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10 April 2008

Broadcast and Online Journalism

Radio, television, online news, specialized forms of journalism

(The following article is taken from the U.S. Department of State publication, Handbook of Independent Journalism.)

Broadcast and Online
By Deborah Potter

Radio, television, and online – or Web-based – journalism are specialized forms with demands and requirements over and above those we have discussed so far.  Broadcast journalists use not only words, but also sound and video in constructing their stories. What they write must be written to be heard, not read, by the audience.  Like their TV counterparts, online journalists can include sound and video in their stories, as well as interactive elements that allow a reader to explore the story at his or her own pace.

For simplicity’s sake, we’ll use the term broadcast in this article to describe all radio and television news, whether it’s transmitted over the air, on cable, or via satellite.

Broadcast Story Forms and Terms

The basic broadcast story forms are the “tell” or “reader” story, the “V/O” or voice over, and the “wrap” or “package.”  A “reader” story is just what it appears to be – a story without additional sound bites or video – usually presented by the newscaster or anchor in the studio. A “V/O” is a television term for a story told with video but no “sound bites,” the broadcast term in English for direct quotes.  The newsreader or anchor will read the script for the story while the video is playing.  Adding a sound bite turns a V/O into a “V/O-SOT,” shorthand for sound on tape.  Even though many stations now capture all video digitally without using tape, the abbreviation SOT appears to have stuck.  These story forms – reader, V/O, and V/O-SOT – tend to be short: usually less than a minute, and sometimes only 10 or 15 seconds long.

A complete story by a reporter is called a “wrap” in radio and a “package” in television news parlance.  It consists of the reporter’s narration, also called “track,” and often includes sound bites and natural sound, sound that occurs naturally on location.  Obviously, the television version has video, which may include graphics, either static or animated.  These types of stories can be presented live or recorded in advance, and they tend to run longer than the other story forms – sometimes up to six or seven minutes, depending on the format of the newscast.  Each package also has a “lead-in,” or introduction, to be read by the newscaster.  Many also include a “tag,” which provides additional information at the end of the reporter’s package.

Another type of broadcast story is known as a “natural sound” or “NATSOT” package. This story form is most often used in television but occasionally in radio as well.  It does not include any reporter track.  Instead, the people featured in the story have to provide the narration. This approach can require more planning and just as much reporting as any other story, but the results can be powerful.  Photojournalists, who sometimes produce this type of story on their own without a reporter, have to make sure that every bit of information needed to tell the story is captured on tape or else the final product won’t make sense.

Broadcast Writing

Radio and television stories are written for the listener’s ear, not the reader’s eye.  Reporters must write copy they can read out loud: clear, conversational copy that is easily understood.  Unlike newspaper or online readers, the broadcast audience can’t go back and take a second look or listen to a story that didn’t quite make sense the first time.  “The words are spoken and, once spoken, are irretrievable,” former CBS (U.S. TV network) News editor Ed Bliss once wrote.

Broadcast journalists are more concise than their newspaper colleagues.  They have to be.  The printout of a half-hour news broadcast would fill only a page or two in the newspaper.  A broadcast lead cannot include all 5 Ws and the H discussed in Chapter 2, “Getting the Story” – it would be too long and too hard to follow.  Instead, a broadcast writer will select the two or three most significant points to use in the lead, and put the rest in the sentence that follows.  Broadcast stories also tend to leave out some details, such as ages and addresses, which are routinely found in print.  Broadcasters write shorter sentences so they can read them aloud without running out of breath.

Reporters for radio and television must be attuned to the sound of the words they use.  Like poets, they are alert to pacing and rhythm.  Consider this sentence from a script by Edward R. Murrow, the famed CBS correspondent who covered World War II from London, “The blackout stretches from Birmingham to Bethlehem, but tonight, over Britain, the skies are clear.”  This is writing that is meant to be heard.  The words are simple; the ending is crisp.

