week 10: writing for the broadcast media (2)

8/10/2019 Week 10: Writing for the broadcast media (2)

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COMM-125 Introduction to Journalism

Section 1- Language of instruction English

Wednesdays 15:00-18:00Venue: NEWTON Amphitheatre

Lecture no. 10

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Broadcasting is a different mediumfrom print, both in relation to form andaudience expectation.

The customs and conventions ofwriting - and even many of the style

rules - are different from thosedeveloped for print.

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This lecture will introduce the basics ofwriting for broadcast in terms of:-style,-story structure, and-copy preparation.

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Characteristics of broadcast writing A 1960s edition of the UPI BroadcastStylebook says that whereas print

journalism has the five Ws, broadcast journalism has the four Cs

correctness (or accuracy), clarity,conciseness, and color.

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Of course the five Ws are notcharacteristics of print writing, but aguide for the content of a print story.

The previous statement was just

parallelism.

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The four characteristics of print writingare accuracy, clarity, precision, andefficiency, that do apply also for thebroadcast media.

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These four Cs serve as the basis forbroadcast writing and form a goodframework for talking about broadcastwriting styles.

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We already discussed the first two inprevious lectures, so let us elaboratemore on the remaining two.

One important characteristic of writingfor broadcast is its conversationalstyle .

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Even the clearest, simplest newspaperstyle tends to sound stiff when it is readaloud.

Broadcast writing must sound moreconversational, because people will bereading it aloud.

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Broadcast news should be written forthe ear, not for the eye.

The writer should keep in mind thatsomeone is going to say the words and

others will listen to them.

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This casual, conversational style,however, does not give the writerfreedom to break the rules of grammar,to use slang, off-color phrasing, oroffensive language, nor is casualsounding prose, particularly easy toproduce.

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Another characteristic of writing forbroadcast is the emphasis on theimmediate.

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Whereas past-tense verbs arepreferred in the print media,broadcasters use the present tense.

A newspaper or web site story mightbegin like this:

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The president said Tuesday that he willsupport some limited tax increase

proposals when parliament reconvenesthis week...

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A broadcast news story might beginwith this:

The president says he's for highertaxes.

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Another way of emphasizing theimmediate is to omit the time element

and assume that everything hashappened close to the time of thebroadcast.

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In the preceding example, thebroadcast version has no time element

because it would probably be heard onthe day the president made thestatement.

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The elimination of the time elementcannot occur in every story.

Sometimes the time is important andmust be mentioned.

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The tight phrasing that characterizesbroadcast writing is one of its chief

assets and one of the most difficultqualities for a beginning writer toachieve.

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Because time is so short, thebroadcaster cannot waste words.

The broadcaster must work constantlyto simplify and condense.

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There are a number of techniques forachieving this conciseness .

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One technique is the elimination of allbut the most necessary adjectives andadverbs.

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Stories must be built on nouns andverbs, the strongest words in thelanguage.

Avoid using the passive voice, like forexample: was stolen , was made

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Instead use active verbs that will allowthe listener to form a picture of the

story.

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Another technique of broadcast writingis the use of short, simple sentences.

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Broadcasters do not need the variety oflength and type of sentences that print

journalists need, in order to make theircopy interesting.

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Broadcasters can more readily fire information at their audience like

bullets, in short, simple sentences.

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The fourth C of the UPI Stylebook -color - refers to writing that allows thelistener to paint a picture of the story or

event.

The nature of the broadcast mediumallows for more humor and humaninterest.

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An additional characteristic ofbroadcast writing is its almost completesubjugation to deadlines.

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Broadcast copy is often written in anatmosphere in which a deadline isimminent.

Broadcast writers have to learn toproduce in a highly pressurizedatmosphere.

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Story Structure The most common structure forbroadcast news is called dramatic

unity .

This structure has three parts: climax,

cause, and effect .

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The cause portion of the story tells whyit happened - the circumstances

surrounding the event.

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The effect portion of the story gives thelistener the context of it and possiblysome insights about what it means.

The following examples will show howdramatic unity works:

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Example 1:

Climax Taxpayers in the country will be payingan average of 20 euros more in incometaxes next year.

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Effect The bill now goes to the president forhis signature (or ratification). Estimatesare that the measures will raise about10 million euros in new revenue for thestate next year

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Elementary and secondaryeducation will get most of that money.

Passage of the bill is a major victory forthe government's education program(or policy).

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Example 2:

Climax Many children in Nicosia's schoolsystem (or city school system) willbegin their classes at least a half hour

later next year.

