Writing News for Radio and Television

As an Assistant Producer for Newswatch, my job is pretty much to write the stories for the nightly live broadcast. So this chapter was pretty much a review for me however I did find some useful things!

I learned about the four criteria that distinguish radio and teleivion news from print news. I never really took the time to think about these things so this was pretty interesting! My goal is to emphasize timeliness above all other news values, information more than explanation, news with audio or visual impact, and people more than concepts.

However when it comes to actual writing I recieved some good advice, which I can probably start using in the newsroom next week!
- Emphasize immediacy (for example use the present tense as much as possible.)
- Use simple short sentences with active verbs
- Write so that your copy sounds good (use a conversational style.)
- Cut down adjectives and adverbs and the usage of the passive voice
- Condense and use tight phrasing (don't be too wordy!)
- Select your facts carefully because you don't have a whole lot of time to tell a story
- Be clear and precise because viewers can't go back over the copy to check what you said, they only hear it once
- Use nickle and dime words, don't look for synonyms, and don't be afraid to repeat words for reinforcement
- Try not to use figures of speech or too many numerical figures

Lastly, I learned about story structure. One of the most important things is that because viewers are often doing other things with the TV in the background, leads have to grab the readers attention. I also learned that lead-ins should generate interest, while wrap ups should give the story an ending.

The chapter also gave a good overview of how to prepare radio and television copy. The main jist? Make the copy easy for the newscaster to read and easy for the audience to understand!!

I'll save you the time but here are the best tips I received!

- Titles should always precede names so that listeners are better prepared to hear the name.
- Write out difficult names phonetically to help the newscaster.
- Try not to use abbrevations in copy because it is easier to read a word then decipher its real meaning.
- Don't use symbols because newscasters can read a word more easily then they can interpret a symbol.
- Write out small numbers, round off big numbers or statistics, and try to keep numbers in general to a minimum (per sentence) so it is easier to swallow.
- Stay away from using direct quotations because it is dificult to indicate to the reader what is a quote and what isn't (however if it is important, keep it short!)
- Less punctuation is good punctuation!

Although stations may vary in writing style and preparation of the copy, as I learned during Newswatch myself, it's pretty easy to pick things up once you practice!