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| Broadcast News |
-Brian Mendonca
Broadcast News: Writing, Reporting, and Producing (2005) by Ted White takes you through how radio, television, and online streaming platforms share news through electronic media. The PDF (click the title) is a comprehensive study of what it means to write, report and produce such content. Written in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US, it examines how broadcast journalists reported the incident.
Standard newspaper copyediting symbols are not used in broadcast copy. The whole word is spelt out rather than the proofreading symbol indicating the change. (pg. 2) This is because the anchor may fumble while reading the news.
News anchors have shifts. There is the morning anchor, afternoon, evening, and night - and sometimes overnight. Anchors are free to go out for a story and air it as soon as they get back. (95) Ted McCaw was a blind radio jockey who worked as an anchor for a radio station in Massachusetts. (95)
In writing the lead for broadcast copy, the 5W's and 1H need be adhered to. They are who, what, where, when, why, and how. (32) A hard lead is when the hard facts are given in the beginning. A soft lead is when a reference is made to the incident, but does not tell the whole story. This could be to allow for time for listeners to process the news. (33) In discussing leads, White analyzes the photo Eisenstaedt took for Life magazine in 1945, and how Susan Stamberg, the reporter for National Public radio, used the story to mark the end of World War II. (36)
Hemingway's style in 'Old Man and the Sea' are examined as an example of 'colour' or vivid description while writing. (44)
News correspondent Edward Murrow went on a bombing raid over Germany to get a story. (72) B/w pictures testify to that. It is followed by Murrow's reporting on the Buchenwald concentration camps. (74) Murrow died in 1965 - but he took on McCarthy before he did. Murrow was an immense influence on broadcast journalism in the US. (76-77)
Anniversaries of events are opportunities to create content. One example is the 50th anniversary of the bombing of the USS Arizona in Pearl Harbour, Hawaii, in which 1,177 men lost their lives on 7 December 1941. KPNX-TV in Phoenix, Arizona, did a script interviewing the survivors or their spouses. (81-85)
Writing a script for television involves a 2-column layout with the visual instructions on the left and the text to be read on the right. Some of the terms used are OC - On Camera; VO - Voice Over; SIL - silent video tape; SOT - Sound on tape; Font - superimposing text over video; (109-10)
Announcers / newscasters need to be aware of pronunciation and pacing. (123)
The interview is discussed in a chapter devoted to it. (271)
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