8
Writing for Broadcast Journalism
Writing for broadcast takes a different level of skills than writing for print. The writer must use
all the techniques that he or she has learned in writing for print and must refine those techniques
for broadcast copy. The most important of these techniques is that of condensation. The broadcast
writer must learn to select and condense information. The writer must learn that an even higher
value is placed on brevity than in writing for print.
Explore with your students what they think of
audio. Everyone has an iPod or some audio
listening device. It’s standard equipment for
today’s young people. Music is probably what
they listen to the most, but there may be other
things that they put on their iPods. They may be
using them in some inventive and creative ways.
This chapter seeks to introduce students to the concepts of using audio as a journalistic tool for
gathering and presenting information. The power and uniqueness of audio should be
emphasized in your discussions with them.
By the end of this and the previous chapters, the student should understand this demand for
condensation and brevity that is made on the broadcast writer. The student should also
understand the essential differences and similarities that exist between writing for broadcast and
writing for print.
Key terms and concepts
Ambient sounds — the sounds that occur in the environment in which people talk and operate.
Multiple tracks — mixing sounds from two or more different sources.
Framing — what is included in a video shot.
words or names that will be unfamiliar to the reader. Students should remember that broadcast
copy is often written on deadline, and news readers may not have time to practice reading their
copy before they go on the air. A good exercise for students is to have them spell their names
phonetically.
writer.
Selection of news — Although many of the basic news values are still at work in the selection of
broadcast news, the broadcast journalist works with an additional set of considerations.
Timeliness is one of the most important of those considerations. Broadcast news emphasizes
immediacy; the news that is the latest is often the news that is mentioned first. The emphasis on
information rather than explanation is another of those considerations. Students should
understand that the broadcast medium is generally not one that allows time for a full and
complete development of a story. Getting information to listeners and viewers is of primary
importance. The audio or visual impression of a story is another important consideration in the
selection of news for broadcast. A story that has good pictures or compelling audio is likely to be
used over a story that does not.
Chapter notes
Broadcast writing tips. If you learned to write for print first (and most of us did), you may have a
Newswriting for the radio. Don’t forget about the radio. Broadcast writing is just as important, if
VOA News. One of the best broadcast news sites is that of the Voice of America. VOA is
operated by the U.S. government and broadcasts news around the world in more than 50
languages. VOA has a tradition of presenting the news in an unbiased way —even when the
War News Radio. Students at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania have created an Internet
radio station devoted to covering the war in Iraq. But their station, called War News Radio, is
different. Instead of gathering Associated Press and other news service reports and repackaging
them, they are creating their own reports using sources that are not often heard from and
technology that is not often used by news organizations. The students troll the Web for sources of
information about Iraq — many of them in Iraq itself. Then they use an Internet telephone service
called Skype to call these folks up, interview them and put together their stories. The result is
something you would not hear on most radio news broadcasts, even National Public Radio,
which, by the way, did a story about War News Radio in January and interviewed two of its
Boom goes the dynamite. This is a must see for aspiring broadcast students. No matter how hard
you try, you are bound to make mistakes along the way. Hopefully, you won’t ever have a
Breaking in. Want to advise your students as to how they can get into broadcasting? The Poynter
Institute (which has a whole section on broadcasting journalism) has a timely article on tips on
getting started in broadcast journalism. Here’s how it starts:
Dig hard, write well, and maybe even sweep a few floors.
Broadcast professionals say that’s what young journalists should do if they’re serious about
pursuing a career in the competitive field of news broadcasting.
Question bank
What is a way of making broadcast news seem more immediate?
Broadcast writers need to use phonetic spelling for hard to pronounce words.
Apposition should be avoided in broadcast writing.
In broadcasting, you should frequently include dependent clauses at the beginning of sentences.
Attribution in broadcast news should generally be placed
In broadcast writing, you should use simple, declarative sentences.
Broadcast news writers try to eliminate all adjectives and adverbs from their copy unless they are
absolutely necessary.
Sound is a relatively easy thing to produce for a news story.
One of the reasons for using sound in news reports is that
A general tenet of writing for audio is that
In audio journalism, achieving good sound quality
In putting together a video story, it’s best to try to keep the idea of the story simple and
straightforward.
When you are compiling a video story, the chief goal is to tell a good story with a lot of clarity
rather than making everything completely accurate.
In video editing, using lots of different transitions is considered a good practice.
In writing for audio, titles
One of the most important considerations of a broadcast journalist is the timeliness of the copy he
or she is writing.
Writing is not as important for broadcasting as it is for other media because little of what is
spoken over the air is written down first.
Deadlines are less important to the broadcast writer than the print journalist.
The average length of a radio news story is about
Personalizing stories — that is, telling the listener what the story will mean to him or her — is
one good way of getting his or her attention.
Which is a true statement in regard to broadcast writing?
The Four Cs of broadcast writing are:
Which would be more correct, according to broadcast style?
Broadcast copy is prepared for:
Dramatic unity form consists of three elements. They are:
Which format refers to when a story is read by an anchor or reporter without visual or audio aid?
The most important news value for broadcast news is:
d. eyewitness report
Most video documentaries are based on the