way that someone who comes from a different culture and background shows or needs to sound. That's a very narrow way of thinking about things.

Megan: Yes, very narrow. So do the institutional norms of broadcast journalism promote linguistic bias?

Elia: Yeah. I certainly think they do to an extent. One of the interesting things that I found in looking at it, I was always wondering where these standards come from and these norms come from? As long as I've been following broadcast journalism, there's been this again, general American Midwestern way of speaking. I found it really interesting that not only in the US and TV news, but also with the BBC and a lot of other countries. There was a very distinct effort to standardize the way that broadcaster sounded. Those decisions where often times they turn to linguists, they turn to people who studied all this, and were from in the US obviously, but they were often from the Midwest. So I thought that the people that were actually making the decisions about what's considered to be a professional way of thinking were generally white men from Ohio, or the Midwest. So in some ways it's no surprise that that ended up being seen as the standard, right? People making the decisions obviously affect what's considered to be normal or neutral. So I do think in that way, it definitely promoted discrimination as far as everyone else was seen as authorized, right? Southern accents, very thick Northeastern accents, regional dialects, those types of things from the start, I think were viewed as unprofessional.

Megan: Yeah, and I'm thinking about how newscast in a South often don't have people that sound like they're from the South, even though that's their region that they're reporting in. So did you talk to anyone who changed their southern accent for their job?

Elia: Several people including a couple of voice coaches who talked to me, they basically were like, "I realized early on when I was in broadcasting, I couldn't speak like I was from the South. It just wasn't seen as well educated." You still hear very, I can't say I've listened to every local news station and sample, but in my sentences you still hear very few regional accents, even in those regions. The one area which is interesting, that I didn't go into too much detail, but I think I know about just because I'm a sports fan. It's like, if you hear NASCAR announcers and broadcasters, college football announcers and broadcasters, it's actually an asset in a lot of ways to sound like you're from that community. It does seem like more of those people tend to be white and that's a very specific southern accent. But I think it is advantageous in certain parts of the media, but in the mainstream, less so. Although again, I will say, things are changing. I've noticed on some public radio, Ayesha Rascoe was one person that came up in numerous conversations. I didn't actually speak to her, but was mentioned a lot about somebody who sounds from North Carolina very much sounds like she's from North Carolina. So I think on NPR, there is increasingly, I think you hear more accent diversity. I think it's gotten better, but still not necessarily representative of the US as a whole.

Carrie: Yeah, I've noticed that here in Canada too. So I was away for over a decade, and when I came back, I noticed a lot more different accents like clearly South Asian accents on the radio. I'm just like, "Oh, this is exciting." The other thing that I was thinking of while I was reading your book is Deon story. I was like, I wonder if he had stayed in sports. Like as I said, it was an original idea, if he would have been able to keep at least more of his accent because I feel like in the sports world, like you just said there are some more varieties allowed.

Elia: Yeah, I wonder too. I think there's a decent chance that would have been the case.

Megan: Yeah, and I think about sports broadcasting and I'm thinking, okay, so it's football season. There are a lot of former football players that are now commentators. They get to be themselves, I've noticed.

Carrie: But they're stars too. So it's part of why.

Megan: Yeah. So is that why they get to be more authentic, I guess? It's because they are stars or they have this credibility about them because they've played?

Elia: I think that's actually a really good point. Yeah, I hadn't really thought of it that way, but if you built up credibility already that you already have that built-in gravitas, right? You probably don't have to overcome those hurdles. They're authentic where somebody who maybe is coming up through the business doesn't get the right do the same thing for the same way.

Carrie: Right. We all have to prove our credibility somehow.

Megan: Yeah. So that leads us into the next question really nicely I think. Tell us about who we deem authoritative and trustworthy?

Elia: Yeah. I would jump to podcasting just for this answer here. Because I do think that podcasting has very much changed radio. This is what I learned a lot in reporting and talking to people who have moved, supposed to be from radio into podcasting where they were very used to performing a certain way. And when they got to podcasts, and sometimes for the same company, people who did public radio affiliated podcasts, just the fact that they are now on a podcast, and they had a younger, more diverse audience, meant that they could let themselves lose a little bit and not feel constrained by the old norms of presentation. So I think that's an example of how some of the norms were changing and how in podcasting. I mean having younger sounding voices, having non-traditional voices. As I mentioned in the book, there's a lot of, not a lot, but more people who have speech disabilities, who stutter, who have other voices that would not be considered typical broadcast voices.