Broadcast writers must be wary of language that might be correct on the printed page, but sounds ridiculous when read aloud.  When the American actress and TV entertainer Lucille Ball died, a print story called her “the 83-year-old Ball.”  On the radio, the story said, “Lucille Ball was 83 years old.” (It thus avoided confusion over other meanings for “ball” in English.)  Broadcast writers also should beware of words that sound alike but have different meanings.  In English, for example, “miner” could easily be confused with “minor.” These words must be used in the proper context so their meaning is clear.  Broadcast journalists make a habit of reading their copy out loud before going on the air to catch this kind of problem, as well as potentially embarrassing double meanings that are not obvious on paper.  Reporting on a charity golf tournament, you don’t want to say that someone “played a round with the prime minister.”   (“Play around” in English can connote “misbehaved with.”)

Even though broadcast scripts are written to be read out loud, it’s just as important to spell correctly for broadcast as well as print.  Misspellings often result in stumbles or mispronunciations on the air.  To make sure they know how to correctly pronounce difficult words, broadcast journalists often include phonetic spellings in their scripts.  Correct spelling also matters more today because many stations post their stories online.  Some stations have computer software that automatically converts scripts into closed captioning or subtitling for their newscasts as a service to deaf viewers.  In both cases, misspellings reflect badly on the reporters and the station.

Radio and television news is written in a more conversational style than news in print.  Put another way, broadcast journalists should write the way they speak.  A newspaper story might read, “The man escaped in a red Toyota truck, police said.” But in broadcast, attribution comes first, so the script would read, “Police say the man escaped in a red Toyota truck.”  To maintain a conversational tone, broadcasters don’t need to use complete names and titles in news stories.  Generally speaking, middle initials are not used on the air unless the initial is an essential part of the name.  And at times, not even the name is required.  A newspaper story would note, “Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri met his Israeli counterpart Silvan Shalom in Istanbul, Turkey on Thursday.”  But the radio story might simply say, “The foreign ministers of Pakistan and Israel met in Turkey today.”

Immediacy is a key feature of broadcast news. If something is happening while you are on the air, you can and should say so:  “The president is flying to Capetown ... ” is more immediate than, “The president flies to Capetown today.”  Generally speaking, radio and television reporters avoid using time references in their leads unless the event happened today.  Where Wednesday’s newspaper would publish this lead: “President Mbeki flew to Capetown on Tuesday,” the radio newscast Wednesday morning would put it differently:  “President Mbeki has arrived in Capetown.”  Better yet, the writer would look forward to what the president is doing in Capetown on Wednesday so the story could be written in the present tense:  “This morning, President Mbeki meets with students at the University of Capetown.”

Sound

The sound bites that radio and television reporters use in their stories are the broadcast equivalent of quotes, but choosing them requires an additional layer of decision-making.  It is not enough for the sound bite to make sense on paper.  It must be clear enough to understand over the radio or on television.  Broadcast journalists have to be mindful of how long a sound bite runs.  What looks short on paper may actually take someone quite a long time to say – so long, in some cases, that it cannot be used in its entirety without making the entire story exceed its allotted time.

Broadcast writers pay particular attention to the transitions into and out of sound bites.  Their goal is to create a seamless narrative that will retain the attention of the audience all the way through the story.  If a sound bite begins with a pronoun, for example, the writer must make the meaning clear at the front end, by crafting the sentence so that the ear gets the information needed to decode what’s coming next.  Let’s say there’s an outbreak of head lice in the local schools.  A school nurse says in a sound bite, “They come in here scratching and we just know what we’ve got.  It’s so obvious.” When she says “they,” she means the schoolchildren.  It won’t do if the sentence before that sound bite says, “School nurses say they are dealing with a terrible outbreak of head lice,” because the sound bite that follows would appear to suggest that “they” refers to head lice.  Instead, the reporter might say, “The outbreak of head lice means that nurses like Mary Smith are seeing a lot more children than usual today.”