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Cause The City School Board (or the NicosiaSchool Board) last night voted torearrange the school bus schedule fornext year as a cost-cutting measure.

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Effect The new schedule will require mostelementary school children to beginschool half an hour later than they donow. Most high school students willbegin half an hour earlier.

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Thus, broadcast journalists think oftheir stories as completed circlesrather than inverted pyramids.

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Whereas the pyramid may be cutwithout losing the essential facts, the

broadcast story, if written in thisdramatic unified fashion, cannot be cutfrom the bottom or anywhere else.

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In fact broadcast journalists and theireditors are not concerned with

cutting stories after they have beenwritten, to make them fit into a newsbroadcast.

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Rather, stories should be written to fitinto an amount of time, designated by

the editor or news director,beforehand.

For instance, an editor may allottwenty-five seconds for a story.

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The writer will know this and will write astory that can be read in this time span.

If the story is longer, the editor will askthat it be rewritten.

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Because they are so brief, broadcastnews stories must gain the attention of

the listener from the beginning.

The first words in the story are

extremely important.

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The broadcast news lead may be shorton facts, but if it captures the attention,

it has served its purpose.

Facts can be given afterwards.

Here is an example:

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The lame duck keeps limping along.

Parliament met for the third day of itslame-duck* session today and againfailed to act on the governmental (orCabinet/Council of Ministers') gas tax

proposals.

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*lame duck is an elected official, orbody that is approaching the end of its

tenure, especially one whosesuccessor has already been elected.

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The first sentence has very little in theway of facts, but it gets the listener into

the story.

This structure is only appropriate forcertain stories, however.

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If the facts of the story are strongenough to gain the public's attention,

they should be used as opening.

For example:

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The five-cents-a-gallon gas tax is law.

The president ratified the billauthorizing the tax today whilevacationing in Troodos.

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In both of these examples, the writerhas not attempted to tell the whole

story in the first sentence.

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Rather the stories have attention-getting orientation and are then

supported by facts and details insubsequent sentences.

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Print Cypriots overwhelmingly oppose thetaxation of employee benefits, and

MPs (or members of parliament) whotamper with such tax-free workerbenefits may face trouble at the polls,two University of Nicosia surveys say.

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Print The European Union is turning out

inferior products that are too costly forforeign customers and the problems gobeyond a strong euro, high wages, andhigh taxes, as the EuropeanCommission reports.

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Broadcast

Many European Union products aren'tworth what we are asking for them.

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Print A lone juror, a city sanitationdepartment supervisor, forced a hung

jury and a mistrial of Pafos MayorSavvas Vergas' trial on conspiracycharges for crime commitment,involving alleged threatening texting.

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Broadcast news stories cannot go intothe detail and explanation that print or

web stories can.

Certain facts and explanations must beomitted, if the story is to fit into the timeallowed.

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Broadcast writing style The style and customs of broadcast

writing differ somewhat from the stylediscussed for print and web journalism.

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Broadcast writing has someconventions of its own.

The following is an explanation ofsome of those.

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Titles usually come before names.

Just as in print stories, most peoplementioned in broadcast stories need tobe identified.

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In broadcast newswriting, however,

titles almost always precede a name.

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Consequently, whereas a print storymight have Erato Kozakou-Markoulli,

ex (or former) minister of foreignaffairs , the broadcast journalist wouldsay, ex Minister of Foreign AffairsErato Kozakou-Markoulli.

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Avoid abbreviations, even on secondreference. Only the most commonly

known abbreviations should be used inbroadcast writing.

The FBI, the UN, the EU are threeexamples.

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UNIc, CBC, ELA and ECB however,should be spelled out as the University

of Nicosia, the Central Bank of Cyprus,the Emergency Liquidity Assistanceand the European Central Bank.

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Sometimes a direct quotation isessential and should be used.

When that is the case, the writer needsto tip the listener off to the fact that adirect quotation is being used. Or byplaying it from record.

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The use of the phrase quote unquote is awkward and should beavoided.

Instead use phrases such as in thewords of the speaker, in his ownwords, she used these words, andas she put it.

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Attribution should come before aquotation, not after it.

The sequence direct quote-speaker-verb that is the standard in print

journalism is not useful for thebroadcast writer.

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Tagging an attribution at the end of adirect or paraphrased quote is

confusing.

The listener should know where thequotation is coming from beforehearing it.

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Use as little punctuation as possible,but enough to help the newscaster

through the copy.

Remember that broadcast news copywill be read by a person, the newsreader.

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That person should be able to readthrough the copy as easily and

smoothly as possible.

The excessive use or limited use ofcommas, dashes, and semicolons willnot help the newscaster.

