Broadcast

writing style
Introduction
• Broadcast news compete for attention with lots of other
distractions
• Broadcast reports have less attentive audience than
newspaper and magazine counterparts
• People listen to radio while getting ready for work and TV
bulletins go on air when people are preparing supper
• Some broadcast news is little more than background sound
or video-wallpaper.
Introduction
• Some of the practices that can make broadcast stories
difficult to follow include:
✓ the brevity of stories and the consequent lack of
background information
✓listeners and views usually hear or see a story just once -
✓the rapid editing of shots in television
✓the structure of some television news stories, where
giving priority to the pictures, without careful attention to
the writing, can break up the flow of the narrative.
The elements of broadcast style
• Broadcast news compete for attention with lots of other
distraction
• Broadcast reports have less attentive audience than newspaper
and magazine counterparts
• People listen to radio while getting ready for work and TV
bulletins go on air when people are preparing supper
• Some broadcast news is little more than background sound or
video-wallpaper.
• Online audience is more fickle(indecisive) and distracted and
therefore writing for the electronic media is the most demanding
form of news writing
The elements of broadcast style
• There are obvious differences in the writing style of radio
and TV news but they share many features, for example they
share brevity
• Broadcast stories are short
• Some have to be conveyed in a couple of sentences
• Radio 'voicers' can be as short as 20 seconds
• A typical TV news story is one 1m 10 secs to 1m 30 secs long
• The overdoing consideration is time and how to use it
The elements of broadcast style
• Justin Kelly when he was news director at Sydney’s 2GB noted
that
✓ One writing tip is to kept it simple,
✓write in simple words that people understand
✓News is something that has happened and you have to explain
that in the shortest among of time possible
✓In radio copy you can emotional language and use of good verbs
but you have to ask yourself whether that is news
✓There’s a real skill in being able to take a complicated story and
put it into 30 seconds.
✓So keep it simple and write the way people speak.
Elements of Broadcast style
• Features of broadcast writing that make it unique are the tools used-
not just words, in radio sound and in TV pictures combined make the
whole
• TV stories are longer and more complex than those of radio, but
brevity is fundamental to the medium
• Writing is about how much extra depth can you get into that finite
short time (lets say 1:30)
• To do that you have to know what pictures you have, because the
pictures and the sound are the parallel narrative to the script that
you’re writing.
Elements of Broadcast style
• Together they will convey the information much better.
• The best approach is to write far less and have the pictures carry
what’s going on
• Natural sounds(e.g slamming doors, hurried foot steps etc) might
convey as sense of being there and make the story immediate
• Write less. If you want to write better, write less
• All you want to do with your script is simply make sure people can
understand what’s happening and what they’re seeing
• So write to the pictures and keep it as simple as you possibly can.
Elements of Broadcast style
• The worst thing people do is the opposite of that.
• They write a long, interesting script with lots of facts in it and then
work out how they can get some pictures to match it, which is just
terrible
Guidelines for broadcast news writing
Write copy to be spoken
• Good broadcast writing should sound natural or conversational but
authentic to command listeners attention
• Particularly, radio is an intimate person-to-person talking to listeners,
hence the emphasis on informality of the broadcast news.
• Radio is an individual talking to listers at home or at work or in the car
• Newspapers may write their stories, broadcast reports need to tell
theirs
• Newspapers stories adopts an excessive formal style when read out
loud, broadcast journalist has to sound crisp and clear
Guidelines for broadcast news writing
Write copy to be spoken
• If sentences are too long or cumbersome, they will be hard to read
• And if they are hard to read, they are likely to hard for the listeners or viewers
to understand
• Writing conversational means avowing use of jargon or slang which listeners
do not understand
• The speed at which a story is delivered varies from one reporter and presenter
to the next
• But the average rate of speech is about three words per second.
• Therefore, a 20-second radio report will be 60 words long
• A TV item of one minute 20 seconds will need no more than 240 words
Guidelines for broadcast news writing
Use the active voice
Use the active rather than the passive voice.
The active voice employs a subject–verb–object sentence construction.
Put the subject/person/thing doing the action before object of the sentence- is
being done.
A simple active voice sentence looks like this:
subject -verb -object
A reporter writes the story.
Put into the passive voice, the sentence would read:
Subject -verb -object
The story is written by a reporter.
Guidelines for broadcast news writing
Use the active voice
Journalism favors the active voice because it is more concise
and more direct
Passive: Pensioner Morag Jones was robbed by a bag
snatcher. (passive voice is preferred)
Active: A bag snatcher robbed pensioner Morag Jones.
Passive: The Oscar-winning actor … is being mourned by
admirers around the world.
The driver was cut by flying glass
Guidelines for broadcast news writing
Use the active voice
Subject–verb–object sentences are more easily understood
particularly when sentences become more complex
Avoid incorrect use of active voice, for example
The sports complex will begin construction next month.
(wrong because the object of the sentence has been made
the subject)
Corrected Copy:
Construction of the sports complex will begin next month
Guidelines for broadcast news writing
Use the present tense
• Broadcast writes are advised to use present tense
• Note that present tense can be divided into several categories
• The simple present is often used in headlines, teasers and promos
Examples
✓The Prime Ministers announces a new age care policy-here the action has
already occurred
✓Tonight, on the late news, the treasurer explains her budget policy-here
the action is yet to occur
• Use of present tense implies that the audience is hearing the information
for the first time and that each action is occurring in their present
Guidelines for broadcast news writing