In addition to sound bites, stories on radio and television may include so-called “natural” or “wild” sound.  This is sound that is captured while reporting a story: the whistling of the wind, a police siren, children shouting for joy.  Using this sound in telling the story is standard practice in some parts of the world.  Including natural sound allows listeners or viewers to experience a place or situation for themselves, instead of the reporter telling them about it.  Sound also can provide an audio transition from one location to another, leading the audience into the next scene.

Natural sound can be used at a low audio level, under the reporter’s words, or “up full” so it can be clearly heard.  Either way, the sound helps the reporter tell the story.  Like mortar between bricks, good natural sound holds the story together.  American photojournalist Steve Sweitzer says that, in television, using natural sound is essential to tell a complete story. “Sound is the other part of the picture,” he says.

Pictures

Television is much more than radio with pictures.  Skilled television journalists marry their words with the video in order to tell a more powerful story.  Pictures are not just video “wallpaper,” they are an essential part of the story.  The visuals tell the “what” of the story.  The words tell the “why.”  To quote Ed Bliss again, “Seeing may be believing, but it isn’t understanding.”

Television reporters need to know what video they will use in a story before beginning to write.  Whenever possible, they should look at all of the video first, so they can be sure that what they write will match the pictures.  This is not just an issue of style.  Research has shown that viewers understand and remember stories much better when the words and video match, that is, when they tell the same basic story.  When the video does not match the words, viewers tend to remember more of what they see than what they hear.  Imagine, for example, a story about the effects of a major storm on a country’s fuel supplies.  If the video shows only storm damage and its aftermath, the viewer might miss the central point that fuel supplies have been disrupted.  The story would be easier to follow if the video showed storm damage while the reporter talked about the aftermath, and then switched to pictures of stranded fuel trucks or people waiting in line trying to buy gasoline while the reporter described the effect of the storm on fuel supplies.

Synchronizing words and pictures does not mean that reporters should simply describe what the viewer can see.  Let’s say the video shows a farm truck driving down a dusty dirt road.  There’s no point in having a reporter say something obvious, such as, “The Robertsons live at the end of a long country road.”  Instead, the audio track should offer information that adds context and meaning to the picture.  In this case, the reporter might say, “The drought has been so bad that the Robertsons haven’t had any crops to sell this year.”

Newscasts

Readers of newspapers or of news sites on the Internet have considerable control over how they receive the news. Radio listeners and television viewers have less.  A newspaper reader can choose to begin with the front page, the sports section, or the obituaries.  An online reader can scroll through a Web site’s home page offerings before deciding what specific item to read from start to finish.  But a radio listener or a television viewer has to consume the news the way it’s made available; the order of stories is pre-determined by the newscast producer.

Newscasts generally begin, or “lead,” with what the producer believes is the major story of the day.  That does not mean that every story following the lead is considered slightly less important than the one before it.  The producer has to consider the impact of the newscast as a whole, not just each individual story.  Producers often place an important or unusual story lower down in the newscast and “tease” what’s coming next as a way of holding the viewers’ interest and keeping them tuned in.  (We talked about teasers in Chapter 4, “Editing the Story.”)

Much as a newspaper editor decides on the layout of pages, the television news producer creates a rundown or lineup for the newscast, listing all stories in the order they will run.  The producer’s job is to know exactly how long each story will last because the newscast must begin and end at a specific time.  Once the program starts, the producer makes sure it stays on schedule.  If a story runs longer than expected, the producer has to decide what to cut to make up for it.  If a story is dropped, the producer has to provide material to fill the gap.

Online News

Online journalism has certain attributes of print journalism and of broadcast journalism, and other attributes that are unique to the Web. Frequently Web sites offer news articles to be read, just as they would be in a newspaper. At other times, the audience may select a video clip, so the Web site resembles a TV broadcast.  An online story that takes full advantage of the new medium allows the reader to become a participant, choosing his or her own path through the information presented.  “Only if there is some element of control by the user is it a new story form,” says Nora Paul, director of the University of Minnesota’s Institute for New Media Studies.

