It's all entertainment friend!

I've always thoughts that public speaking and even journalism as a whole (interviewing, news reporting, etc.) requires a degree of acting and possibly even a degree in acting. Having done public speaking in high school, I think back to my first audition; auditioning in front of the matrics at the time (i was in grade 8), I remember stuttering and muttering and doing everything short of running out. I got in only because there weren't enough people who had auditioned. It s a bitter truth but I laugh about it now because by matric I had public speaking down to an art (as far as public speaking goes in high school that is) and I was even went onto coach grade 8's a few years later.

We (my public speaking team and I) actually faced a lot in those first few years of public speaking with people not pulling their weight and even dropping out. Being chairperson I had to fake confidence every time I introduced a new speaker. Grade 10 was the year my acting skills were put to the test. My uncle passed away the week of our competition, and the competition took place a day after we'd buried him. I had to then stand up and tell a group of strangers about "climbing the ladder of success". We pulled through with a pretty good mark I believe.

The point I was trying to get to is that at the Captivate conference, they had Mahendra Raghunath as a guest speaker and the man is a performer. That put together image we see on the seven o' clock new is literally put together. I'm not criticising the man, merely stating that news as a genre is really no diferent from a soapie. this is what Priscilla lectured about last term and Mahendra even said it himself.

He later explained that he had studied drama and had done some stand up comedy before. It was truly refereshing to see a personality and not just a trained news anchor who can speak in to a camera.