Writing Techniques for Television and Radio News

The news written for television and radio is referred to as broadcast news. The reason is that the news gets broadcast. Unlike print media where consumers have a chance to read and digest news at their own pace, television and radio news get broadcast with industry standards. That is why writing a television or radio news story is different from print news writing.

The students that learn journalism from a renowned mass communication college in Ahmedabad learn effective news writing techniques from experts. In this blog post, we will share some of the top tips for writing an effective television or radio news story.

Write For The Ear

The first thing that mass communication college in Ahmedabad focuses on while teaching broadcast news writing is to understand the true meaning of writing for ears.
The television and radio news story broadcast will not give chance to read a sentence again or find the meaning of some words that are difficult to understand.
Even in the television news broadcast videos are available, but still, it is more focused on what consumers hear.
This is the reason broadcast news writing focuses on “write for the ear”. News that is easy to understand by hearing it.

How to Write Effective Television and Radio News Stories?

The mass communication college in Ahmedabad shares the top tips to write an effective television and radio news story to the students that learn mass communication and journalism. The highlights of those tips are as follows:

Precise writing is a must

The broadcast news gets broadcast in predefine timeslot, which can be of a few seconds or a few minutes.
The news needs to be precise, so it can be covered within the predefined timeframe.

Shorter sentences

As the news is read by the reporter, if your television or radio news story has longer sentences, it will become difficult to decode for the viewers and listeners.
As per the best mass communication college in Ahmedabad, the broadcast news sentences must have 20 words or less.

Active voice is required

Any sentence can be written in the active or passive voice as per grammatical rules.
In writing a radio news story using an active voice is necessary.

Use conversational sentences

The best mass communication college in Ahmedabad coaches students to write conversational sentences in the news. The colleges also recommend avoiding writing a radio news story as an essay.
Conversational writing can make the news more engaging.

Strong beginning of the news is a must

Selection of the right words from the beginning is necessary to make a television and radio news story effective.
At the beginning of the news, important information needs to be conveyed. Even if, television news is creating suspense, the engaging and crucial facts have to broadcast in the opening part of the news is necessary.

Use simple words and sentence structure with the right grammar

The mass communication college in Ahmedabad recommends avoiding using jargon or complex vocabulary in television or radio news story.
The sentence structure should use subject, verb, object format.
Grammatical mistakes have to be avoided at any cost.

National Institute of Mass Communication & Journalism, Ahmedabad

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