How can you make a news story about a speech more interesting and informative?

Let’s be serious; how often are political speeches just incredibly boring?  There so much fluff put in to make acceptable that often the key facts that you want to hear just get lost in the shuffle.  Reporters who cover these speeches face the task of reporting the speech to the public which isn’t always easy. 

There are a few ways that you can jazz things up a little and make these reports more appealing to your audience.

One technique is to draw the audience in with a catchy hook.  Take a highlight of the speech and format it in a way that gets the audience’s attention.  Listeners or viewers will see this and want to read more into what the speaker has to say.

Another way is by using language that is easier to understand.  Often is the case in major speeches that language used is more sophisticated and difficult for average people to understand.  Once you have the audience’s attention with your hook, you explain the details in ways that are more comprehendible.  By being able to translate what the speaker is saying into a format that is more audience friendly can make your story sound much more appealing.

Also, by including the key quotes and keeping everything in a conversational format, you will be able to maintain your audience throughout the story.

What do you think is the hardest beat to cover and why? What do you think is the most interesting beat to cover and why?

The job of a beat reporter is a tedious one.  It is your responsibility to cover a specific section or type of news on a daily basis.  It is common for many major organizations to have beat reporters.  They follow different topics like sports, politics, fashion, business entertainment and crime.

For me personally, the most difficult one to cover is politics.  I find politics to be on the boring side and not really not one of my strengths.  So much goes on politically on a daily basis so it would be difficult to keep up with the flow of different politicians, bills and scandals.    It is also difficult to remain biased reporting about different political views because your job is to be able to see both sides and it wouldn’t always be easy to not let your opinions leak in.

Another reason being a political beat reporter would be difficult is because things are always changing with bills happening then falling through, people being in and out of office.  It would just be difficult to stay on top of it all.

I think the most interesting avenue to go down would be to be a beat reporter for a sports team.  Now I must admit that I am a little biased because I am an athlete myself.  I still think it would just be incredibly interesting to be able to follow a team at home and on the road and be with them every day.  It would almost seem as if you were a member of the team who just received zero playing time.

You are able to build relationships with the team and its management and experience many of luxuries that they experience.  While it would definitely be tedious, you are right there for any breaking news and can provide information before anyone else can.  What a thrill.

Is it harder to report and write an obituary or a personality profile?

The great thing about news stories are that there are so many different avenues you can go down that you can report on.  Two examples are obituaries and personality profiles.

Obituaries are stories about people who have passed away.  They provide information about the person’s life and information about his or her funeral.

Personality profiles on the other hand provide the audience with stories about prominent figures or about people with extraordinary stories.

While both types of stories are similar in that they share stories about people’s lives, they have their differences.  That is why I think it is more difficult to write obituaries.

Obituaries are shorter pieces and there is usually a short space provided to fit them.  That is part of what makes writing them so difficult.  It is hard to take the story of someone’s entire life and fit it into such a small space.  You need to be able to properly balance the relevant information along with the sensitive issues.  Usually, people’s lives are so long so it’s tough to research an entire life and provide a proper account.  

You also do not have the luxury of calling the person to tie up any loose ends.  There are family members that you can talk to but they can’t always answer everything.

What are two descriptive techniques you use when telling a story and why would viewers/listeners like your use of these techniques?

When you are reporting a news story, you want to be as clear and descriptive as possible.  This is important because not only to you want to present the most important information; you want to do it in a way that makes sense to your listeners.

One good way of doing this is using proper comparisons to relate the information to.  An example would be comparing a heated argument between two high profile politicians to a heavy-weight bout between Ali and Frazier.  This puts an image in the listener’s head that helps portray the magnitude of the concept.  It is an easy way to get through to your audience.

Another good technique is one that helps turn a more boring story more exciting.  By cleverly inserting certain adjectives into different parts of the story, it makes it much more exciting to read.

You can use words like melee to describe a fight or monsoon to describe a heavy rain storm. What this does is gives the story a little more life and makes it more appealing to listeners.

Which do you most like reporting and writing news for- television or radio, and why?

Each of these practices includes a meticulous process of formatting that quite frankly, is a pain in the neck.  That being said though, they are both quick and to the point styles of writing.  If I had to choose one of them I think I would choose writing for radio.

I am probably one of few people who listen to radio these days.  I enjoy listening to it because it is around the clock and gets me the information I need to know without having to beat around the bush.  It’s because of listeners like me that I enjoy writing for radio better.  The only thing you have to worry about is fitting the time slot and working in sound bites.  Because everything on the radio is so segmented it makes it easy to just make a key point and move on.

On television, you have to worry about formatting for visuals and working in voiceovers.  In radio, there is no need for that.  You know that your audience is listening to your voice and relying on you for the information rather than the visuals on the television screen that can be so distracting.

Due to its upbeat pace and simplicity to detail, I think I’d take writing for radio any day of the week.

How does writing in inverted pyramid style differ between print and broadcast?

It can be agreed upon that when we read, watch or listen to the news, we want to know what is going on now; we are not concerned with information that happened previously only what is going on at that particular moment in time.  This being said, journalists like to use what is known as an inverted pyramid style of writing to get their stories across to the public.

The inverted pyramid is a format used to get the most important, and current information across right away at the beginning of the story as a way to get the audience interested.  The most important information is then followed by lesser details that may include background on what is being reported.

The style is used in both print and broadcast formats.  The biggest difference however is that print stories often include extra information that would be pointless to include in a broadcast story.  Radio broadcast stories are usually around 30 seconds while television broadcast stories range from 30 seconds to a minute long.  Print journalists have the luxury of not being under time restraints therefore they are able to go into more detail as the story progresses.

Unless there is follow-up information that pertains to the most recent developments, broadcast stories stick to the most recent information.  Regardless, that information will always come at the top of the report.  To avoid surpassing the time restraints of a broadcast, anchors will often direct viewers to the stations website for additional information.  All the viewer cares about when viewing the actual news is what is most important so that after they hear what they need to hear they can move on.

Why is writing in short simple sentences so important in TV and radio news?

You know what would be funny?  If you turn on Brian Williams tonight on NBC and his broadcast consisted of him reading straight from the New York Times.  No script, just the newspaper.  How ridiculous would that sound?

This leads me to this week’s question of why is it so important to use short and simple sentences when writing for television and radio news?

The answer is pretty simple if you think about it.  When we write for television and radio, we are writing something that is going to read out loud in front of millions of viewers.  If it is to elaborate and complicated then it becomes very difficult to read out loud.  What you always want to try and avoid is mess ups on a live broadcast.  Not only does it look bad but it makes your story more difficult to follow for the viewer.

We have discussed in the past how it is important for stories to be to the point and not beat around the bush.  The audience doesn’t need to be blown away with your vocabulary.  They just want to know the news and move on with their lives.  The simpler the words and sentences, the better off you’ll be. 

A good way to think about it is to write as f you were having a conversation with the audience.  When you talk to someone you don’t think about being cute with your language you just focus on saying what you want to say to get your point across.  I don’t know about you but it annoys me if someone is trying to tell me that it is sunny outside but instead gets into a whole thing about how the weather patterns have been shifting and high pressure has set in which thus has produced the sunny weather.  I would probably walk away. 

Bottom line is be simple, be to the point and don’t try to be cute.  Most importantly, stay classy.