- If you have not done so, please email your introduction video to Mrs. Rosin at [email protected]
- YOU MAY NOT MOVE OUT OF YOUR SEAT UNTIL THE END OF CLASS!!!
- Please read through the passage below about GOOD BROADCASTING WRITING (10:05-10:10)
- Broadcasting news requires many behind-the-scenes jobs. Please MATCH the job with the correct description using the back page to help you out on the orange paper. (10:10-10:15)
- On pages 3 and 4 of your orange paper, you will be answering the news evaluations on three videos that your substitute will show you below. (10:15-10:35)
- Most importantly, I want you to listen to how short the reports are, yet how much information is included.
- Please read through project 5 on the website. You will be creating a news report that includes weather, national news, and a local report. (10:35-10:40)
- Go to http://www.easyprompter.com/ and see how you can create text that moves automatically like a real newscast (10:40-10:45)
- Get together with your group and decide the following things: -who will videotape, -who will be the "news anchor", -who will be the weatherperson, -who will be the local reporter, -start to brainstorm interesting news ideas (10:45-10:55)
- If there's time, go back to your seat and you can play a game quietly
What makes good broadcast writing?
Good broadcast writers use words that sound good. They also use words that evoke images, even when they know that visual elements will dominate their story. Try reading this aloud, from a story by NBC correspondent Steve Dotson about a cave rescue that had plenty of video:
Imagine slithering through a block of swiss cheese a mile and a half long. Climbing up a thousand-foot maze dragging a broken leg. That’s what it was like for Emily Mobley. She clawed her way beneath the earth for four days, after an 80-pound boulder slipped and crushed her in a cave . . . .
Or this, from the late CBS correspondent Charles Kuralt, about Little Big Horn:
This is about a place where the wind blows, the grass grows, and a river flows below a hill. There is nothing here but the wind and the grass and the river. But of all places in America, this is the saddest place I know.
That’s a great story, even before you have seen the video. You can’t wait to learn why such a simple place can be so sad.
Good broadcast writers know that much of the appeal of most of their stories will be emotional, because they will reach a bigger audience than just those who will be affected rationally. That affects their impact, elements, words decisions significantly.
Good broadcast writers use words that can capture an audience and create understanding the first time. A broadcast audience does not have the option of re-reading a sentence that was hard to follow.
Good broadcast writers know someone has to read what they wrote aloud, on the air. They avoid most multiple-syllable words, words that are tough to pronounce, and long, convoluted sentences.
Good broadcast writers cut to the chase quickly, but in a conversational style. After all, their audience will see and hear someone telling them the story, much as in a conversation. But, unlike in a conversation, no one will answer the news reader, and the “conversation” will be much, much shorter.
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