I think that's for showing you to an extent that if you have something interesting to say, audiences will gravitate toward that. I think this idea that audiences want a certain type of voice, I think is some just proven in this medium. We can also talk later if you want, about vocal fry, which obviously is a topic near and dear to your heart, and up speak, but I think a lot of that too. I've been heartened actually by some of the younger journalists I've spoken to have said that voice coaches and mentors in the field are now telling them basically vocal fry is, do not worry about this. This is something that has just been brought up to make women feel less. So I do think that historically, I think with what this is said was, people were considered authoritative, or people who adhered to this very traditional way of speaking, I think that what we're seeing is positive that there are audiences once accents and different ways of speaking are normalized, right? People actually don't consider accents or different dialects distracting because they're just used to them, right? It's how they and their neighbors speak.

Carrie: Exactly. I hadn't thought about the vocal fry. Damn it, it's gone.

Megan: I did too. I think it brings up a point that men and women are treated differently since men also vocal fry, but women are the ones that are giving this.

Carrie: Oh yeah.

Megan: I don't know what you called it, unsolicited advice?

Carrie: Yeah, that's it. So men with vocal fry are 100% seen as authoritative. And women, well, it depends on how old you are. So at this point, it's like if you're under 50, you're fine with it. It's just interesting.

Elia: Well, yeah, it's actually. Just to piggyback off that, obviously, I knew about audience complaints, right? I think people will complain forever and ever about something related to women's voices, whether it's up speak or vocal fry, or pitch or whatever. But the thing actually I found interesting in my reporting was talking to voice coaches about this because a lot of them pushed back on, really focused on what they perceived as the, they said "Sexism is not about, we don't like vocal fry." Their argument had much more to do with, "Well, it's bad vocal technique or it shows that you're not getting enough air through your lungs." I'm not going to use exactly the terms that they use because I can't remember. But they were focused more on the technique, and I thought it was interesting just to hear different perspectives on it and to hear, it was a dance between trying to share what they thought about strong voices versus these built-in sexism. I think it was interesting for them to try to navigate that because I just thought it was interesting how they were trying to work within the system, right? I guess, so to speak.

Carrie: Yeah. I do wonder, do they do that to men? Because lots of men use vocal fry. It's really pervasive in men's voices, and I don't know. I think that they're fundamentally wrong. It doesn't harm your voice at all. It's the opposite direction. If you harm your vocal tract, sometimes you develop vocal fry. That's the only way you can talk.

Megan: Oh, I didn't know that.

Elia: Yeah.

Carrie: What? We've talked about it before.

Elia: Yeah. I may also learn it's interesting how some female journalists were saying they were trying to lower their voice earlier in their career. And that also is causing physical damage because if you're speaking outside of your normal range. So anyway, I just thought, yeah, all of these, I could have written the whole book on just women and voice. But yeah, I just thought it was interesting how the advice went in all directions, right?

Carrie: Yes. It does go in all directions, yes.

Megan: Yeah. I've actually been told by two superiors to me that I need to get rid of my vocal fry if I'm going to be a professor or teacher, or anything like that. One of them was from a linguist. So I was very offended by that because a linguist should know better. The other one was from a speech pathologist who said that, "You will tend to get very hoarse if you're trying to project your voice." I actually found that to be true.

Carrie: That's interesting. So projecting your voice.

Megan: Yeah.

Carrie: Okay. All right, fair enough then.

Megan: Yeah.

Carrie: But then I still wonder about all those British male actors who are on the stage because they do everything.

Megan: They are projecting. They're on the stage, yeah.

Carrie: Anyway.

Megan: Anyway, we can talk about how women are treated all day long. It's funny though. We don't get any comments about our vocal fry or specifically Megan's vocal fry, my vocal fry. I think because of the show name, I think we're like...

Carrie: Yeah. We've immunized ourselves against that particular complaint.

Megan: Yeah.

Carrie: We still get other sexist complaints, just not that one.

Megan: Yep, just that one. Yeah.

