While delivering a training course at a TV station I noticed that all the packages were made in exactly the same way. The reporters would go out with a camera operator, shoot some footage and get an interview or two. They would come back to the office, decide what interview clips to use in their package and start typing.

The scripts they wrote would have worked fine for radio or newspapers – but they had no connection with the pictures. Apart from the interview clips, all the other pictures they used were just wallpaper behind the reporter’s voice.

This misses the point of television reporting; let the pictures tell the story, wherever possible. Here’s one way of making a TV package by thinking first about the pictures:

Pictures come first

When the pictures have been ingested into the system, make a shot list then show the editor the pictures.

Which are the most interesting shots? What is their optimum lifespan (in seconds)?

What is the right sequence to tell the story? (It is not necessarily the order in which they were recorded)

Do you have a good opening shot? Do you have a good shot for the end?

What is the best place for your stand-up (piece-to-camera) if there is one?

Agree with the editor how the package is to be put together and the key elements of the text

Agree the target length of the package.

Now do your rough cut. Each shot should be as long as it is visually interesting.

Do not use the same shot twice in the package, unless there is a compelling reason to do so (helping with the edit is not a compelling reason).

Does each shot join up smoothly with the next?

The points which attract the eye should ideally be in the same area of the screen at each shot change.

Avoid jump cuts.

If someone is walking, try to end with them walking out of the picture (especially if they are in the next shot in a different place).

With moving shots, only use the moving part, not the static beginning or end.

If you cut away from an interview or a press conference, don’t go back to it unless there is a good reason to do so (helping with the edit is not a good reason).

Don’t use the first question in an interview – start with the first answer.

Watch the finished edit carefully. Does it flow, is there anything that can be cut without damaging the overall package, is there anything missing, is it visually effective?

Now write a shot list with accurate timings.

Now write your script.

You might want to read our training module on ‘How to create a broadcast news package”.

The post Letting the pictures tell the story first appeared on Media Helping Media.

A journalist needs to be well-prepared when planning an interview. However, after all your research, try to keep the interview to three questions, because if you haven’t worked out in three what you want to find out from the person you are talking to you, you probably never will.

And try to avoid looking at your notes, but, instead, pay attention to what the person you are interviewing is saying, otherwise you might miss the news story. Here are a few tips for planning and executing an interview.

20 interviewing tips for journalists

1: Never give an interviewee questions in advance. It’s fine to give a general idea about the interview themes, but being too specific may limit what you can ask in the interview. It also risks being overtaken by events and allows the interviewee to rehearse answers.

2: Be on time. There’s nothing worse than keeping someone waiting.

3: Always check that your equipment is working and fully charged before you leave the office.

4: Treat the interviewee with respect whether they are a president or a man or woman in the street. A warm but not over-enthusiastic greeting is a good start.

5: Take control of the location. It’s your interview. You need to choose a place that isn’t too noisy and where there are not too many distractions.

6: You are not meant to be the centre of attention. The interview is not about you. You are there to get the perspective of the interviewee, not give your own.

7: Do the research you need to, but don’t try to cram it all into your questions. Put yourself in the shoes of a member of your audience before you start the interview. If they were here, what would they ask?

8: Ask the most important question first. The more pressed the interviewee is, the less time they will have, and the more likely that they will cut the interview short.

9: The interview is a conversation, it’s not a confrontation. You are not there to make the interviewee look stupid.

10: Try to avoid looking at notes. If you look at your notes, the interviewee may be distracted. And it’s difficult for you to read and listen at the same time.

11: Maintain eye contact at all times. Keep your body language in check. If you nod your head, your subject may take this to mean that you agree with them and assume that there is no need to explain further. You may miss the chance to discover more.  If you shake your head, or recoil with a shocked facial expression, you risk making your subject clam up. You will have shown them that you find their views offensive and so they are likely to stop short of saying even more in the same vein.

12: Try to ask a maximum of three or four questions. An interview is not a fishing expedition. If you can’t get to the essence of what you want the interviewee to say in three or four questions, change the questions.

13: There are six basic questions: what, why, when, how, where and who.

14: Shorter questions are better than longer ones. Never ask more than one question at a time. Combining questions makes it easy for the interviewee to avoid answering one altogether. Be as direct as you can without being rude.

15: Be sure of your facts. There’s nothing worse than being told you are wrong by an interviewee – especially when it’s live.

16: Listen to what the interviewee is saying. They might want to use your interview to announce something important that you were not expecting.

17: If the interviewee is not happy with the way they answered a particular question, don’t give in to appeals for them to do it again – unless there is a factual error in the answer or there is a risk of serious confusion.

18: At the end of the interview, no matter how difficult the interviewee has been, always say thank you

19: Always check the interview has been recorded before the interviewee leaves.

20: When you’re editing, don’t take answers out of context. That’s dishonest.

Related training modules

How to interview politicians

Why would anyone want to talk to a journalist?

Interviewing integrity – scenario

Interview tips for video journalists

The post Preparing for and carrying out an interview first appeared on Media Helping Media.

