Broadcast Newswriting: An Overview

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Broadcast NewswritingAn Overview
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Some reminders

• Read copy aloud. Always.
• For time
• To test for conversational tone
• To test for clarity remember, audience can not
  rewind or reread.
• Listen for sound of words tongue twisters

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News story structure is different than essay or
prose structure

• Print
• Move away from inverted pyramid
• Still largely basis of writing, especially for
  hard news
• With inverted pyramid, most important information
  comes first.
• Continue with facts of less importance
• Designed by copy editors
• Easier to trim

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Broadcast story structure

• Dont generally use inverted pyramid
• Dont build in descending order of fact
• HOLD VIEWER ATTENTION THROUGHOUT.
• In longer stories, include a summary.
• Or, leave the viewer with something to think
  about.
• Summary statement may not be there to conclude
  but instead t let audience know story is ongoing

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Broadcast writers DO

• Use conversational tone
• Less formal than print more formal than most
  casual conversation.
• GOAL
• Tell a story to a friend
• Friend knows less about the story or the
  situation than you do.
• Want to inform subtly impress
• Use common words, but use them well.
• Put yourself in the place of the viewer/listener.

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Broadcast Writing

• If use uncommon words or use words wrong, it is
  distracting for the audience. Loses their
  attention.
• Less formal than print
• More formal than how we generally speak to one
  another
• Still concerned about
• Rules of grammar.
• Sentence construction
• One way flow must be universally understood.

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Broadcast Writing

• rules
• Include contractions
• Exceptions
• For emphasis use BOTH WORDS
• Some contractions are difficult to say (thatll,
  itll, therere) and both words (that will, it
  will, there are) are easier to say.
• Be careful with contractions that sound like
  plurals (The plans giving her reason to hope.)

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Broadcast Writing

• Use short, declarative sentences
• Related to conversational tone
• Dont mean use only See Jane run sentences
• Rather make structure clear
• SUBJECT VERB OBJECT
• Keep the subject and verb close together.
• BAD Police this morning arrested a suspect.
• BETTER This morning, police arrested a suspect.

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Broadcast Writing

• Use Active Voice
• ACTIVE someone doing something
• The governor gave a speech
• The governor spoke about the budget.
• PASSIVE Something being done to someone or
  something
• A speech was given by the governor
• The budget was the topic of a speech by the
  governor.
• Youll rarely go wrong with active voice

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Broadcast Writing

• Use active voice
• How?
• Who is the actor? Be sure to include the actor.
  This is the SUBJECT.
• What happened? What is the action? This is the
  VERB.
• Was any thing acted upon? Influenced? This is
  the OBJECT?

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Broadcast Writing

• Use active voice
• Worst kind of passive voice that where NO ACTOR
  is named
• Less interesting
• The gunman was arrested.
• Mistakes were made.

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Broadcast Writing

• Use present tense (and future tense, when
  appropriate).
• Generally Use present tense.
• Generally, we want todays news, not yesterdays
• There are times when what happened clearly was in
  the past or has not occurred.
• Here it would be silly to use present.
• Stay with the same tense in a single sentence.

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Broadcast Writing

• TODAY
• You are communicating TODAYs news.
• Avoid yesterday in the opening sentence.
• If something happened in the past, what makes it
  news today? That is your focus.
• Has anything new happened?
• Freshen the story

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Broadcast Writing

• Dealing with days of the week
• Use yesterday or tomorrow (but not in first
  sentence) if the event is one day in the past or
  future.
• If want more flexibility, use the day of the week
  instead.
• Use the day of the week if more than one day
  distant.
• If more than one week ago or more than one week
  from now use the date.

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Broadcast Writing

• Dealing with names.
• Use the last name only.
• Exceptions
• On first reference
• If there are multiple people with the same last
  name.
• When referring to children
• Place titles in front of names
• Former Midville Mayor Jane Brown says
• NOT Jane Brown, former mayor of Midville,
  says
• Question Do you need to say the name of those
  who are keyed in a super?

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Broadcast Writing

• Use phonetic (FON-et-ic) spelling of names,
  unusual words.
• Dont worry if its Davis or Miami
• Do worry is its Sarmiento (Sahr-me-in-toe) or
  Kazakhstan (Kahz-ahk-stan)
• If a word has two pronunciations
• Write Base drum
• Dont count on spell check.
• Loose/lose
• tired/tried
• defiantly/definitely

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Broadcast Writers

• Avoid almost all abbreviations.
• Generally avoid courtesy titles
• Guidebook says, dont use Mr. Mrs. Ms.
• Except
• Heads of state
• Their spouses.
• President, Senator, Mayor are not courtesy
  titles they are earned titles. They should be
  used.

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Broadcast Writing

• Acronyms
• Generally avoid.
• Exceptions
• FBI (Write F-B-I)
• CIA (C-I-A)
• NBC, CBS, CNN (N-B-C, C-B-S, C-N-N)
• AM (A-M, as in time) PM (P-M, as in time)
• For more complex or unknown acronyms, may use
  acronym on second reference.

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Broadcast Writing

• In script, keep hyphenated words on the same
  line.
• Dont use symbols (_at_, , , )

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Broadcast Writing

• Numbers
• 1 9 Write out the word. One, two, three
• 10 999 Write the numeral.
• Numbers higher than 999.
• Use a combination of words and numerals.
• 37,915,776
• 37 million915 thousand---776.
• Phone numbers and years Write the numeral.

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Broadcast Writing

• Generally addresses and names arent important,
  unless it plays a pivotal role in story.

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Broadcast Writing

• Punctuation
• Comma standard pause
• Ellipsis () slightly longer pause
• Words that the anchor should emphasize are
  underlined.

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Broadcast Writing

• Quotes
• Broadcasters dont usually use long quotes
• Usually paraphrase (dont change meaning)
• If long quote ill be used set it off with an
  ellipsis. Tells the anchor, and audience, that
  what is said is a quote.
• Dont use quote and unquote. Rather use the
  more subtle in the presidents words

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Broadcast Writing

• Be careful with pronouns.
• To whom are we referring?
• The police officer tackled the fleeing robber.
  Hes a former football player.
• Be careful with attribution
• Use attribution before statements.
• Otherwise it seems that this is coming from the
  anchor or the station.
• Sally Jones extorted thousands of dollars from
  XYZ bank.
• According to back officials, Sally Jones
  extorted thousands of dollars from XYZ bank.

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DO

• Be clear and concise.
• Make life easy for the anchor.
• Write like people talk (to a degree)
• Be careful with pronouns.
• Attribute.

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DONT

• Forget that you know more about he stories than
  audience members do.
• Depend on the computer to catch mistakes

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Story Structure
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The Lead

• The first sentence.
• Most important element.
• Accomplishes the same task as a headline
• For consumer, it is the point of purchase. Do
  they stay or do they go?

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The Lead

• Grab the audiences attention right away? How?
  What is the essence of the story?
• Dont make it hard to digest by loading it with
  facts. The lead can be nonfactual.
• Dont write a lead that sounds cliché, dated, or
  stale.

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The Lead

• Use the active voice
• Use narrative storytelling
• Use the mom rule
• If I were sitting at the dinner table to tell
  this story to my mom, what would I say?
• Short, friendly. Short declarative sentences.

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Story Structure

• Preview
• View
• Review
• What is the essence of the story?
• Is there a narrative that is in line with this
  story?