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Consequently, 4.101,696 in print

becomes more than four milliondollars in broadcast copy.

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Numbers themselves are handledsomewhat differently.

Here are a few rules about handlingnumbers in broadcast copy:

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numbers one through nine should bespelled out; numbers 10 through 999

should be written as numerals; (samein print)

write out hundred, thousand, million,billion

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Use a combination of numerals withthese numbers where appropriate (for

example, 15 hundred, 10 billion);

dont write a million or a billion, butrather use the word one (a sounds likeeight) .

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Personalize the news when possibleand appropriate. In the previous

example with the tax of gas, the leadsentence could read,

Gas is going to cost y o u five centsmore a gallon

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Avoid extended description. Chiefexecutive and Managing Director of theInternational Monetary Fund ChristineLagarde said today

Would become International MonetaryFund (or IMF-abbreviation well known)Director Christine Lagarde says

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Avoid using symbols when you write.

The euro and percent signs for

example should never be used.

Spell these words out so there will be

no mistake on the part of the newsreader.

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Use phonetic spelling for unfamiliarand hard to pronounce names and

words.

Again you are trying to be helpful to thenewscaster and the audience hearinghim/her.

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Writing Nicosia Mayor KonstantinosYiorkajis (Yior-KA-jis) said today he will

propose helps the newscaster getover a difficult name.

Notice that the syllable that isemphasized in pronunciation is writtenin capital letters.

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Difficult place names also needphonetic spellings.

Writers should be knowledgeable oflocal pronunciations for such places.

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Pronunciation to the broadcast writer islike spelling to the print journalist.

It should always be checked if there isany doubt.

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Newscasters, anchormen, newsreaders, speakers, announcers etc.

should take voice and diction courses,for speech training, in order to improvetheir pronunciation.

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Avoid pronouns. When you have touse them, make sure the referents are

clear to the listener.

Putting too many pronouns in a storycan be an obstacle to the kind of claritya broadcaster must achieve.

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Avoid apposition. An apposition is aword or set of words that renames a

noun.

In Mayor of Pafos, Savvas Vergas,said today the phrase Mayor ofPafos is appositional.

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In English, restrictive appositives arenot set off by commas.

Broadcast writers should keep subjectsand verbs as close together aspossible. So, Pafos Mayor SavvasVergas resigned yesterday

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As already said, use the present tensewhen it is appropriate (e.g. the

president says rather than the president said) .

This is one way for bringing immediacyto writing.

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However, care should be taken, that

using the present tense does not makethe broadcaster sound foolish.

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For instance, if the president made a

statement yesterday, and thebroadcast news story covers it today,the attribution should not be in thepresent tense.

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The past tense is more appropriate.

The present tense should be used foraction that is very recent or that iscontinuing.

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Avoid dependent clauses at thebeginning of sentences.

Dependent clauses are troublesomebecause they are confusing and tendto hide the subject of the sentence.

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For instance, Stop p ing o n the fi r s tl eg o f h i s Europ ean to u r to day , the

president said he gives the listenertoo much to digest before getting to themain point of the story.

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The broadcast writer should always

remember that the simple sentence subject, verb, object is the bestformat to use.

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Broadcast copy preparation Copy is prepared for one person, theannouncer.

The copy should be presented in a waythat makes the announcers job aseasy as possible.

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Different stations and newsorganizations will have rules about howto prepare copy.

The list that follows should give you anidea of the kind of rules the station willemploy:

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Type only one story on a page. A

story should have some ending mark,such as 30 , at the end (may differfrom one station or news organizationto another).

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Use caps and lowercase. An old styleof broadcast writing was to capitalize

everything.

That is changing. The all caps style ishard to read and WE ARE NOTSHOUTING!

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Dont carry over a paragraph toanother page.

If a story is more than a page long, endit at the end of a paragraph; begin thenext page with a new paragraph.

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Dont hyphenate (-) at the end of a

line, to separate syllables of a singleword

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Finally, broadcasters often want towork either audio or video into their

stories.

The following example shows you howto indicate or mark this on a copy.

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People who want to buy a Chevroletnext year are going to have to pay

more. Thats what CompanySpokesman John Ioannou said todayin Nicosia.

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The new cars will cost about seven

percent more than last years cars.

Ioannou blamed the increase on thecost of petrol worldwide.

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PLAY AUDIOVISUAL: The workers aregetting more

END AUDIOVISUAL: really no wayof avoiding this. [:15]

The number in brackets indicates theduration (in seconds).

week 10: writing for the broadcast media (2)

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