While I have been interviewed on television and participated in broadcast forensics in high school, the core of my media background is in newspapers. That said, can anyone in class provide some more firsthand experience from a different course or internship on broadcast editing? What makes broadcast different from other media? Is it more difficult to write a script than a story for either newspapers or the Internet? Are there types of stories more suited to television and radio?
Also, how will convergence factor in? Do you think those working in print need to learn broadcast styles as companies consolidate, especially after the Federal Communication Commission eased rules in 2008 to permit a company to own a newspaper and television station in the same market?
As usual, the deadline for this discussion and receive credit is midnight Monday.
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Though similar, broadcast writing and newspaper writing are extremely different. I don’t have extensive experience with broadcast, but I have taken the Telecommunication Performance class with Dr. Lewis and I worked at a radio station during basketball season. The major difference between writing a script and writing an article is the tone. A script uses simple words. When reading it aloud, it sounds like something you’d hear in normal conversation. Contractions are used. Print is more formal and there are more rules to follow. Sentences are not necessarily conversational, but provide deeper meaning. While writing scripts for the Telecommunication Performance class, I found it a bit difficult to keep my sentences short and direct since I’m used to writing long, AP style sentences for the M-Times. Broadcast script writing seems more natural, however, since you basically just explain the story as if you were speaking with someone. It is important to keep in mind that viewers can’t re-read a sentence on air like they can in a newspaper, so sentences must be easy to understand to avoid confusion.
I don’t think it’s necessarily more difficult to write a script than a story for newspapers or the Web, I think it’s just something you need to get used to. Once you get in the hang of writing for broadcast, it will come naturally. It’s interesting to see AP rules completely disregarded in broadcast. For example, it seems wrong to write out “two-thousand,” but that’s the norm in broadcast.
There are definitely stories more suited to television and radio. Stories with amazing images and video work best for television, though the print copy might be a tad dull. The same goes for radio. If a story has great sound bites, it might make a good radio story, but the print copy might again be boring. I definitely think those working in print need to learn broadcast styles as companies consolidate. It’s essential to know how to be a journalist in any setting, whether it is print, radio, television or the Internet. That’s why I’m keeping my options open and not settling on one specific journalism career path. I would love to try broadcast, and am applying for an internship at WNEM TV5 in Saginaw. I don’t think I can afford to be picky, with journalism jobs so scarce. The more skills I have, the better chance I have of getting a job after college.
And I didn't know you did broadcast forensics in high school, that's awesome! I wish we had broadcast in college forensics, I'd be all over that!
I've never had the opportunity to work on a broadcast script, but just knowing the differences between the points of print and broadcast should tell you what the differences between writing a script and writing a story would be. Because broadcast stories are typically less than two minutes long, it's imperative to cram only the most important information into a broadcast script, and the most catchy words. Like Jenny said, it's important to make sure your sentences are short and understandable, because they have to mimic what you'd hear in a normal conversation. Broadcast scripts, I'd also imagine, must contain a lot of "teasers," such as lines that make a viewer stick around through a commercial. They can be sentences like "You won't believe what this man said about X" or "In 60 seconds, we'll tell you how to get the most of your tax return."
Stories with a lot of audio and video presence are better suited for television or radio, especially if there's not much detail to a story. Likewise, if it's a complex subject or topic, sometimes TV or radio can oversimplify the message. For instance, a story about the president's budget is probably best read in print, where the reader can go back and re-read what he or she doesn't understand, versus on television, where if you miss something, you might not understand the rest of the story.
Broadcast and radio do offer great opportunities for convergence, however, espcially with the Internet. The Web is the great equalizer, allowing TV stations and radio stations to add in-depth print stories, and newspapers to add short video and audio clips to augment their coverage. However, just because the Internet is the new medium of dissemination, media companies aren't off the hook for learning the styles of broadcast, print or radio. Those principles still apply, it's just the vehicle of distribution that changes.
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