This training module was written for journalism students in Jaffna, Sri Lanka. They were studying broadcast journalism, and in particular creating radio news programmes. Many of those attending the course had previously had no journalism experience or training.

Writing a script for a radio news package

Radio journalists need to be able to pick the best, most newsworthy audio clips, and write clear and informative scripts that introduce the material they have collected.

The script is what makes sense of the sounds. It is the framework for your story. It brings together the most important elements, and helps your audience understand the significance of the points made by the people you have interviewed.

It’s not just about sounds; it’s about words, too. The script should be written in simple, short sentences. Try to use everyday language and terms your audience will understand. It should not contain any complicated concepts that could confuse and distract.

Use the script to introduce the audio

The script should offer the audience introductions to the audio you are including. It should tell the listener what’s coming up without repeating the words they are about to hear. Don’t summarise too much; you should not take away from the power of the clips in your piece.

Grab the attention of the audience

You are crafting a tease to material that is designed to make people stop and listen. The language should be in the active tense. The most important information must feature in the first few sentences. However, the quality should be consistent throughout, and the script must not tail off at the end.

Your opinions don’t matter

Your script should be factual, without comment or descriptive words. Don’t try to attract listeners by including your own emotions. That’s not your job. Those who listen to your radio package will make their own decisions about the power of the information you are broadcasting.

Deliver a complete and fair report

Your script should weave together all the elements you have gathered for your story without suggesting that any one is more important than the other; that’s for the audience to decide, not you. You have a responsibility to set out the information in a way that doesn’t lead or mislead.

Scripting before interviewing

Some journalists choose to draft a script before they have conducted the interview. That’s fine as long as the journalist retains an open mind and does not orchestrate or stage-manage the interviews to fit into the structure they have planned.

Scripting after interviewing

Some journalists prefer to listen to the material before they write their script. This approach can lead to a fresher sounding piece. However, it can also lead to confusion if you have too much material and no idea how it is going to be edited and put together.

Fact-checking

Check every fact that you are including in your script. Also check what has been said by those you have interviewed. Just because somebody seems to know what they are talking about doesn’t mean that they are telling you the truth. Decide whether your fact-checking has raised any issues that need to be covered in the script.

Editorial ethics

Check your script against the editorial ethics of objectivity, impartiality and fairness. Do not give undue weight to one point of view. Most of the people you interview will have strong points of view – you wouldn’t be interviewing them if that were not the case. However, your script needs to be fair to all.

The beginning

Start the script by addressing the main point made in your introduction. Later in the script you can add context and analysis to try to help the audience understand the issues raised by those you are interviewing. But start with a crisp and sharp introduction that highlights the main points.

The ending

Always end your script with a fact and not a vague line such as “we will have to wait to see”. Your audience wants information, not clichés. Consider asking your interviewees what’s likely to happen next and summarise their expectations in your last paragraph.

Does it make sense?

Read the script back to yourself. Have you left any gaps? Do you need to do any further research? Check it with a colleague. A second pair of eyes works for radio scripts as well as print – of course, a second pair of ears helps, too, so check your choice of audio as well – you might have missed a more important clip.

Radio script writing question

Which of these statements is true:

a) radio is all about sounds. Make sure you have the best clips and sound effects and don’t worry too much about the words. People don’t read your material they listen to it. The words are not that important. Of course they have to be accurate, but they are only there to support the audio

b) words are essential for a good radio piece. Work hard on ensuring that your script is tightly written and in a language that people understand. No matter how good the audio clips are, your radio piece will fail to inform if the script is poor.

Related training modules

10 tips for producing radio bulletins

20 tips for TV and radio packaging

The post How to write a radio news script first appeared on Media Helping Media.

This training module was written for journalism students in Jaffna, Sri Lanka. They were studying broadcast journalism, and in particular creating radio news bulletins. Many of those attending the course had previously had no journalism experience or training.

How to create a great radio bulletin

Putting together a radio news bulletin is like preparing a satisfying meal that leaves your audience nourished and prepared for the day; what you produce has to be balanced and digestible.

1: Think of who is listening and broadcast for them

You need to know who is tuning in for the information you are delivering and what they need to know. A local, region or national audience is not the same as an international audience. Each will have different needs, although all will require a mix of information. Your job is to focus on the news that is relevant to your regular listeners.

Your top stories are not necessarily the biggest international stories of the day, although they could be. Your job, and the task of the news team you work with, is to focus on covering the issues that have the most impact on the lives of your target audience. These top stories will define how close your news organisation is to that audience.

The audience will be listening for information that they can use. The stories you include in your bulletin must make up their staple diet of “must know” information. This story choice will reinforce your credibility as a relevant information provider in the minds of your audience. Ideally you should be stimulating a daily conversation about the issues that matter to your listeners.

Putting the most important stories first guarantees that listeners who tune in for the start of your bulletin catch the most relevant news, even if they cannot listen to your entire bulletin.

2: Variety is the spice of life

Offer an information mix. Life is multi-coloured and multi-faceted, and so is news.

