BROADCAST

NEWS WRITING

MECHANICSRuby Angela Peña

BROADCAST NEWS WRITINGMECHANICS

1. Slugs2. The Split Page3. Avoiding Split Words and Sentences4. Punctuation5. Rewriting Wire Copy6. Conversational Style7. Reading your copy aloud8. Avoiding information overload9. Looking Ahead10.Timing stories

The way of writing broadcast news story is different from that of other writing formats.

In a broadcast news story BREVITY is CHERISHED, holding the audience’s attention is vital, and ACCURACY is DOMINANT.

Stories last no more than 30sec, while some bumps and teasers are a quick five seconds.

Even more intimidating for broadcasters is that they have but one opportunity to unveil the story; unlike print media, the consumer cannot go back and reread the story.

The broadcast industry’s style of news writing deals with how to attribute quotes, round off numbers, avoid clichés, and a number of other techniques.

SLUGS The identification of every page of

the news script. Slugs are placed in the upper left-

hand corner of the page. It includes a one or two-word

description of the story. It also includes the date, the time of

the newscast, and the writer’s initials.

Slugs are important because they allow the writer, producers, anchors, directors, and a variety of people involved in putting newscast together to locate a particular story in the script quickly.

Example:

Kids’ Band4/25/20126pmFB

THE SPLIT PAGE A TV script is divided into two vertical

stations and is known as split page. All technical instructions and

identification of video and graphics appear in the left potion of the split page, while the script to be read by the anchor or reporter appears in the right column along with sound byte out cues and times.

AVOIDING SPLUT WORDS AND SENTENCES If there is not enough room on a line

of copy to complete a word, the entire word must be carried over to the next line.

Words should not be hyphenated. Part of a sentence should not be

carried over from one page to another.

Forcing anchors to jump from the bottom of one page to the top of the next invites trouble.

It cannot be stressed too often that writers must avoid anything that increases the chance that anchors will stumble over copy.

If a sentence cannot be completed on a page, it should begin on the top of the next page.

Type the word MORE at the bottom of the page so the anchors know that there is more to the story on the next page.

PUNCTUATION The punctuations in broadcast

journalism and the punctuations in taught in an English class may not be the same.

Commas in BR indicates a pause, and not exactly for grammatical purposes.

Some writers use a dash to indicate a pause, but dashes should be used sparingly, usually to indicate longer pause.

Do not use an ellipsis to indicate a pause or as a signal that you have eliminated part of a quotation.

Never use semicolon. Capitalize words that anchors should

emphasize. E.g. NOT. Some news rooms prefer the copy to

be written in ALL CAPS.

REWRITING WIRE COPY The essence of rewriting news

stories from wire services is in relaying the relevant information as concisely as possible.

The prime source for information in the newsroom is the wire service. The stories offered may be far too long for programs, thus prompting a quick rewrite.

One strategy is to read the story from the wire copy, digest it, and then discard the copy. Then rewrite the story based on what you remember.

You may find it difficult to surrender the wire copy and rely on memory only but that is the only way to be certain that you rewrite newspaper-style into conversational broadcast copy.

CONVERSATIONAL STYLE It means writing for the ear. Broadcast copy must be written

clearly and simply. Thoughts must be expressed quickly

with brief, crisp, declarative sentences.

The copy must be aimed at ordinary people, therefore using words that are easy to understand.

READING YOUR COPY ALOUD Determines when words should be

contracted, which words should be emphasized, how clear the sentences are, and how well the copy flows from sentence to sentence.

The ear, not the eye, is the best judge of well-written broadcast copy.

There may also be a case of poor sentence structure or phrasing or you may encounter a situation like this:

The school superintendent says the new teachers’ contracts are the best that can be offered in

this tight budget year. When the veteran teachers finally received the paperwork in the mail this week, almost half of them promptly resigned.

AVOIDING INFORMATION OVERLOAD

Often, copy that is difficult to understand contains too much information in any one sentence.

For broadcast, we must create sentences that can be easily understood by the listener.

Example

FOR NEWSPAPER

The Energy Department proposes to spend $2.4 billion next year and up to $3.7 billion in each of the following four years to bring the nation’s paralyzed nuclear weapon production plants into compliance with environmental and safety laws, according to Energy Secretary Walter Gregg.

FOR BROADCAST

The Energy Department wants to spend almost two and one-half billion dollars next year to improve the nation’s nuclear production plants. The funds would be used to bring the paralyzed plants into compliance with environmental and safety laws. Energy Secretary Walter Gregg says the government is willing to spend almost 15 billion dollars over the next four years to continue the cleanup and safety checks at the nuclear weapon production plants.

LOOKING AHEAD Newscasts alert the audience to

events that are expected to happen in the future.

The information should be as specific as possible.

Example The President is expected to leave the

White House in the next 15 minutes or so for Andrews Air Force Base, where he’ll board All Force One for his trip to London.

At any moment now, members of the United Nations Security Council will consider new proposals on the crisis in the Middle East. We were told a few minutes ago that members were already beginning to arrive at the Security Council chamber.

NOTE: Whenever you use a specific time

reference, such as tonight or a few minutes ago, place the reference as close as possible to the verb whose action it describes.

TIMING STORIES It is essential to know how to time

copy. If you are writing for yourself, use a

stopwatch as you read each page of copy aloud and then write the time on the page.

If you are writing for somebody else, it is more difficult to estimate time because everyone reads copy at a different pace.

On average, newscasters read at a speed about 15 or 16 standard lines of copy per minute.

For TV, because of the split page and the potential use of bold type for teleprompter, most newscasters take about one second to read each line of copy.