Carrie: Okay. So what does it mean to sound like NPR for example?

Elia: Okay. Sometimes I try my NPR voice out. Somebody described it as a calm, soothing, warm tea voice, right? It's that, I'm not an actor. But it's interesting because when I mentioned this in the first chapter, that I do think I unintentionally when I have done voicing for my own video podcast projects, I don't think like, okay, perform like an NPR anchor. But I think I am in some ways shaped by that again just naturally because it's what I'm used to hearing. So it's definitely, that's at least. Historically, that's been the cliche, at least very toned down. I reference the Saturday Night Live sketch, they had a guest there, it's Gasteyer, she had on that, and Alec Baldwin and they talked about, I think it was called a delicious dish.

Jo McCullin: Hello, I'm Margaret Jo McCullen.

Terry Rialto: And I'm Terry Rialto. And you're listening to the Delicious Dish on National Public Radio.

Elia: That's the norm for public radio. One author called it NPR-ness, right? So it's not necessarily like, it's the same. Obviously there's a lot of local diversity, there has been forever. Especially some of the early I guess they called themselves the founding mothers of NPR, right? They had very non-traditional upper West Side and New York sounding voices, and they leaned into that, right? It was not a traditional voice. It's just that, over the years, the voices that tended to be copied tended to be white. That was just pretty obvious. But yeah, so again, this all gets to the audience, right? What I heard from a lot of journalists and this has been reported in other studies and articles is that the fear is always not alienating the target, the older white well-educated coastal listener. You like what you're used to. And the NPR audience, they've tried to diversify and had some varying success. But I do think there has been just, I think that audience and again, the fact that overwhelmingly people who run public radio stations and do the hiring are white. Again, it's just you are used to what you're used to hearing. And so that is the traditional public radio voice. Again, even though I do think public radio, it does sound more diverse now. And again, largely because of some very prominent hosts of shows and also just podcasts that NPR has done that have been quite successful.

Carrie: I always think of Dan Castellaneta, his character on Parks and Rec.

Megan: Oh my God.

Dan Castellaneta: Could one say that a book is nothing more than a painting of words, which are the notes on the tapestry of the greatest film ever sculpted?

Leslie Knope: One could say that, but should one?

Megan: It is so good, and he does do that calming voice. It sounds like a calm. It's like I take him more seriously once I hear that voice.

Carrie: Really? Because I think you're not supposed to take it seriously.

Megan: No, I know. It makes me laugh. It's such a good character, though. It's so good. I've been watching The Morning Show. So I've been noticing. Have you seen it, Elia?

Elia: You're talking about the Streaming Show?

Megan: Yeah, the Streaming Show.

Elia: Okay. I have not seen it. I've heard very much reviews. Everyone's recommended it. I haven't gotten around to it, though.

Carrie: Yeah. Mix of use art is accurate. I would say very, very good, and some of it is just complete trash.

Megan: Yeah. Jennifer Aniston, for example, is the co-anchor, and I feel like she talks the same. It's just because she's acting, I think. You don't really see this I don't know, linguistic bias so much in the show. So I don't think I'd be as interesting to you if you're going to look at that angle thing.

Carrie: Yeah. It's not really so much about that. And she also doesn't sound that different because it's a morning show, right? The morning show is a little bit more casual.

Megan: That's a good point.

Elia: Yeah. That's a really good point. That's again, one of the things that came up a lot. It's just norms, and even within TV, right? There's a national news type of performance, there's local news. Whether it seems to have much more loose sports we talked about. But yeah, the Morning, that's one of the reasons why one of the television journalists who did this TikTok, public or a customer service voice. She was on the Morning News. And yeah, I think she just felt more she could be loose than if she was doing the evening news. You had to be more buttoned up. So it's just, yeah. It's just totally, I think that's a great point. Just about what the norms are, and when you're on, what news you're doing and what audience you're speaking to, right?

Carrie: So is there a difference between TV and radio in terms of authentic self presentation?

