Chapter 48: Radio & TV basics

Chapter 48: Writing for radio and

television

In this chapter, we discuss writing news for radio and television.

There is advice on how to simplify your writing and how to
structure your stories to be most effective. In the following
chapter we give step-by-step guidance on preparing news
bulletins. In the next chapter we discuss other aspects of radio
and television journalism.

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Although all journalism should be a flow of information between

the journalist and the reader, listener or viewer, in the broadcast
media it is of vital importance that the reporter - through the
newsreader or announcer - actually speaks to the audience.

It may be that you are broadcasting to millions of people, but you

must write your story as if you are telling it to just one person.
You should write as if someone you know personally is listening.
Picture a favourite uncle or aunt, cousin or brother and imagine
that you are speaking to him or her.

Your style must, therefore, be conversational and as far as

possible simple.

Remember also that, unlike a newspaper story, your listeners or

viewers cannot usually go back on the bulletin to hear again
something they have missed - unless they resort to a catchup
service. Nor can their eyes jump around within a story or a page
searching for the information they want. In broadcasting the
words and sentences are heard once only, one after the other,
and all the information must be presented in such a way that it is
understandable straight away. This is often called a linear flow of
information because it goes in a line in one direction

You must help your listeners and viewers by presenting

information concisely and logically.

You must always remember that by switching on a radio or

television set, the listeners are inviting you into their homes, their
workplaces and their cars.

Write and speak as if you were talking to them as individuals,

face-to-face.

In practice

You should remember all you have been told about writing the
basic news story. Be concise, up-to-date, stick to the main point,
use the active voice, don't start with quotes and don't overload.
KISS

Keep it short and simple. You should not try to get too much
information into any sentence. Although you use the inverted
pyramid style of story writing, you may only be able to use one or
two concepts (ideas) per sentence. You cannot get as much
detail into a radio or television story as you can into a newspaper
story.

You cannot expect your listener to understand the Who? What?

Where? When? Why? and How? of a story all in the first
paragraph or even the first two paragraphs. Although as a good
journalist you should not leave any essential questions
unanswered, you may find that it takes all the time available for a
single story to communicate only a few basic facts. It is often
said that you could put all the words in a ten minute radio bulletin
on one page of a newspaper.

Stick to one or two key points per sentence. No sentence should

be longer than 20 words, except in unusual circumstances. Just
as a mother feeds a child one spoonful at a time, allowing the
child to swallow each spoonful before taking the next, you
should spoon feed your listener. Give them one piece of
information at a time so that it can be digested before the next
piece.

Where necessary, split a long and involved sentence into two or

more shorter clearer sentences, as you would in conversation.

RIGHT:
Japanese boats have returned to fish in Fijian waters.

They were banned last year because of an international row over net sizes.

Now they are back in the waters off Vanua Levu. WRONG:
Japanese fishing boats, which were banned from Fijian waters during an
international row over net sizes last year, returned to fish in the waters off
Vanua Levu on Monday.
It may take more words, but what good is the most skilful
sentence in history if the listener cannot understand it?

It might help you to write short and simple sentences if you first
try to imagine how the story might appear in a newspaper
headline.

Once you have reduced it to the bones of a headline, you can put
some flesh on it for radio and television. Don't forget though that,
whereas newspaper headlines can be incomplete sentences,
without words like the and a, radio and television news must be
in complete sentences.

Look at the following example and notice how we take the

details in the information, strip it down to the bones by writing a
headline, then add words to turn the headline into a complete
sentence, suitable for radio or television.

INFORMATION:
A contract for the construction of a new road between
Madang and Lae has been awarded to a Korean company.

HEADLINE:
Koreans to build new road

INTRO:
A Korean company is to build a new road between Madang
and Lae.
Give a guide to pronunciation

Pronunciation is a very large field. Most newsrooms should have

a pronunciation guide for place names and other difficult foreign
words.

Good dictionaries should give you correct pronunciations, but if

you are in doubt, check with a senior journalist or someone who
is likely to know the correct pronunciation. For example, if it is
the name of a species of fish, check with a fisheries officer.

When writing an unfamiliar word for the newsreader, make their

task as simple as possible by writing it phonetically. For example,
the state of Arkansas should be written as ARK-en-sor; the
French word gendarme becomes JON-darm, placing the stress
on the syllable in capital letters.

