Friday night I was on ABC’s World News with Charlie Gibson, talking about 52 Nights Unplugged in the context of a segment about multi-tasking and time management.

TV is a weird beast, and one I’ve learned a lot about in the last year. For the curious, here’s what this particular experience was like.

A couple weeks ago, I got an email from a producer from the show. I was busy at work and didn’t immediately respond, and within an hour I had a phone call from my literary agent in New York — which is unusual. She’d gotten a call from the producer as well (my goodness! so urgent!), and wanted to know if I was interested. I said I was.

Five minutes later the producer called from LA. She had “deadline voice,” which seems to be standard in the industry. “Deadline voice” is all about controlled urgency, straight to the chase efficiency, and no minced words. It kind of goes like this: I’M DOING A SEGMENT ON MULTI-TASKING AND TIME MANAGEMENT ARE YOU INTERESTED IN TALKING TO US ABOUT 52 NIGHTS UNPLUGGED AND CAN YOU DO IT TOMORROW.

Sure, I said. I get deadline voice. I’ve had deadlines and I’ve enforced deadlines and I always like to help my fellow story seekers and media colleagues. How can I help you rock your segment?

The next day a cameraman and sound guy showed up at my house. They had apparently been working since midnight the night before, and were a bit frazzled and disoriented. As they set up lights, one of them asked me, “Do you know what this segment is about? Cuz we don’t.”

I said, “Time management and multi-tasking and unplugging or something?” And realized I really didn’t know much more than that.

We filmed my interview first, which was conducted via speakerphone. Now, when you’re talking to someone on speakerphone, you want look at the speakerphone. Or, if there’s a huge camera pointed at you, you want to talk to the camera. But instead I was instructed to answer the questions while looking at the sound guy. Ignore the phone! Ignore the camera! Talk to the guy in the headphones who’s bulging his eyes out and theatrically nodding at everything I say.

Then we did B reel shots — the stuff that shows in the background as someone’s talking. Me using the computer! Me using my Sidekick! Me using the other computer! Me typing. Ooh, typing typing typing. Any segment involving computers must show someone’s hands typing something, and it always feels awkward. Heather Armstrong has written about this, and it’s true: it is weird. Here is me typing. Typing typing typing.

Eventually it was over and they left. (Ooh, but not before the cameraman knocked a frame off the wall and broke the glass. Nice.) The segment was supposed to air last Tuesday, but real world news happened, and it got bumped. Last Thursday I got a call from a new producer (the original producer had flown to Myanmar), who said she needed more B reel shots. Instead of me using the computer, she wanted shots of me turning the computer off. Oh. ok.

So, here we went again: a team of two guys showed up, but hello, what’s this? The freelance cameraman was the same guy I’d worked with on the Today Show segment back in February. We joked and palled around — he already knew his way around my house and how to film me using/not using computers, and here we were again, taking about the same stuff, same computers, same room. He filmed me walking Sassafras (just like last time) and shutting down my computer. Shut it down. Shut it down. Five different angles of me shutting down the computer.

Then, to show what I do on unplugged nights, they filmed a visit from my dad, who comes over every Thursday night before a dance class he takes down the street. I’d prepared my father for the situation, but even so, he found it very odd.

“Tonight I’m playing the role of David Stallings, father of Ariel,” he whispered to me as the cameraman and soundguy scurried around trying to catch authentic shots of us standing in the kitchen talking and making tea. And it’s true. Doing TV news stuff is this odd world where you’re “just supposed to be yourself,” but a version of yourself where you ignore the two guys following you around the house. A version of yourself that does the same silly things over and over again (shutting it down, shutting it down), and doesn’t look at the speakerphone.

I’ve gotten pretty used to playing a weird version of myself for media appearances, but even I wasn’t prepared for the weird tv gauntlet, where I was asked to pretend to talk to someone on the phone. I sat there talking to nobody for three minutes while they filmed me. Three minutes is an awfully long time when you’re just like “Oh hey imaginary friend! It’s Ariel. Yeah, I’m just calling to check in and see how things are going. Oh, me? Stuff’s just fine in Seattle. Yeah, work’s great. Andreas is out of town for a few weeks. Yeah, family stuff.”

After the cameraman indicated he was done filming, I blurted out, “God! That was the most awkward thing I’ve ever had to do!”

“…you’ve never had drinks with me,” he said. Rimshot!

The result is this little bit at the end of a segment about time management.

All told, between “deadline voice” phone calls and emails and the two days when camera crews showed up at my house, I spent about 4 hours of my time on the segment. In exchange I got approximately 30 seconds of face time on national television, which maybe seems cool or something, but cool don’t pay the bills, folks.

See, I wasn’t talking about my book. I wasn’t talking about my job — which actually would have been deeply relevant if I’d known the actual focus of the segment (ie, businesses dealing with time management). I suppose you could argue I got some sort of intangible media credibility from doing the segment, but I wasn’t acting as an authority on anything — I’m just the woman in Seattle doing this thing.

I don’t have any regrets about doing the segment, but I’m going to have to figure out how to make media appearances a bit more worth my time … those are four hours I could have put toward something either way more productive or way more fun.

I suppose what I got out of it was some first hand experience with how the national media recycles stories and sources. As the freelance cameraman left my house after the second shooting, he called up the stairs, “I’ll see you in a couple weeks when CBS decides pick up this story.”