What happens when you're live on the BBC News channel

A bit of a career achievement yesterday - appearing as a guest on the BBC News channel.

If you’re anything like me, then firstly sorry, but secondly you’re probably interested in the mechanics of how it actually works.

First, I was sent a WhatsApp message from a journalist (at about 6.30pm my time). That probably means that she saw my contact page, where my phone number is; and while I don’t advertise WhatsApp as a way to contact me, of course it works. I didn’t see the WhatsApp message for fifteen minutes or so, but instantly replied when I could, and then called her.

Her first question was one of availability; which led straight into a pre-interview chat. My guess with these are that they’re really an audition to see if you can speak cogently and you know what you’re talking about. I established that I was in the car (in a car park), which let me off the hook of answering a few questions with a “from memory, but I’ll check…”.

I appeared to pass the audition, and another WhatsApp message came to give me the actual time of transmission and a Zoom link. (As a tip: always ask for the UK time; don’t leave it to them to make the timezone conversion).

I then went to brush my hair, put on contact lenses, and get dressed - at least my upper half. I ironed the collar of the shirt I was wearing.

I spent some time last year making shelves and sorting lighting in my home office. The shelves have some back-lighting in Podnews red; with one white LED light highlighting a (meaningless) microphone award. The shelves are just very cheap IKEA ones, sliced down to make them very thin, since I have very little space behind my desk. I have a repurposed LED photo/video light on a table stand on my desk, and an anglepoise lamp which for these sorts of things I aim at the ceiling to add some ambient light, to make the LED light a little less stark.

For audio, I use one AirPod as a headphone, and my proper podcasting microphone for audio. On my Mac I use SoundSource, which enables me to get pretty good control over the audio sources that I use. I much prefer proper over-the-ear headphones - and monitor from my microphone (which appears to cut down on my stutter), but those don’t look good on camera.

I wrote down a number of lines, some of which I used, some of which I wouldn’t - so I could remember the facts and prepare exactly how I would say them. These were in a text document which I positioned just below the camera on the Mac - so I could read them while looking at the camera.

And then it was time to connect. The BBC uses Zoom, but you don’t see anything on Zoom - just a big logo and an instruction to look at the camera.

You connect, and a first line of BBC staff are there to make sure you are who they are expecting. My guess is that they also ensure that lighting is good, that the angle of the camera is right (nobody wants to look up your nose), and that the audio is clear enough. I seemed to pass that test, so I was told I would be “framed up” and “passed to the gallery”.

The “framing up” excercise, I assume, is that they adjust the image slightly so that I’m the same size as the presenter, Ben Brown, on-screen. Certainly, that appeared to be the case, judging by this mid-blink screenshot.

You’re then greeted by someone in the gallery, who tells you when you’ll be on.

Then, you sit listening to the BBC News channel output. To my slight consternation, just before me, they went to a commercial break - where viewers across the world see local ads, while UK viewers see a break-filler package. The audio on the Zoom call is just silence - which I was half prepared for, since I watch the channel relatively often, but three minutes of silence begins to feel quite worrying and you hope that your earpiece hasn’t fallen asleep.

And then you’re on - it being very strange to hear Ben Brown intone your name and the brand you came up with on a whim while searching for available domain names.

They sent a video clip within 24 hours. And here it is.

All very enjoyable, and I think I did a good job. We’ll see if they ask me back!