Use the present tense

• Writing story intros and narration scripts require
complex sentences, as such broadcast reporters are
likely to use
✓the present perfect,
✓the present continuous or
✓the present perfect continuous tenses
✓as well as the simple present.
Guidelines for broadcast news writing
Use the present tense
• Broadcasters try to use tense that will make their stories seem as
current as possible-ability to present news as it happens
• Events that are in progress may be described in the simple
present or the present continuous
Examples
✓ Simple present: Freetown is on alert tonight as Cyclone Joe
heads towards the coast.
✓ Present continuous: Residents of Freetown are cleaning up
after Cyclone …
Guidelines for broadcast news writing

Use the present tense

• Events that have concluded are often described using present
perfect rather than past tense, unless this would sound
inappropriate
Examples
• Present perfect:
• The coastal city of Freetown has been battered by Cyclone …
• The mayor has used his vote to ensure a development will go
ahead …
The
differences
between
the various
tenses
Guidelines for broadcast news writing
Use the present tense
• The use of the present perfect conveys currency without the need for a time frame
• This is important if the events in question happened the day before, or earlier.
• Newspapers may deal with what happened yesterday, but radio and television only
refer to ‘yesterday’ when it is unavoidable.
• Yesterday is already too long ago.
• In fact, radio news rarely uses the term ‘today’.
• It is assumed that the news is today’s news.
• If time frames are required at all, radio prefers terms like ‘this afternoon’, ‘this
morning’ or ‘has just announced’ and so on.
• TV news which is broadcast in the evening is comfortable with the word ‘today’ if a
time reference is required.
Guidelines for broadcast news writing
Use the present tense
• Even if the events (e.g announcements and speeches) are over,
construction is given in present tense
Example
• The mayor of Freetown says a planned highway will ruin
the town’s character.
Guidelines for broadcast news writing
Use the past tense
• Past tense is appropriate to use for occasions when the events being
described clearly happened in the past or when the details being
given make it clear that the matter being reported has concluded.
Examples
• At a speech in Melbourne the Mayor of Freetown said …
• Four people are dead and fifty injured after a volcano erupted on …
• The prosecutor told the court …
Guidelines for broadcast news writing
Use the past participle
• Use of present tense is a convention in broadcast news but not universally
accepted.
• In fact, using the simple present to refer to events that have concluded can
be equally confusing
• Past participle (verbs ending in 'ing') is used excessively in some
commercial news services to make stories seem as up to date as possible
Example
Queensland triumphant in their game against New South Wales. The home
side proving too strong for the visitors. Ellery Ryan again showing his tackling
skills. Fans celebrating into the night.
KISS-Keep it Short and Simple
• Broadcast writing needs to be kept short and simple but not at the
expense of accuracy
• News stories are brief and that means every word needs to justify its place
in the script
• Additionally broadcast news has be to delivered aloud under tight
deadlines or a live to air broadcast
• Newsreaders or presenters may not have written the copy themselves, and
sometimes they may have to read it sight unseen(without having
rehearsed)
• That is if the sentences are long and complex, then the delivery will be
complex
KISS-Keep it Short and Simple
• Writing a clear copy usually means avoiding the use of dependent
clauses.
Example
The chief censor says that, whatever her own reservations about the
film, the public has a right to judge for itself.
It would be better phrased as:
The chief censor says the public has a right to judge the film for itself,
despite her own reservations.
KISS-Keep it Short and Simple
• Keep it simple means also choosing simplest words that
convey the same ideas e.g between word 'however' and 'but'
• Another way is to remove the word 'that' when its absence
won't affect the meaning of a line
Example
The play’s producer says that audience numbers have been
better than expected
Write the intro first
• The medium (radio and TV) and type of story
determine the way news is gathered and packaged
(story format)
• Reporters use the 'inverted pyramid' model of news
writing
• Inverted pyramid-a story's most 'newsy' or important
elements must appear at the top to 'hook' the reader
and rest of the information should then appear in
descending order of importance
Write the intro first
• The inverted pyramid model works if you are writing for
newspapers and for online delivery
• The model doesn't work in broadcast except for the shortest
stories read by the presenter
• A broadcast story normally switches from presenter to
reporter or interviews and because a usually ends with a
conclusion.
• The broadcast news model would involve two blocks -the
intro and the audio/picture story
 Sequencing material in broadcast writing