Elia: Yes, certainly. So I focus mostly on public radio and local TV. Yeah. If you just had the audio and I played for you 100 newscasters, you could tell me really quickly, is this a TV person or a radio person? Because the TV voice is much, I guess, again, there's probably some overlap, but just again, different norms, right? Radio has the certain, talk radio, that's obviously a whole different story, which I didn't really get into in the book. That's just like how bombastic and loud can you be. But yeah, totally, TV has its own again, its own norms. Maybe I would say there is really where the Midwestern accent list voices really, there's been a lot less change there. I think the voices you hear in public radio sounds different and are more diverse within public radio than you here on local television. I think you could still, probably listen to or watch local TV in Phoenix and Seattle and Chicago and Main, or whatever, and it would generally sound very similar. Again, it's interesting. I learned a little more about why that is. It's just a strategy. A lot of local TV journalists, they have to start off in a small market in Mississippi, then they have to go to the secondary market. It's just like one of those things where just for career success, you have to climb the ladder. This idea of what you're told by agents and what you're told by coaches is again, the more broadly palatable, the more just generic you can sound, the further along you'll go. So yeah, I do think the norms there are very different.

Megan: I'm just thinking about all of the news that I've consumed in my life, and it's mostly been from Phoenix or Tucson. So I feel like we have this accent list thing going on too. So I can't really tell if these people are from Arizona or not, but most of them, they could be or they couldn't be. I can't tell where they are. That's the whole point, right? It's like the place list. And so we can go back to podcasting now. Is this the same in podcasting? Do you think that people are allowed to have a more authentic self-representation?

Elia: Yeah, absolutely in general. So one of the hard things about podcasting because I tell my podcast students is, if you told me you have a podcast, all I know is that you're talking to a microphone. There is so much variety in podcasting. There are everything from very professionalized public radio podcasts and podcasts from celebrities who are not even journalists obviously, all the way down to just independent. So it's hard to generalize, but again, overall I think you have for certainly you see more local diversity by chapter on podcasting. I call it vocally diverse and semi performative. Podcasting has this, you want the listener to feel like they're backstage with you that you're too hearing authentic conversations. But as YouTube, we're just both saying, you still are maybe performing a little bit, right? You have maybe a slightly elevated version or something that you do a little differently, but yeah. Everyone who I talked to in podcasting says, just audiences have an expectation that you're going to be authentic, and one of the ways you do that is through presentation. The norms are different again. The audience tends to be younger. And also just practically, there's often just a less rank-and-file. Just fewer people working at your organization. So you're not going to get sent to a voice coach necessarily as likely because you don't have the funding for that or no one's there or there's no interest there. So without that built-in hierarchy, right? You're just likely to try to be yourself. This is very much still a DIY culture in podcasting I think.

Carrie: Yeah. And I really mostly prefer that. I do enjoy a lot of NPR, CBC, BBC's podcasts, but there are some podcasts that sound a little too polished for me, and I just am like, nah, I'd rather just listen to two people chat. But I know that these podcasts that I don't like, other people really love. So there's still a space for them.

Elia: Yeah. I like both ends. I love a good produced investigative series or a good produced serialized podcast. I listen to a lot of scripted podcasts that I just think are great. And those performances tend to be a little more, buttoned up a little more, NPR sounding. But yeah, then code-switch doesn't other podcasts. Yeah, I just like people who just sounded like people I encountered in all aspects of my life. But I think the variety is so great. That's one of the things that I love about podcasts. You could listen to five shows and feel like you're listening to five shows. Whereas again in TV, and some amount of radio, I think you don't necessarily feel like that as much.

Megan: That's so true. Yeah.

Carrie: That is so true. How does the myth of neutrality stifle diversity?

Elia: Right. Yeah. So the idea that there are neutral ways of performing, we as the audience take them for granted. Oh yeah, there's a way that you're supposed to sound on radio or on TV, and it's almost taken for granted. We don't think critically about how that actually was constructed, a social construction. Getting decisions were made decades ago about what was considered to be authoritative. So yeah, then if you are a journalist often from historically marginalized groups, women, journalists of color, just some internals with disabilities, yeah, you often could, so the term that I use in the book, that's another Erving Goffman term covering, which is the idea that you're not hiding entirely, but you're toning down or trying to lay down. Again, your background, your heritage, where you're from, who you associate with.

