Many of us are working from home these days, which means our partners are lucky enough to see us in our “office” environment. That said, things are a little different in Jeannette Reyes’s house. You see, she and her husband, Robert Burton, are both TV journalists. They usually leave their “anchor voices” in the studio, but Jeannette recently surprised Robert by bringing work back in an unexpected way for a few TikTok videos — whether he liked it or not.
You might wonder why anchors have these signature voices to begin with. As Jeannette explained in another video, TV journalists sound pretty similar on purpose. “Decades ago it was called the Mid-Atlantic accent, now it’s called the general American accent. It’s a neutralized accent and it makes you sound like you’re from everywhere but nowhere,” she said. According to Jeannette, viewers tend to trust their news anchors more if they sound familiar.
“Another thing we do is that we tend to overenunciate, and the reason why we do that is because we want to be easily understood because we’re relaying some important information,” she continued. “Lastly, we use our diaphragm when we speak, and the reason for that is because it gives our vocal cords a break.” The more you know!