“Online journalists must think on multiple levels at once:  words, ideas, story structure, design, interactives, audio, video, photos, news judgment,” says Jonathan Dube, publisher of CyberJournalist.net, a Web site that focuses on how the Internet and other technologies are changing the media.  “TV is about showing the news. Print is more about telling and explaining. Online is about showing, telling, demonstrating, and interacting.”  To make that possible, online journalists present information in layers, using a variety of story forms.

Online Story Forms

The most basic online-story form has been described as “print plus.”  It’s a text story that includes additional elements like photographs, audio, and video, or hyperlinks to more information.  By embedding links, the journalist can take the reader to additional information on separate Web pages, some of which may be provided by sources outside the news organization, with more background or history.  Online stories can be enhanced by including links to databases that a user can search.  For example, a story about falling test scores at secondary schools across the country could link to a database of results from all schools.  The user could search for a specific school, for all schools in a particular city, or compare the results of different schools.

A more innovative approach uses “clickable interactives” or multimedia graphics specifically designed to illustrate a story.  The graphic elements are laid out in linear fashion, but the reader can explore them independently in any order.  The same is true of most online “slide-shows,” which combine text and audio with still photographs in a multi-media experience for the user.

Tools that allow the reader to navigate through a 360-degree view of a location can enhance online storytelling, too.  So can Flash animation, one of the software programs that allows you to design interactive content: video, graphics, and animation.  For example, the BBC in London created a Web site about illegal drugs and alcohol that allowed the reader to “choose” a particular drug and dosage, and then select a part of the body – like the brain or heart – to read about the effects of that drug on that organ, as well as safety information.  Online sites even have used quizzes and games to tell stories by breaking the information into questions and answers and letting the user discover what the reporter has already learned.

Online Writing

Online writing, says Jonathan Dube, is a cross between print and broadcast writing.  He maintains that the short, simple style favored by broadcasters makes online writing easier to follow.  But he says too many Web sites ignore the basic rules of good writing.  A conversational tone is good, says Dube, but grammar and spelling still matter.  Television news manager Scott Atkinson says his best advice is to write for the Internet as you would write an e-mail to a friend.  “That doesn't mean you can misspell words, ignore story structure, or leave out context,” he says.  “What it does mean is you should write in the most intimate style you can muster.”

Because Web-based news sites tend to offer readers many choices, writers should avoid delayed or anecdotal leads that don’t quickly indicate what a story is about.  The lead should give the reader a good reason to continue reading; otherwise, he or she probably will click on another story.  Stories on line generally are shorter than newspaper stories.  A good guideline is to limit an online story to about 800 words and to keep it all on one page.  Studies have found that readers are willing to scroll through text on line; there is no need to force them to click to additional pages for more of the same story.  But to make the text easier to absorb, Dube suggests that online writers break the text into more blocks and use more subheads and bullet points to separate ideas than they would in print.

Online journalism may allow readers to respond immediately and directly to the writer or editor via e-mail or even in a live chat.  In addition, many sites provide space for readers to post their feedback or opinions, so others can read what they have written and respond.  Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) in the United States solicits input for stories both on the air and online.  Listeners are asked to call or e-mail additional information.  Stories on the MPR Web site include a “Help us cover this story” link, so the audience can add comments and insights.

MPR also surveys its audience before producing special reports, such as an examination of the state’s economy.  MPR News Vice President Bill Buzenberg says audience input results in “much more sophisticated reporting, with more depth and lots of real-world examples and voices.”

[Deborah Potter is executive director of NewsLab, an online resource center for journalists in Washington, D.C., that she founded in 1998.  She has taught journalism as a faculty member at The Poynter Institute and at American University, and spent more than 20 years in TV news, including 16 as a network correspondent for CBS News and CNN.]