Thoughts on the readings

Chapter 19 - Writing News for Radio and Television

The first thing that I noticed when reading this chapter was the similarity between news value for broadcast and print journalism. As a mainly print journalist, I value timeliness just as much as broadcast journalists. Broadcast simply speeds things up a bit, and from my point of view, often gives shorter bits of news, which are updated more often. All of their news is breaking. Print can afford to take more time to get all of the details before an issue comes out, often giving more information in one package.

While the book points out the importance of visual impact for broadcast, I tend to see this distinction as becoming less important. Captivating photography is one of the most important aspects of a newspaper. I know that at The Ithacan, the photography section has really pulled the paper through this semester and strengthened each section. And with multimedia becoming a regular for print, it is just as important for newspapers to get good video and audio as it is for broadcast. I think as time continues, the distinction between the two will continue to blur.

Where print and broadcast do differ is in writing style. When simply looking a verbs: broadcast uses 'says' while print uses 'said.' Broadcast writing can also be more conversational. While much news writing is meant to be void of emotion, broadcast allows pauses, inflection, and other vocal devices which bring the listener along and make the experience entertaining.

Like print, however, broadcast writing is tight and to the point. As in print, there is not always enough room for a story, which means choosing facts carefully and phrasing things crisply.

There are a lot of stylistic things that will be different for a print writer to become use to. Abbreviations, for instance, are used less often. Only when the abbreviation is very well known is it used. In writing copy, word rather than symbols are used. A broadcast copy sheet would never have %, while in print it is standard.