If you are covering politics you must highlight how the issue affect the lives of your audience and not dwell on the politics alone. Always find someone affected by the issue and don’t just feature those in positions of power who are talking about the issue.

If you are covering a corruption story it’s important that you talk to either the victims or carry out a vox pop in the street to try to find out what the general feeling is about the issue. Ideally, you should always try to include the voice of those affected by whatever the story is highlighting.

Your audience will have a wide range of interests and concerns including health, education, jobs, homes, science and technology, culture, social developments, sports etc. Most of the time this means that you have to provide a mix of news, current affairs and other information items.

3: Would you want to listen to yourself?

A voice that pleases is important for ensuring that the audience returns. Record a few of your bulletins and listen to them. Would you like to listen to that voice every day? If not, do something about it.

Audio creates emotions. An attractive voice that catches the attention of the audience is important. The last thing you want is a grating voice that makes people switch off.

Avoid the sing-song voice that plays the same tune for every sentence, going up in tone at the beginning of the sentence and then dropping down at the end regardless of what is being said.

And never give the impression that you think you know more than the audience. There will be someone listening who knows far more than you. Never patronise.

4: Small may be beautiful

Longer is not necessarily better. A seven-minute news bulletin is not going to be an improvement on five minutes if the extra two minutes are merely filler material.

Try to imagine yourself in the place of the audience and think through what pressures they may be under. They will probably be doing other things as they listen. You are asking for their time and attention.

5: Slow down, it’s not a race

Don’t rush. Make sure that your audience can understand what you are saying. Reading too quickly could result in your audience not being able to absorb the information you are sharing. You could end up becoming background noise.

News readers often read fast when they are nervous or when they know that they are about to pronounce a name about which they are uncertain. If you know there is a foreign name coming up in the bulletin, highlight it and practice it until you are sure. Then approach it slowly, pause, and pronounce it clearly.

A handy tip is to make a mark in your script where you need to take a breath and pause. These can help you when you come to reading the information.

6: Don’t serve up stale news

Is your bulletin fresh, dynamic, and stimulating? Rewriting is essential. Many people will listen to several bulletins during the day.

It’s important they are not served stale news that hasn’t been reworked. If you don’t refresh, your audience might think you are either not doing your journalistic job properly or you are being lazy.

When you come out of the studio after reading the latest bulletin, rewrite all the top stories. Don’t just put the bulletin down and expect to pick it up again an hour later untouched and unchanged.

If you have a news bulletin at the top of the hour and headlines on the half-hour, the headlines can’t just be shorter versions of the main bulletin. You will have to rework them and create a new headline that conveys the main point of the story and encourages people to stay tuned for the next bulletin.

You can also use the half-hour bulletin to add stories that you could not include in the main bulletin. However, if you choose that kind of presentation format, make sure that you stick to this pattern so that your audience knows what to expect.

Some stories could run in different formats in different bulletins. For example you could do a straight read of the information in one bulletin followed by a voice report and or an audio clip in another. Having several ways of telling the same story adds variety to your bulletin and gives you options and flexibility when constructing it.

7: Radio is about sounds, not just your voice

Sound bites are important. A longer news bulletin becomes a lot more attractive for the audience if you include short sound bites. This can be a five- or 10-second audio clip inserted in a voice report or a stand-alone 20- or 25-second clip.

Such sound bites can make your bulletin easier to listen to, more authoritative (because you are including first-hand evidence) and, therefore, more credible. It’s also more interesting for the listener.

However, all sounds have to have an editorial reason for being there. You should not fill with sound clips that distract because they don’t relate to the thrust of the information you are delivering.

8: Tell a short story

Write news stories as if you were telling the story to a friend. This means: short, simple and straightforward sentences.

The audience cannot go back and check what you said 10 seconds ago. (Well, they can if they record it or are listening online, but the majority will be listening on the move and won’t be able to rewind the bulletin.)

You need to be clear, focused and memorable. Crafting complex information into simple sentences is a skill. Don’t obscure the essential facts with verbiage.

9: Small and effective packaging

The bulletin should be a compilation of short but powerful stories. This format makes it easy for people to grasp the information.

Writing for radio is one of the most challenging journalistic disciplines. The simple editorial rule about creating short, clear sentences with a subject, verb, and an object is essential.

Don’t try to be clever with words. Use words that make the most sense and can be understood by all.

Read through your bulletin several times. Shorten the sentences and replace complex concepts with simple terms that avoid any ambiguity or any possible misunderstanding.

10: Some final points

If you are putting together a longer bulletin (e.g. seven minutes or more), you may want to end the bulletin with a brief recap of the main stories. This can help audiences recall the top stories and/or other relevant information.

If you don’t believe what you have written and what you are saying your audience won’t either; and what is more, they will not respect you for broadcasting information that anyone with average intelligence would not swallow.

Make sure you are honest in how you describe situations and events, don’t over sensationalise. Your audience will know when you are going over the top and your credibility and integrity will be damaged if you do.

Related training modules

How to write a radio news script

20 tips for TV and radio packaging

The post How to produce a radio news bulletin first appeared on Media Helping Media.