• Each segment has its own beginning

and the second segments need a
strong conclusion
• The broadcast model of news story
entails the voicer and the package, or
'donut' which combines the
reporter's narration with soundbites
and sometimes ambient sound or
effects
• Many broadcast stories are shorter
and less complex, with the shortest
being no more than copy for the
presenter.
Write the intro first
Types of TV broadcast news story Formats
• There are five main story formats in television news
• The names given to these formats vary from one newsroom to
another, but the ones here are the most common.
• Starting with the simplest one, these story formats are:
✓Live or reader copy
✓Intro with audio cut/sound bite
✓Live voicer-over or reader voice-over
✓voicer
✓Package stories or donut
Write the intro first
• Live or reader copy: A short story, read by the presenter. Generally two or
three paras or ten to 20 seconds
• Intro with audio cut/soundbite: A presenter’s intro of between one and
three paras plus an audio bite (usually4-20 seconds in radio and from 7-15
in TV). The news copy is timed so that when the reporter stops, the sound
on the tape is turned up and the person on the tape is heard speaking.
• Live voice-over or reader voice-over: A short presenter’s intro, often only a
single para, followed by two or three more paras of copy read by the
presenter and covered by video. A videotape of an event is shown with the
sound of the event turned down. An anchor or reporter speaks over the
tape to talk about what the viewer is seeing. This format is specific to
television.
Write the intro first
• Voicer: A presenter’s intro of between two and three pars followed by a
prerecorded story narrated by a reporter. Almost all narrated TV reports
include soundbites. Television news rarely uses this format. Radio voicers
are usually not longer than 25 seconds. The public TV’s runs longer voicers
than the commercial services and they are shortest on commercial FM
bulletins
• Package stories or donut: A presenter’s intro of between one and three
pars followed by a prerecorded story comprising reporter’s narration
wrapped around soundbite(s). The prerecorded piece includes a mix of
video, sound bites, voice-overs, and a “stand-up” from the reporter who
explains some element of the story or summarizes the entire story. These
packages may run for as long as two and a half minutes
Write the intro first
Types of Radio broadcast news story Formats
• A news director for radio has a variety of formats from which to choose in
putting together a newscast:-
✓Written copy/voicers
✓Sound bite or actuality
✓Wrap-around
✓Mini-documentary
• Written copy/voicers: This format is a story without actualities or sound
bites
• Sound bite or actuality: identifiable sound, such as gunshots or crowd
noise, that will give the listeners an added dimension to the story. News
anchors introduce the sound bite with the copy they read.
Write the intro first
Types of Radio broadcast news story Formats
• Wrap-around: A news anchor briefly introduces a story and the reporter.
The reporter then gives the story and includes a sound bite. The sound bite
is followed by the reporter giving a conclusion or “tagline.”
• Mini-documentary: This format allows a story to run for more than a
minute, and some run for as long as 15 minutes. They may include several
sound bites with a variety of sources or sounds, such as interviews, noise
from events, or even music. This format is most commonly used on public
radio news broadcasts
Write the intro first
• With knowledge about the various story formats for radio and TV, let exam
use of intros in news stories
• Complex stories have an introduction (intro) written by the reporters but
read by the newsreader followed by a voicer, voicer-over or package/donut
comprising a reporter’s narration often wrapped around soundbites
• Every story begins with a lead.
• The lead is the most important of the written elements of the story.
• The lead needs to contain the most important news element of the story
unless it is a ‘blind’ intro which leaves its punchline to be revealed in the
voicer
Write the intro first
• If you break down a story into Who, What, When, Where, Why and
How, the lead will usually deal with What and perhaps When and
Where.
• The Who will usually be left to a subsequent sentence, unless it’s
someone well known, and the Why and How are also likely to belong
in later sentences.
Example
Three people have survived a powerboat crash on Port Phillip Bay
Write the intro first
• Unless those rescued are well known, their names will mean nothing