So you end up again, that's where you end up having to change the way you talk, reduce your accent, even dialect, right? Just not use terms or phrases that you would normally use and try to sound more serious, or well-educated or whatnot. That's where the idea of covering or conforming comes into play. When there is a standard [inaudible] unquestioned, if you don't fit into that standard, you're seen as an outsider. Not only does it harm journalists for the ways we just talked about, it costs money to try to change your accent. It is often harmful literally to your vocal cords, to try to change the way you talk, but also, I heard several stories from the younger journalists who just said, "I didn't think I had the right voice for radio." Sort of like my experience, right? That just means you're not even going to try. It's not even that you faced discrimination, you're just proactively not entering the field, which is a problem if we're trying to sound like our audiences in journalism.

Megan: Yeah. And for me I think that I was thinking about what makes someone trustworthy to me, and a lot of times it's if they sound like me too. So being able to hear yourself on the radio is really important. I wonder, do most local TV stations, or not even most, but some, do they have vocal coaches on staff?

Elia: Yeah, that's a great question. For instance, I spoke to somebody who had been for years, she just recently I think left, but was NPR's in-house voice coach. So there was one person who would work, again, I don't think it was like a weekly mandatory meeting, but I think a lot of on air journalists could see this person as much as they wanted to. Maybe there were a couple of maybe mandatory sessions if you were just starting off. So, yeah, at that level, because the national level, there often are I think voice coaches. There are things called air checks that I learn more about in radio where every week or month or something, you'll talk to a producer, or talk to people at the station, not just about your voice, but how are you doing the funding credits? Are you following the right format for this, but some it would be about vocal performance. So there's that built-in on TV. I don't know that there's in-house voice coaches as much as there are agents that have people that they can refer people to, right? Unless maybe built-in TV, it's more of an appearance consultant that still exists. To some extent, although a little less than before. So a lot of journalists I spoke to who are more starting off in the field though, they have had fewer formal voice coaching experiences, but more just like a producer or a friend just worked with them on something and it was more ad hoc. Like if they wanted to have some feedback they could get it. It wasn't so formalized.

Megan: I think I'm remembering this story correctly, but Keith Morrison from Dateline, he said that it would have ruined him if he would have gone to journalism school because he wouldn't talk the way that he did. That he would probably have been taught out of it.

Elia: Yeah. Actually the person who actually taught me voicing a few years ago said, yeah. He didn't go to journalism school, nor did he come up through traditional public radio. He was in community radio where the norms there are basically just talk. There is no instruction like they said he could speak us out. So yeah, that's definitely true. I think sometimes how you were socialized professionally will matter in how you end up speaking.

Megan: So how can people in the media do better to promote diverse voices?

Elia: I would separate it out into a couple different categories. So one is just hiring. You have to start with having people in positions of power who are diverse. So the latest data I saw in radio and TV is general managers and news directors who are at the top are still 85% white or more and mostly male. So one is just getting more diverse people in those positions. Also producers, in radio especially, oftentimes it shows you're working with, if you're in the area, you're working with producers on tracking, on voicing. So people who I talked to said that's important, those people because they're not only coaching you, but they're also making decisions about what it takes to keep and cut, and also who to bring on for interviews. In other words, a lot of times on public radio, people who aren't "good talkers," who aren't brought on and off. And those people who aren't fond of people with heavy accents, right? There's been research on that. So that's just more diversity. Also just maybe being more proactive in again, talking. If you're in leadership positions, mentoring, just talking to young journalists about how you want to sound? What are your goals? Maybe then saying, "Okay, here's our station, at our station, this is some of our goals and how we want to present ourselves professionally. Let's work out the details." But have that conversation rather than just go see a consultant or a coach. "This is a problem or an audience member is complaining about your voice."

I get that's the first time you're hearing about voice. That's going to be really spooky or if you're a journalist. That shouldn't be it. This last thing I'll say it's just, I really think there has to be this again. I think a lot of times people who run media companies might feel like they have to please their audience. There are some audience data out there about ratings and what people like. But there's really not a lot about specific data that I could find on, do audiences prefer X voice to Y voice? A lot of it is just assuming what people will and won't gravitate towards. So I think just trusting that your audience, someone with an accent or who sounds a little different, or maybe sounds like they have a speech disability, but they won't find them distracting or off-putting because research shows that the more you encounter voices that are diverse sounding, the less distracting you find them. There's good data on that. So that's trusting your audience that good content wins out in the end.

