It is difficult to generalize about radio news operations and news programs because they seem to be constantly changing. One statement that can be made, however, is that newscasts on radio are getting shorter and less frequent.
However, many radio stations (mostly in large- and medium- sized markets) still take pride in their news operations and maintain writing and reporting staffs of a dozen or more. Some of these stations, particularly those that provide “all news,” may have staffs twice that size.
In small markets, radio news is often the product of a one- person news staff. Many people who begin their careers in radio will probably work in that environment, which has some advantages. It’s an opportunity to develop the skills that you learned in school: writing, reporting, interviewing, working with sound, and editing.
It also offers time to develop that most important of broad- casting skills-news judgment. But working alone also has some disadvantages. There will be no one there to help correct and guide you when you need it most.
This chapter discusses the factors you should consider when preparing for and writing radio newscasts. Getting to know the audience is the first consideration.
One of the continuing debates in both print and broadcast news is whether the news should provide the kind of information that people need to know or the information they want to know. Most journalists agree that the answer lies somewhere in the middle. People must be informed, but it also makes sense to tailor the news for the audience. A station programming easy-listening music probably would not want to provide the same kind of news as a rock station.
The rock station would have a relatively young audience, and the so£1music station would have an older audience. If you were the news director at the rock station, you would be looking for stories that might appeal more to young people. The writing style also would be lighter and less formal than it would be, for example, for the audience of a classical-music station.
The story selection also would be different for news delivered in urban and rural areas. Stories about the weather would be important in farm country, whereas stories about traffic congestion would be important in the city.
Although you need to consider all these factors, your main concern in covering the news is the news itself. A story of overwhelming importance whether it is local, national, or foreign, always takes precedence over the rest of the news.
Organizing Material
Before radio news writers decide which story should lead a newscast and which stories should follow, they must know what news they have to work with. A good way to start is to call the police and fire departments to see if anything is going on, then read the newspapers carefully.
Newsrooms keep a file marked “futures” that alerts the staff to special events scheduled in the listening area that day and during the upcoming month or later. Check this file next.
In a small community there may not be much going on, and, if that community is served by an equally small station, any material in the futures file was probably put there by the newsperson who will be covering the event.
Also check the news wires immediately. Of particular importance are the stories that the wires periodically move about events in the local area. After the copy has been ripped from the wires, you are ready to sort out the material.
Most news people working with hard copy like to use a ruler and a thick, crayon-like marker to write a one- or two-word slug at the top of every new story After all the copy is cut, most writers make a number of piles: one for local news, another for national news, and a third for international news. Some writers list on a pad all the stories they have to work with and try to figure out a tentative order in which the stories will appear in the script.
Other writers simply go through the various piles of copy on their desk, sorting them so that the most important stories are at the top and the less important ones at the bottom. There is no right or wrong way to organize copy, so 100 for the method that is the most comfortable for you.
Writers using computers organize their copy in a variety of ways. Some move the stories they wish to consider for their newscast into a separate computer file. Later, when they are ready to rewrite the stories, they split screen so that they can look at the wire copy on one side and use the other half, the blank side, to rewrite the copy in broadcast style.
Once that story is written it is saved, and the writer moves on to the next one, and so forth. When all the stories are written, the writer prints the them out and puts them in the order in which they will be read on the air.
It is possible for a newscaster to read the copy right from the computer screen; this is done on occasion, particularly when urgent material moves on the wire. But most newscasters find it uncomfortable to read entire newscasts from the computer screen.
Writing from the Back
One thing just about all news writers agree on is that the first stories they write are those that will not change. Working in this way is called writing from the back because the stories that are not likely to change are usually those that are read in the latter part of the newscast.
“Breaking” stories, as their name suggests, will probably change considerably before air time, so they should be written last.
The Lead Story
The method for selecting the first story in the newscast-the lead story-may sound simple: Just pick the most important story. But how do you decide which story is most important? Should a local, national, or international story be the lead? Does the time of day affect the decision? Will any of the stories affect the local audience in some way? The answers to these questions can help you determine which story should lead the newscast.
Most of a station’s listeners will be more interested in what is happening in their community than in the rest of the world. There are exceptions, of course, as during the Gulf War when most Americans turned on their radio and TV sets to get the latest on the war. The same has been true during the sensational 0. J. Simpson murder trial.
But first, let’s examine how we decide what news to a local audience is. I News in a town of 5,000 is not necessarily news in a city of 50,000. What is considered news in that city may not be too important in a city of a million or I more. Here are some story choices on a particular day at a radio station in the hypothetical town of Centerville, population 10,000.
- The president says he is encouraged by the progress being made in the baseball strike negotiations.
