Sunday, July 06, 2003

From the Newsplex in So. Carolina at a seminar on convergence. NewsPlex web site Basic newswriting--transformed by convergence--Tim Brown from USC 60% of J students nationwide are female.

Writing is the foundation of all the news reporting. Writing for bcast shows how well your presentation will go. Soundbyte over time: 70s--45 sec. 80s-30 secs. 2000s--10 sec.

The whole point of bcast is to take the v/user (viewer/user) to the place and time. He used the same clip of the Hindenburg that I use in Intro to Mass Media to make the point about the urgency, immediacy that bcast should convey. Bcast stories must be linear because they are auditory or story-based. Thus use conversational writing--write the way we speak or should speak. Grammar & diction counts. Use the perspective taking idea--how would we like to hear the story--talk in regular words. Keep it simple--SVO (subject,verb,object) and keep it active. Use radio as the introductory medium in bcast writing class. Most listeners are driving and using medium (radio) as background noise, so you need to break thru to them. Soundbite for radio--changes voice of the story from the reporter saying something, to the story of the people in the story e.g. the story is about the people. It is not the reporter's story. Sounds add authenticity, humanization, adds something the reporter can't. Method of soundbite in radio: "log" your tapes, what tells the story, what grabs attention, what is most audible? Write the script by putting sounds in order, then craft story after that and set the scene. "Outcue" in script is the last few words to soundbite. It tells the anchor when they start talking again. The anchor sets up the quote, but doesn't cite the quote verbatim. Experience, insight, emotion--that is what should be in a quote. Natural sound in news must be authentic to put the listener in the context. Reporter can know in advance what and when the sounds in a story will occur--the sounds don't have to be unanticipated. However, not okay to ask someone to do something to make a sound.

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