to most of the audience and should be left until further down the
item.
Example
The Victorian Premier, Lily Lee, is one of three people rescued after a
powerboat crash on Port Phillip Bay
• It would be self-defeating to try and include all details in the lead
• A good lead is short and sharp
Put the attribution before a comment
• In print journalism, it is common for an attribution to come
after statements or comments
• But in broadcast writing any attribution usually precedes the
statement or comment
Put the attribution before a comment
Example
Print style
A plan to build a garbage dump in Freetown poses a risk to residents’
health, Mayor Marija Pavlovic said yesterday.
Broadcast style
Mayor, Marija Pavlovic, says a plan to build a garbage dump in Freetown
threatens residents’ health.
(or better still –)
Freetown Mayor, Marija Pavlovic, has accused the state government of
risking residents’ health with its plan for city garbage dump. She says …
Put the attribution before a comment
• Putting the attribution before a comment makes it sound
more natural
• Also placing the attribution first makes it clear whose
comments are being reported-important especially if the
remarks are contentious, in such cases reporting such
remarks before attributing would give the impression they
are facts rather than opinions
Put the attribution before a comment
• In this example, it not clear to the audience whether it is the reporter or
Major who used the word ‘outrageous’
Example
An ‘outrageous’ plan to build a garbage dump in Freetown poses a serious
risk to residents’ health. That’s the view of Mayor Marko Horvat, who says
…
It would be better phrased as:
Mayor, Marko Horvat, says a plan to build a garbage dump in Freetown is
‘outrageous’ and poses a serious risk to residents’ health.
Or: Mayor, Marko Horvat, has described a plan to build a garbage dump in
Freetown as ‘outrageous’. He says it poses a serious risk to residents’
health.
Put the attribution before a comment
• Facts do not need to be preceded by attribution in order to avoid the
risk of misleading the listeners
Example
If you travel by train, expect long delays today. Drivers will stop for six
hours over a pay dispute. Their union says …
Write exactly what you mean to say
• In broadcast writing, acronyms (that is, abbreviations that
are spoken as single words) such as NATO, AIDS, ANZAC,
NASA and so on can be written as such.
• But when letters need to be read individually, they should be
separated by dots or dashes.
• Any numerals that might be confusing (for example, is 18
‘eighteen’ or ‘one eight’?) should be written as words.
See these
examples
Write exactly what you mean to say
• The same rule applies to dates, numbers with decimal
points, fractions and amounts of currency.
• Decimal points can easily be overlooked by a presenter
reading live-to-air
• Dollar signs can be confusing because their position in the
written form of an amount is different from that in the
spoken form.
• Ideally, everything that is said as a single word should be
written as one.
See these
examples
Round off complex numbers
• convention in scripting for broadcast news is that complex numbers should
be rounded up or down.
• That means the figure above would be described as ‘nearly one million’ or
‘just short of one million’.
• It is written as ‘one million’, rather than ‘a million’
• It’s also important to avoid confusing listeners or viewers with a string of
numbers in a story.
• Example
Statistics for the two thousand and sixteen to two thousand and seventeen
financial year show sixty-three per cent of businesses employ at least ten
people, while only twenty per cent have more than one hundred workers
Keep dates as simple as possible
Pronouns can be confusing
• Pronouns are words that stand in for a noun and include. ‘I’, ‘we’, ‘he’,
‘she’, ‘it’, ‘they’, ‘ someone’, ‘who’ and sometimes ‘which’.
• Pronouns can be used to avoid repeating a noun, as in the following
sentence.
• In this case, the pronoun ‘his’ is clear
Example
Injured Maulers’ forward Jimmy Grit will meet team officials on
Friday for talks about his future.
Pronouns can be confusing
• In the following sentences, it is unclear to whom the pronoun is
referring:
The president and the chief foreign affairs advisor met yesterday.
They discussed his recent trip to the Mid East.
The team doctor has cleared Jimmy Grit to play on Friday after he
showed up fit for training.
In the example above, ‘he’ really refers to the doctor, not the player.
To fix it, you need to replace the pronoun with a noun.
The team doctor has cleared Jimmy Grit to play on Friday after the
forward showed up fit for training.