News Reporting and Writing 10 th Edition Criteria for Selecting Radio and Television News 4 criteria radio and television use to select news 1 Timeliness most important news value in radio and TV ID: 617818
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Slide1
Chapter 13 – Writing for Radio & Television
News Reporting and Writing – 10
th
EditionSlide2
Criteria for Selecting Radio and Television News
4 criteria radio and television use to select news
1. Timeliness
- most important news value in radio and T.V.
- breaking stories receive top priority
2. Information
- Radio and T.V. reporters are more concerned with information rather than explanation
- Most stories must be told in 20-30 seconds
- Stories rarely run longer than 2 minutesSlide3
Criteria for Selecting Radio and Television News
3. Audio or Visual Impact
- On-the-scene audio and visual reports may make a story be ranked more prominent on radio or T.V. than it is in the newspaper
4. People
- Radio and T.V. aim to tell the news through people’s stories
- Classic formula = find a problem, find a person who is dealing with the problem, and tell us how he/she is doing
- You can’t shoot video of an issue, but you can show visually what impact the issue has on peopleSlide4
Writing Radio and Television News
Characteristics of Radio and T.V. News Writing
- Emphasizes Immediacy
- achieved in part by using the present tense as much as possible
- Has Conversational Style
- “write the way you talk” is important for radio and T.V. news writing
- write so your copy
sounds
good
- use short, simple sentences
- But don’t use slang, incorrect grammar, vulgar or off- color expressions
Slide5
Writing Radio and Television News
-
Is Tightly
Phrased
- write in a conversational style without being wordy
- condense and limit your use of adjectives
- make every word count
- select facts carefully
- make your writing easy to follow
- Is Clear
- radio and T.V. news audiences only get to see/hear a story
once. They can’t reread.
- be clear and make your message easily understood
- write simply, in short sentences
- repeat names in the story rather than use pronouns because
the listener can easily forget the name of the person you are
talking about
- avoid using a series of numbers in your speech. If you must
use them, break statistics down so that they are understandable
Bad =
There are 47 million smokers in the United States.
Good = One of every four Americans smokes.Slide6
Story Structure
Writing the Radio and T.V. Lead
People tend to be doing other things while listening to radio/T.V. so when you write for them, you must attract their attention in different ways
One way is to cue listeners to make sure they are tuned in = introduce your story with a general statement that will pique the interest of the audience. Then go into specifics.
Start General:
Things are far from settled for Springfield’s teacher strike.
Then provide specifics:
School officials and union representatives did not agree on a contract yesterday. They will not meet again for at least a week. Slide7
Story Structure
Writing Lead-Ins
Lead-ins introduce a taped excerpt from a news source or from another reporter.
Lead-ins have two functions
Set the scene by briefly telling the “where,” the “when” and sometimes the “what”
Identify the source or reporter
Examples:
A grand jury has decided not to charge a Springfield teenage in the killing of his father. Jan Morrow reports the panel believes the death was an accident
We’ll all be getting the official word this morning on how much less our dollars bought last month. The consumer price index for March is expected to show another sharp rise in retail prices. The rate of inflation was 1 percent in January and 1.2 percent in February. Here’s more on our inflation woes from Bill McKinney. Slide8
Story Structure
Writing Wrap-Ups
After the recorded report, you may want to wrap up the story before going on to the next item.
Wrap-up is especially important in radio copy because there are no visuals to identify the person just heard
A wrap-up gives your story an ending and clearly separates it from the next story
Example:
If a report by Evelyn Turner was about a meeting to settle a strike =
Turner reports negotiations will resume tomorrow. Slide9
Story Structure
Writing to the Video
Words and pictures must complement each other. Relate the words to the pictures
At the beginning of a scene, you must tell the viewer where you are or what is happening
Example: suppose the report concerns the continuation of a hospital workers’ strike and the opening scene shows picketers outside the hospital. You can explain the tape by saying:
Union
members are still picketing Mercy Hospital
today
as the
hospital workers
’ strike enters its third
week.