Carrie: Yeah, and that the people who complain the most are not the majority.

Megan: Yes.

Elia: Totally. Yes.

Carrie: Don't let them bully you.

Elia: Right. It may seem like it because they're the loudest on social media. But yeah, as we all know people who comment on social media, thank God, are not representative of everyone out there.

Carrie: I still remember the time my dad got feedback from some random person listening to him on the radio. They were like, "It should be zero degree, not zero degrees." I was already in linguistics by this point, so I was just like, "No, it's just wrong. Don't listen to him or her, whatever." Anyway, are there any other things you want to let our listeners know about?

Elia: There were a few others. I guess we haven't talked about accents or name pronunciations. There are really interesting stories that I heard where journalists especially with Spanish-speaking accents were getting complaints for again, sounding generic TV voice. And then all of a sudden, a word would come up that was again a Spanish, a street name that was certainly like pronouncing authentically. You would pronounce it with a Spanish accent, or even saying their name. Something as basic as that. And that would cause a whole hubbub. So there was a lot of that, and again a lot of accent reduction. Especially this was an issue again in Spanish-speaking broadcast media. So that's an issue again, where that's where the complaints are. I don't think most people who run new stations really are thinking about this, but when you start getting complaints, that's when you're like, "All right, well, we have to do something about it." But do you? I guess it's a question. Or do you just say, you just ignore it? In reporting, I saw some outstanding auto responses and email responses to audience complaints. I don't know if you guys have seen that. I think of it as the show 99% Invisible has this amazing where they're like basically, "Thank you for responding to this. We're going to give this exactly zero attention, and feel free to focus on other problems." So I do think I got, it's heartening to me that I think a lot of times with some of these non-issues, people in news do have journalists' back. There's some hope as far as supporting people when they're criticized.

Megan: Criticized for the pronunciation of your own name is the most frustrating.

Elia: Oh yeah, totally. But I heard from several journalists who said in the first couple years of their career, they just didn't want to cause a stir. And so they did not pronounce their name authentically, which the whole name thing came up all the time also. So it's something we don't think about in the audience, but it's a huge issue in journalism.

Carrie: Yeah, speaking of 99% Invisible, one of the producers there also, she used to pronounce her name Lee and then she was, on air explained, "Actually my name is pronounced Lei." And ever since then, it's been pronounced that way. Yeah.

Megan: I wonder, real quick. Did you learn anything that was surprising when you did this?

Elia: I was surprised. The biggest surprise to me again, was just how, I was really curious how journalists came to learn these norms, because again, as we were saying at the beginning, they're not written down. It's not like they're bylaws. I was expecting to hear more, just people starting off, "Oh, well, when I got hired, I was told that I was sent to a voice coach or I was..." Like in a lot of ways, a lot of times there was just this natural self-selection that people, if they got to the point that they were applying to jobs on air, they had already had a very firm idea of how you're supposed to sound. People had told them. Even if no one who actually was hiring them, and told them it is almost like, I don't want to call it back-channel communications. But it was almost like there were so many signals that they were reading when they were listening and watching the news that it was almost like they knew what they're supposed to do and if they were going to be able to cut it before they even got into the field. So the whole like socialization and way that people learn about what's professional in a field, I found to be really interesting because I wasn't expecting it to that extent. Just the amount of information they had in their brains about how they're supposed to speak and look before they even started day one on their job.

Megan: I guess we get socialized into this, right? Like hat we see on the news, what we hear on the news.

Carrie: For me, particularly on TV, people want to be on TV. It makes sense to me that you would have to just be so perceptive and make sure that you see what the norm is even if no one is teaching you.

Megan: Yeah, absolutely. Well, this has been really interesting. I could talk about it in the news all day. It's not even my specialty, but it's so fascinating. We really appreciate you being here with us today, and we always leave our listeners with one final message. Don't be an asshole.

Carrie: Don't be an asshole.

Megan: Thank you.

Carrie: Thank you.

Elia: Thank you. I appreciate it.

[music]

Carrie: The Vocal Fries Podcast is produced by me, Carrie Gillon. Theme music by Nick Granum. You can find us on Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram @vocalfriespod. You can email us @vocalfriespod@gmail.com and our website is vocalfriespod.com.

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