Remember that it’s up to you to decide which details are imperative to telling the story well. You likely don’t need every little thing. Include what’s important and omit those tiny details that newspaper writers pride themselves on. Your job as a broadcast writer is to tell the story well and to remember that your listener is trying to absorb what you’re saying for the first – and perhaps only –time. In a paper, they can reread as often as they like. With you, they get one shot. Don’t make them do math in their heads – do it for them. Don’t give them facts before you tell them what the story is about. (That’s my personal pet peeve!) And make sure you understand a story fully before you put it out there and expect your listeners to understand it.
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September 2011
Writing news isn’t easy. If you ever find yourself stuck for a way to write a story, or find the story you’ve written seems complicated and not radio-friendly, maybe what works for me will work for you.
With a long and detailed newspaper story, or perhaps a stiffly written wire story as a source, sometimes it’s a challenge to get to the core of it. If I feel like I’m not finding the essence of a story, I literally talk myself through it. I absorb the details and then “tell it” as if I’m explaining it to my Mom or a friend. More often than not, the first sentence becomes my opening line in the written story.
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