Viewers now know two things that weren’t obvious on the video: who is picketing and where
Give the report a wrap-up or strong ending:
Strikers, administrators, patients and their families agree on one sure effect of the strike – it’s a bad time to be sick.
Slide10
Preparing Radio and T.V. Copy
Your goals in preparing copy to be read by a newscaster are to make the copy easy for the newscaster to read and easy for the audience to understand
Format
= See example of radio format on page 281 and T.V. format on page 282
Names and Titles
Well-known names, even on first reference, are not given in full
You may say
Senator Snowe of Maine
Don’t use middle initials unless they are a natural part of someone’s name (Edward R. Murrow) or unless they are necessary to distinguish between two people with the same first and last name (George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush)
Titles should always go in front of names
When you use titles, don’t include the first name and middle initial (Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke)Slide11
Preparing Radio and T.V. Copy
Pronunciation
As a radio/T.V. writer, you must help the newscaster pronounce the names of people/places correctly
Write out difficult names phonetically in parentheses
Look up pronunciation guides. If you can’t find a name pronunciation, call the person’s office and ask
For the correct pronunciation of a U.S. town, call someone in that town (mayor etc.)
Never assume or guess pronunciationSlide12
Preparing Radio and T.V. Copy
Abbreviations
Generally, do not use abbreviations in your copy
It is easier to read a word written out than to read its abbreviation
Don’t abbreviate the names of states, countries, months, days of the week or military titles
You may use the abbreviations
Dr.
,
Mr.
,
Mrs.
and
Ms.
, and
a.m.
and
p.m.
If an abbreviation is well-known, you may use it
When you do abbreviate, use hyphens instead of periods to prevent the newscaster from mistaking the period in the abbreviation for the period at the end of the sentence. Examples: U-S, U-N, G-O-P, F-B-ISlide13
Preparing Radio and T.V. Copy
Symbols and Numbers
Don’t use symbols ($ or %) in your copy because newscasters can read a word more easily than they can interpret a symbol
As with newspapers, write out numbers
one
through
nine
. Also write out
eleven
because 11 might not be early recognized as a number
Use figures for 10 and from 12 to 999
Write out the words thousand, million and billion. Example: 3,800,000 should be
three million, 800 thousand
Write out fractions =
two-and-a-half million dollars
Write out decimal points =
three-point-two percent
Round off big numbers = 48.3 percent should be written
nearly half
Use
st, nd, rd
, and
th
after dates =
August 1
st
, September 2ndSlide14
Preparing Radio and T.V. Copy
Quotations and Attributions
Rarely use direct quotes and quotations marks
It is awkward to indicate to listeners which words are being quotes
, so use a paraphrase instead
If a direct quote is absolutely necessary, introduce a quote by saying “in his words,” “he put it this way” etc.
When you must use a quote, the attribution should always some before the quote
If you must use a direct quote, keep it shortSlide15
Preparing Radio and T.V. Copy
Punctuation
In radio/T.V. copy, less punctuation is better
The one exception is the comma = commas help newscasters pause at appropriate times
Sometimes three periods or a dash are used in place of a comma
The only punctuation marks you need are the period, comma, question mark, dash, hyphen and, rarely, quotation marks
To make copy easier to read add the hyphen to some words even when the dictionary doesn’t use it:
anti-discrimination, co-equal, non-aggressionSlide16
Discussion Topic
In groups of two, visit 2 websites… one for a local
television news
operation
and
one for a local newspaper (
Los Angeles Times
or
Daily Breeze
)
Evaluate
the websites, and present your findings to the class.
How are the sites similar? Different
?
Are they covering the same stories?
Which
site is more comprehensive?
More inviting to viewers?
Which site includes more links to audio/video clips
?
Do you prefer the local T.V. news website or the local newspaper website?