If revenge really is a dish best served cold, waiting 20 years to settle old scores should make my Sicilian ancestors proud. But that’s not what this newsletter is about. There are no scores to settle. Without launching into the always-nauseating “I have been blessed in life, etc…” I have, over the years, been given the chance to prove myself and frankly, I think that’s all one can ask for.
But the feedback to the last newsletter has been remarkable. The topic of the language barrier has touched a nerve with many, and you sent me countless messages sharing your own experiences of the difficulties of not being native English speakers. Some of you expressed surprise that I had also found it challenging. So I thought this would be a good time to share my story, which should explain why I feel so strongly about this subject. My experience relates to journalism, but I believe language creates similar obstacles in many other fields.
I still remember the date when I was taken off-air at BBC London: The 3rd of March 2003. 3/3/03. I remember thinking that all those 3s should have brought me luck. I guess numerology provided a sliver of amusement in what was an otherwise pretty dispiriting experience. To explain the TV lingo to those not in the business, ‘taking someone off-air’ means not allowing a reporter or presenter to broadcast again, usually after a serious screw-up either on or off screen. Sometimes the penance lasts a few months, in the hope that viewers will forget the mishap. In my case, the ban was permanent and it was due to my foreign accent. For those listening to the recording of this newsletter (click above) bear in mind that 20 years ago my accent was more pronounced than it is now.
I’d been at BBC London a few years, fresh out of the City University journalism postgrad. I started in radio as a researcher and occasional reporter, before moving to TV as a news producer. I always knew I wanted to be on air and there was no point being shy about it. I volunteered for every spare weekend or holiday reporting shift going. Then someone mentioned a studio screen test, and the verdict was: ‘has potential.’ So I started presenting some mid-afternoon headline bulletins, which led to weekends and then to the London regional programme right after the main 10 o’clock news on BBC1.
I think I’d done around half a dozen of those shifts before the call came from senior BBC management that I shouldn’t be on air.
I wasn’t a staff reporter or presenter so no official reason had to be given, but it was made crystal clear that my foreign accent got in the way.
I still remember the words of the head of BBC London TV, who had given me the chance in the first place and now had to take it away: ‘Don’t feel bad - TV news is bland!’ His phrase echoes in my mind to this day. I know what he meant. TV news presenters are meant to be friendly, trustworthy, inoffensive. Certainly not alienating. But not being bland was meagre consolation if it meant I couldn’t do the job I desperately wanted.
In fairness, it wasn’t a shock. In the olden days before twitter, email was where you got feedback. And several emails had been coming into the newsroom with comments about my presentation. Here’s one I’ll never forget:
“I don’t pay my licence fee to have the news read by a foreigner.”
Looking back on this with the wisdom of the years, I don’t disagree with that statement though I may not like it. News is inherently about trust. You trust the people bringing you the news to know about you and have your best interests at heart. Sounding foreign can be an obstacle here, it certainly was back in 2003. It’s pointless to pretend otherwise.
But rationale aside, let’s just say it wasn’t an easy time. I remember the friendly colleagues who spared a kind word (thank you). But TV newsrooms can be rife with hypocrisy and insecurity and I remember those too.
I left a few months afterwards, when I was offered a job at Sky News as a junior reporter. It was my first full-time on-air role and I was ecstatic. The ecstasy was short-lived. The week before my three month probation period was due to end, I walked into the newsroom to find one of those dreaded emails that says ‘Please report to the Head of News’.
“The voice doesn’t work” I was told by the boss. I would find out later the term that had been used privately was ‘It grates’.
“You never told me before that it was an issue. I can change.”
“People can’t change their accents.” he replied.
“Let me try.”
He did let me try, to my huge relief and eternal gratitude.
So my probationary period was extended by another three months, during which time I was sent for regular voice coaching sessions. It wasn’t quite a “My Fair Lady”/the rain in Spain scenario, but the aim was definitely to make my voice more palatable to a British audience. The template was RP English, a neutral form of received pronunciation.
We worked on my vowel sounds, which my International School English had leaning towards the American.
Then it got quite technical when it came to dropping my ‘rhotic R’. Rhoticity relates to whether a speaker pronounces the R in a word - broadly speaking, southern British English doesn’t, and American as well as many other accents do. ( it’s the difference between pronouncing the word car as /kɑː/ not /kɑːr/ . This was the bit I found hardest and eventually claimed back my rolling R.)
We focused on the ‘dentalisation’ of my ‘TH’ sound which, for all you native-English speakers who don’t know, is a linguistic bane for anyone learning English.
And then CLARITY, CLARITY, CLARITY. An accent can be forgiven. Lack of clarity cannot. So we worked on tongue twisters, speed and articulation. I started using this crazy little thing called a bone prop, an inch-long ‘stick’ that I’d put between my top and bottom teeth while rehearsing a script. It’s an exercise to improve diction. To this day, whenever possible I use the bone prop for a few minutes before going on air. And yes, I do get odd looks from people.
It wasn’t an easy time and I shed some tears in that speech therapy room. So much about the way we speak is linked to who we are and where we come from. There is always an element of identity to it. But the voice coaching worked. My contract as a Sky Reporter was made permanent. No, I didn’t sound like an English Rose, but I was a much better broadcaster and acutely aware of my potential linguistic pitfalls and how to avoid them.
Because of this whole saga, I had unwittingly become a bit of a cause célèbre, which is the last thing you need when you should be focusing on the journalism. But the reporters’ manager was very supportive and things started to happen quickly. The death of Pope John Paul II was my first big story. For once my ‘foreign-ness’ and bilingualism were advantages and I was stationed in Rome throughout the Pope’s illness and death. Straight afterwards I was sent to Los Angeles to front Sky One’s ‘Michael Jackson trial reconstruction’. It was then that 5 News (which at the time was produced by Sky) got in touch. They were looking for a presenter so Sky ‘lent’ me to 5 News for a trial for a few months. I even got in the papers, and guess what they wrote about: “Babs is the first person to read the news in a language that’s not her mother tongue..…”
Nearing the end of the trial, I got another “please go see the editor” email. And I’m sure that by now you can see a pattern emerging. The speech training had made my voice clearer but there’s no hiding its foreign-ness to a native British audience. I was told that: “Around a third of the audience find it very alienating. And that’s too many people to ignore.”