- The Labor Department says unemployment rose another one-half of one percent.
- The governor says he will make major cuts in services and state workers’ jobs rather than raise taxes.
- The wife of Centerville’s mayor gives birth to triplets.
The story of most interest in Centerville, and the story that most listeners would be talking about that day, is the birth of triplets to the mayor’s wife. But 100 miles north, in the state capital, the birth would be less important, and the governor’s comments on cuts in jobs and services would be the top story. The network newscast would lead with the jump in unemployment because that story holds the most interest for a national audience.
Suppose we add another story to the list: a three-car accident on the freeway near the state capital. While the story may not sound too important, suppose the accident was at 8 a.m., and those three wrecked cars had created a gigantic traffic jam. It most certainly would be the lead story on the 8 a.m. news for stations in the capital because that is “drive time,” the highest-rated listening period for radio. The people listening to their radios on the way to work are more concerned about when they will get to the office than they are about the governor’s comments on taxes and jobs. How about the audience in Centerville?
Because the accident took place over 100 miles away, the Centerville listeners would have no interest in it. The network radio audience would not even know about the accident because it would not be important enough to make the wires.
Keep in mind that when you start to prepare your newscast, you should not be overly concerned about which story will lead it. The chances are that what appeared to be the most important story an hour earlier may be overshadowed by a new story that broke before air time. That is the nature of the news business.
On some very busy news days-unlikely in Centerville-a story that was considered the lead at one point may not even get into the newscast. That’s why each story should be on a separate sheet of paper to allow for a quick reshuffling of the script.
The Rest of the Newscast You can use the formula you established for choosing the lead story to pick the rest of the stories in the newscast. Once you have selected the lead, determine which of the remaining stories would hold the most interest for your audience, then the next most interest, and so on. The stories would then be broadcast in that order.
Localizing the News
When writing for a local station, always look for some local angle in national and international stories. If a British airliner crashes in Europe, the first thing to check is whether there were any Americans on board and, if so, whether any were from the local listening area.
During the Gulf War, local radio and TV newscasters were always interested in getting interviews with service personnel who were from their area. When there were casualties, it was the responsibility of news organizations to find out if any local men and women were killed or injured.
If a person wins a million-dollar lottery it’s a good story, but if the person happens to be from the listening area, it’s a “great” story.
Story Length
The length of a story is determined by the length of the newscast, the importance of the story, and the availability of news at that particular hour. If there is not much news to report, the stories may have to be longer than they would be normally. If there is a lot of news, most stories should be short to allow sufficient time for the major stories.
Before you start to write, you must determine how much time you actually have for news in a newscast. Most newscasters read approximately 15 or 16 lines of copy per minute. So, for a three-minute newscast, you would need approximately 45 to 48 lines of copy.
But is the newscast really three minutes long? Probably not. Let’s say there are two commercials, each running 30 seconds, in the newscast, which leaves two minutes of news. If there is a 10-second weather report, five seconds for stocks and another five seconds to sign off, the two minutes have been reduced another 20 seconds. What is left is one minute and 40 seconds, If that time is converted to lines, you have about 25 lines in which to cover all the news. That is why you must learn to condense your stories. You may have as little as three lines to tell some of those stories.
Actualities The voices of the newsmakers are called actualities or sound bites. The heart of radio news.
You must have learnt that color is often provided by the voices of the people in the story. A good writer can tell the story without the actual voice, but he or she faces a greater challenge. Even the best news writers would tell you that if given a choice, they would rather have the actual sound bite provide the color than their paraphrase of what was in the sound bite. Regardless of the writer and newscaster’s talents, it’s not possible to capture all of the nuances in a sound bite with a paraphrase and the newscaster’s voice. How can anyone better express the remarks of New York City cab drivers than they themselves? And how would the newscaster make up for the missing sounds of the city in the background-the natural sound- without the tape? Good tape is essential.
Wraparounds
The combination of sound and words is known as a wrap- around. This technique, as the name suggests, uses the voice of the newscaster or reporter at the beginning and end of a story or report and the voice of the newsmaker in the middle. You might want to think of a wraparound in terms of a sandwich. There can be more than one thing between the two slices of bread. Wraparounds frequently have more than one sound bite in the middle. The anchor or reporter may wrap several different pieces of sound with script. Here’s an example:
A Conrail freight train today left the tracks near Centerville causing some major problems for passenger trains that also use the tracks. Railroad officials say the locomotive and eight of the train’s 14 cars were derailed. They blamed a broken rail.