Do everything you can do to make the message clearer.

Simplify your script

Readers in English and many other langauges scan text from left
to right. It may seem smooth but the eyes actually move forward
in short bursts, called saccades. When they come to the end of
the line their eyes leap all the way back across the page to the
start of the next line. This momentary flicker of the eyes - less
than a fraction of a second - is where reading errors often occur.

Even the most professional script reader cannot remember all

the words at the start of each line, so in the small fraction of a
second while their eyes are travelling back across the page they
do not know what is coming next. To avoid the listener hearing
this hesitation, it is good practice to use this moment at the end
of a line for a syntactical pause, perhaps a full stop, comma,
semi-colon, dash or ellipsis (three dots). Punctuating this way
may leave some lines much shorter than others, but no-one apart
from the script reader will know this. Consistent lines lengths are
really only important in newspapers, magazines or books.

In radio and television, it also helps if the script has a clear space
between sentences (perhaps a blank line), so the reader can find
the start of the next sentence slightly more easily in the extra
space.

Another error to avoid is splitting common phrases, titles or

names between the end of one line and the start of the next.
While in some cases it might make the transition to the new line
more predictable, it is open to mistakes. For example, if the
script ends a line with the word "United", the reader has to wait
all the way to the start of the new line to discover whether the
next word is either "States of America", "Kingdom" or "Arab
Emirates". This will be enough to throw the reader off balance.

Interestingly, when a script reader comes across an error or

obstacle it only becomes apparent a few words later, when they
actually stumble over it. This is the time it takes for the reader's
brain to process and become aware of the error, at which point
they actually stumble. When you are check reading your script
aloud and you stumble, go back over the previous few words and
you will find the problem word or phrase there. Sometimes it can
be as little as a minor spelling error you did not detect when you
were writing the script.

This advice on simplifying your script applies to both paper

scripts, on-screen readers or teleprompters, though with the
latter other factors must also be considered, such as the size of
the text and the rate at which the words scroll up on the screen.
We talk more about this in the next chapter.
Writing for television

Although most of the rules for broadcast writing (such as KISS)

apply to both radio and television, there are a few additional
factors to remember when writing for television.

Making television news is a more complicated process than

producing radio news - which can often be done by one person.
Television always involves several people, performing specialist
tasks such as camera operating, scriptwriting, bulletin
presenting, directing, studio managing, lighting and sound
mixing.

Television also involves two simultaneous methods of

presenting information - sound and vision. Of the two, vision is
usually the most effective in giving details quickly. For example,
you could take several minutes to describe a crash scene which
can be understood from a ten-second film segment. The words
in television usually support the pictures, not the other way
round. That is why television reporters usually write their scripts
after they have edited the videotape (or film). You usually have to
write your script so that the words match the pictures which are
on the screen. This requires good language skills, especially in
simplifying complex language. If a newsreader has to read your
script live - perhaps from an autocue - it will help them if you
keep the words and grammar simple and the sentences short.
(An autocue – also called a teleprompter - is a device which
projects a magnified image of the script on a clear screen in
front of the camera lens, in such a way that only the presenter
can see it. It is invisible to the viewers at home. It is used so
presenters do not need to keep looking down at their scripts.)

Of course, the words become more important when there are no

pictures to illustrate the story, only the sight of the newsreader's
head and shoulders. But you should always try to think of ways
of presenting some of your information visually, otherwise you
are wasting half of your resources (the vision). For example, if
you are telling about a new tax on beer, you will probably
simultaneously show pictures of a brewery and of beer being
produced and consumed. You might also want to show a graph
showing how beer sales and taxes have increased over the past
few years. And you may want a clip of the relevant minister
explaining why he is increasing the tax.

As well as being aware of how your words will support the

pictures, you must also consider the effect the pictures will have
on your viewers' ability to listen to the words. For example, if you
have some very dramatic pictures of an explosion, you should
not write your script in such a way that the important facts are
given while viewers have all their attention on the picture.
Perhaps leave a couple of seconds without any commentary
during the explosion, then bring your viewers' attention back to
the words gradually. Remember that every time you change the
picture on the screen, your viewers' attention is distracted away
from the words while they concentrate on the new image. Bear
this in mind when writing your script to fit the edited pictures.

