WRITING FOR THE TELEVISION NEWSCAST

By Ted White

Broadcast News Writing, Reporting, and Producing

The major difference between radio and TV news is, of course, pictures. When you write for

television, pictures are always crucial to a story. In radio, you must create pictures in your mind

and then find the words to paint those pictures for your audience. In television, you can show the

actual pictures.

Combining Words and Pictures

The battle over which are more important in television news – the words or the pictures – is

endless. There is no doubt that words are vital and that some broadcast writers use them more

effectively than others. Charles Kuralt is an example of a writer whose words rival the pictures

for prominence in a story. But even Kuralt would be hard pressed to tell his stories without

pictures. His talent lies in his ability to strengthen the pictures with words. Great pictures and

great words make great television news.

The beauty of good pictures is that they do not need a lot of words – just some good ones. The

challenge for TV writers is to avoid clashes with the video. Do not tell viewers what they are

seeing. Instead, support the video by saying what the video does not or cannot reveal. Fill in the

blanks, but do not overpower the video. Give your viewers time to savor the pictures.

Such advice assumes that you have good pictures to work with. If you don’t, then the words do

become crucial because they are needed to prop up the video. But because TV news is not about

using poor video, stories with bad pictures are likely to be dropped for more appealing ones

unless the messages they convey are too vital to be eliminated completely.

If the picture are poor, however, you can be sure you’ll be asked to tell the story quickly. A

frequent criticism of television news is that it relies on the pictures too much, but right or wrong

the formula is not likely to change: poor pictures, short stories; good pictures, long stories.

Sound Bites

As in radio, sound bites, the words of newsmakers, are key to telling a good TV news story. An

advantage for TV writers is that TV sound bites feature the faces of the newsmakers as well as

their voices. Good TV newswriters weave their copy between and around the sound bites, much

in the way that radio writers create wraparounds. This combination, called a package, is the best

way to tell a news story on television.

The Television Newswriter

In television, as in radio, a writer’s duties depend on the size of the newsroom. In a small market

– and even in some medium-sized markets – no one is assigned solely to writing. The anchors,

reporters, producers, and perhaps an intern from a local college write the news. Television

newsrooms in big markets and at the networks usually have several writers and, perhaps,

associate producers who also write. Television newswriters have three basic writing tasks: read

stories, voice-overs, and lead-ins.

Read stories

Read, or tell, stories are read by the anchors without the use of pictures except for those that

usually appear next to the anchor’s head. Visually, read stories are the least interesting in TV

news. They are virtually the same as radio copy. They are, however, a necessary part of the TV

newscast because they give the anchors exposure to the audiences. Anchors are paid well, and

the audience expects to see their faces on camera at least part of the time.

Sometimes, read stories are used because no video is available. Read copy might even lead the

newscast if it is about a breaking story that is just developing. We all are familiar with the phrase

film at eleven, which usually indicates that it’s too early for video, but it will come later.

Read stories are most often stories that are not important enough to require video or whose video

itself would be dull. At the same time, read stories play a major role in the TV newscast – they

break up the other types of material. Too much of anything tends to be boring, so the read stories

provide a change of pace.

Finally, read stories are easiest to work with in a newscast because they are flexible. They are the

putty that fills in the holes of the newscast. Read stories often play the same roles as radio pad

copy; they provide an opportunity to make adjustments that guarantee that the newscast gets off

the air on time. If the TV newscast is long, the read stories are the likely stories to be dropped. If

the newscast is short, more read stories are likely to be used.

Voice-over

The second type of assignment given to TV newscasters is the voice-over (V/O), copy that the

anchor reads while video or other graphics are shown. The video can either be silent or have a

soundtrack that is kept low for natural effect, a technique referred to as sound under or natural

sound.

Remember – the copy must complement the video. It should not duplicate what is obvious to

viewers. Avoid phrases such as what you are seeing here unless the video is difficult to

understand. For example, if you are showing video of a train derailment, rather than tell your

viewer “what you are seeing is the derailment of a Conrail freight train that left its tracks last

night,” you would say “ a Conrail freight train left its tracks last night,” and let the pictures show

the derailed train.

To write voice-over copy intelligently, you need to look at the video and take notes. When

viewing the video, use a stopwatch to time each scene. The cameraperson sometimes shoots a

series of short shouts that may require little editing.

The cameraperson shot a long, continuous pan of the wrecked cars that lasts about 30 seconds.

There’s another shot of a derrick hovering over the scene for 20 seconds and a third 20-second

shot of railroad workers huddled around a hastily made trashcan fire to ward off the frigid

weather. Finally, there’s an additional 30 seconds of video that shows some of the train’s

wrecked cargo – as an assortment of steel rods and girders and lumber. The total running time of

the video is one minute and 40 seconds. The producer asks the writer for a 20-second voice-over.

The writer, then, must lift an assortment of brief shots from the video that can be strung together

in some logical order that will make sense when the narration is added. (In a small newsroom,

reporters often write the script and edit the videotape. In a large operation, a tape editor follows

the writer’s or reporter’s instructions).

Now that the writer has notes on the length of each scene, she must decide how to edit, or cut,

the video. (Cut is a film term that has carried over to video. All editing is done electronically: the

videotape is not physically cut). The writer decides to use part of the long pan of the wreck scene

first. The cameraperson held steady on the scene at the end of the pan, knowing that the writer

might wish to use part of it. It is poor technique to cut into a pan, but is acceptable to use part of

it as long as it comes to a stop before the next shot. The writer uses eight seconds of the pan.

Then the writer selects five seconds of the wreckage video that shows the steel girders and the

lumber spread over the tracks and terrain. Four seconds of the derrick at work follow, and the

voice-over closes with three seconds of the railroad workers around the trashcan fire. The writer

gives her instructions to the tape editor, and then returns to her desk to type out the script from

her notes and wire copy. In preparing the script, the writer uses a format different from that used

in radio.