Remarkably, there were only two injuries- to the engineer and his assistant-and they were not serious. Engineer Bob Potter spoke to us at the hospital. (sound bite) 1,5 sec. Out-cue: . . I was plenty scared.” Conrail engineer Bob Potter. He’s in good condition at Centerville General Hospital.
The train was on its way to Southern California with a load of steel and lumber when the accident took place shortly before midnight. Freezing temperatures- dipping into the teens-will make the job of cleaning up a very unpleasant one and will hamper efforts to get service back to normal. But Conrail spokesman Mark Florman is optimistic. (sound bite) 20 sec. Out-cue: “ .. we will know more in a few hours.” Conrail spokesman Mark Florman
He also said that Conrail passenger trains will be detoured, causing some delays probably for 48 hours.
Lead-Ins
Every sound bite, wraparound, and report from the scene included in a news script must be introduced by a line or phrase known as a lead-in.
Here is one possible lead-in the anchor could have used to introduce the train wreck wraparound if it were done by a reporter at the scene: A train wreck in Centerville during the night. Reporter Cleo Allen has the details. (Take wraparound) Runs 1:10 Out-cue” .. Cleo Allen reporting for KTHU Radio.”
The most important thing to avoid when writing a lead-in is redundancy. One of the worst style errors is a lead-in that says exactly the same thing as the first line of the wraparound or sound bite. The way to avoid this problem is for the writer or anchor in the newsroom and the reporter at the scene to discuss in advance what each is going to say.
The short sentences used in a script to hold the audience’s attention just before a commercial break is called teases. The idea of a tease is to give the audience some reason to keep listening, rather than turning the dial. This is best accomplished by giving just a hint of what is to come after the commercial. The cleverer the tease, the greater the chance the audience will put up with the commercial.
If the train wreck wraparound were to follow a commercial, this is theway it might be teased: Freezing temperatures add to the problems of a Centerville train wreck. That story after this (Commercial)
If the news is long enough, or being written for an all-news station, it’s effective to tease two or more stories before going to a commercial. Such a tease gives the writer more opportunities to hook listeners. If they are not interested in the first story that is teased, they might go for the second or third one.
Headlines
Headlines are another form of tease. Headlines come at the top of a newscast and should reflect the most interesting and exciting stories to be covered in the upcoming newscast. Often, a headline for an offbeat story is an effective tease. Here is a sample:
A tornado rips through a small Kansas town, killing six people. The cost of living climbs for the third straight month.
Governor Jones says he will veto legislation that would restore the death penalty.
And a pet cheetah scares a lot of people when he decides to take a walk down Main Street. Those stories and more on the six o’clock news Good evening, I’m Bill Giles. Some radio newscasts start with only one headline: Six people die in a tornado in Kansas. Good evening, I’m Bill Giles with the six o’clock news. The tornado ripped through Centerville, Kansas. . .
Many stations, particularly those that have shortened their newscasts, have eliminated headlines completely on the grounds that they are redundant and take up too much time. On many other radio stations, the only news is the headlines. Stan Case reads the news in the CNN Radio anchor booth in Atlanta. (1992 CNN. All Rights Reserved)
Pad Copy
Copy written for protection against mistakes in timing and unexpected changes in the newscast that could affect the timing is called pad copy. Most of the time, such copy will not get on the air, so the stories that are selected as pad copy should be relatively unimportant.
Because most radio newscasts are relatively short, pad copy normally consists of only a few short pieces totaling perhaps between 30 seconds am: minute. More pad copy might be written for longer newscasts.
Note that the chief reason for pad material is to avoid one of the scariest situations in broadcast news: running out of something to say before the program is scheduled to end.
Back Timing
Getting off the air on time takes some planning. If a newscast runs over, ill short, it can create problems for the programs that follow the news. This is particularly true if network programming comes after the newscast.
One way to guarantee that this does not happen is called back timing. The final segments in the newscast are timed and then deducted from the lens of the newscast. Let’s look at an example. Suppose the last two items in a newscast are the stocks and weather. Both are timed. It will take 10 seconds to read the stocks and another 20 seconds for the weather. The standard close for the newscast takes another five seconds to read. The newscaster will need 35 seconds, then, to read the last three items. So, 35 seconds are deducted from the total time of the newscast. The newscaster now knows that he or she must begin reading those three final items at exactly 2:25 into a three- minute newscast. The three final items should be placed in a separate pile within easy reach on the studio table. The time should be written boldly on the top page of this back-timed copy. When the clock reaches the 2:25 mark in the newscast, the reader simply picks up the three pages and begins reading them, regardless of where he or she is in the newscast. Some stories may have to be dropped, and often they are, but that is the only way to guarantee the newscaster gets off the air on time.