Because television viewers have to concentrate on both sight

and sound, you cannot expect them to concentrate on lots of
details while there are interesting pictures on the screen. So if
you want to give some very important details, either do it when
the camera returns to a picture of the newsreader, or do it
through graphics such as maps, diagrams, graphs or tables or
through captions.

Captions

The names and titles of speakers are usually written on the

screen in captions. These must be simple and clear, so that your
viewers do not have to spend much time reading them.
Remember too that your viewers may not all be able to read. If
you know that literacy rates are low among your audience,
putting the written word on the screen will not alone explain
essential details. For example, in countries with high literacy
rates, television newsreaders or reporters use only captions to
identify speakers. You may need to both present a caption and
also read the name aloud.

Subtitles and closed captions

Subtitles and closed captions are visual versions of the words

that are being spoken on the television screen. Closed captions
are presented in the language being spoken so the deaf or
viewers hard of hearing can follow what is being said. Closed
captions may also present text clues about what other sounds
are present, such as [loud bang] or [sombre music]. Subtitles are
used to translate foreign language content into the language of
broadcast. For example, English language content might be
translated into Tagalog for viewing in the Philippines.

Closed captions and subtitles usually run along the bottom of the
screen so viewers can read them while still watching the pictures
and listening to the words being spoken. Both generally need to
be prepared beforehand and they require concentration from the
viewer, so they should be done professionally if possible. There
are automated captioning applications that use artificial
intelligence (AI) to generate the text, but these can be unreliable
and frequently produce laughable mistakes, especially when
turning names into text.

On radio or to avoid having to use subtitled translations of words

spoken in another language on television, it is possible to over-
dub what the speaker is saying by fading down the original
sound and getting another voice to read a translation over it,
either a fellow journalist or a professional voice actor. Simpler
still is to fade down the words being spoken so they can barely
be heard then the newsreader (or reporter) can summarise what
is said in reported speech.

Stand-ups

One final word about writing for stand-ups. These are the times
when a reporter speaks directly into the camera at the scene of
the story. Each stand-up segment in news is normally about 10
or 20 seconds long, meaning that it can contain several
sentences of spoken word. Some reporters write the words they
will say in sentences on a notebook then read them out in front
of the camera. However, this means that the reporter cannot look
into the camera while also looking down to read from the
notebook.

It is better either to memorise the sentences then put the

notebook to one side or to remember only the key words you
want to use then speak sentences directly into the camera. In
both cases, it helps if you keep the language simple and your
sentences short. You must also avoid using words which might
be difficult to pronounce. If you try to say "The previous Prime
Minister passed away in Papeete", you will get into difficulties
because of all the "p" sounds. Rewrite the sentence as "The last
Prime Minister died in Papeete."

Listen to your listeners or viewers

Radio – and to some extent television - is a form of conversation

between broadcasters and their listeners (or viewers). While in
its early years radio listening was almost obligatory in many
countries, today citizens have much wider choices of media and
so broadcasters cannot take them for granted.
Broadcasters and their audiences have the technologies to make
their conversations two-way affairs, which better serves the
interests of both content producers and its consumers.
Broadcasters make the kind of programs that audiences say they
want and the audiences get content better suited to their needs
and desires. It is therefore important that broadcasters listen to
their listeners and viewers. Find out how well your programs are
received and if there was anything important missing. How was
the presentation style? Were essential questions left
unanswered? What do your listeners want more of? What less?

Tools such as audience surveys are useful in getting numbers to

analyse services in general but modern technologies make it
possible to get instant, individualised feedback to each program,
segment or news story. We talk more about this is our chapter on
New media and social media
(http://www.thenewsmanual.net/Manuals%20Volume%202/volu
me2_55.htm).

TO SUMMARISE:

Follow these simple writing rules:

KISS - keep it short and simple

Try to avoid quotes on radio or in television scripts

Avoid unfamiliar words

Repeat important words

Keep punctuation simple

Simplify numbers

Avoid abbreviations

Show how to pronounce difficult words

 Simplfy your script

Find out what your listeners or viewers like or dislike about

how your information is presented.

This is the end of the first part of this two-part section on radio
and television. If you now want to read on, follow this link to the
second section, Chapter 49: Radio and television journalism
(https://www.thenewsmanual.net/Manuals%20Volume%202/volu
me2_49.htm)

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For tips on how to conduct on-camera

interviews, go to Media Helping Media: