RADIO JOCKEYING AND NEWS READING

Unit-2
Writing Skills for Radio

1. Writing for Radio

2. News Bulletin: Types and Elements
3. News writing: Opening, Headlines, Body and Closing/Conclusion
4. Writing and Packaging for Radio Infotainment Programs

1.Writing for Radio

Radio is a fast, easy media that targets everyone, from highly educated people to less
knowledgeable ones. The writing must therefore be short, simple, in present tense... easy to
listen to and to memorize. The first rule is to properly understand what you're writing about.
If you fail to do so, you will write badly. Understanding is the key to explaining, and the
basis to the informal contract between a journalist and his audience.

In this chapter, we will discuss about writing for radio. It may be that you are broadcasting to
millions of people, but you must write your story as if you are telling it to just one person.
You should write as if someone you know personally is listening. Picture a favourite uncle or
aunt, cousin or brother and imagine that you are speaking to him or her. Your style must,
therefore, be conversational and as far as possible simple. Remember also that, unlike a
newspaper story, your listeners or viewers cannot go back on the bulletin to hear again
something they have missed. Nor can their eyes jump around within a story or a page
searching for the information they want. In broadcasting the words and sentences are heard
once only, one after the other, and all the information must be presented in such a way that it
is understandable straight away. This is often called a linear flow of information because it
goes in a line in one direction.
 You must help your listeners by presenting information concisely and logically.
 You must always remember that by switching on a radio set, the listeners are inviting
you into their homes, their workplaces and their cars.
 Write and speak as if you were talking to them as individuals, face-to-face.

K-I-S-S Rule-Keep it short and simple.

 You should not try to get too much information into any sentence. Although you use
the inverted pyramid style of story writing, you may only be able to use one or two
concepts (ideas) per sentence. You cannot get as much detail into a radio or television
story as you can into a newspaper story.
 You cannot expect your listener to understand the Who? What? Where? When?
Why? and How? of a story all in the first paragraph or even the first two paragraphs.
  Although as a good journalist you should not leave any essential questions
unanswered, you may find that it takes all the time available for a single story to
communicate only a few basic facts. It is often said that you could put all the words in
a ten minute radio bulletin on one page of a newspaper.
 Stick to one or two key points per sentence.

Use up-to-date tenses

 The single greatest advantage of broadcasting is immediacy. You can inform your
listener as an event is happening, or immediately afterwards, without waiting for
typesetters or printing presses. Do not waste that advantage.
 Keep all tenses as up-to-date as possible. Use the present tense or the tense nearest to
the present and, whenever possible, use a continuous tense to tell your listener that a
thing is still happening, as they listen.

Do not use quotes

 Do not use quotes in radio or television stories. If you want your listeners to hear the
words as they were spoken, record them on tape and use them as actuality (the actual
sound of something or someone, sometimes also called audio). This ability to hear
people speak is one of the great benefits of broadcasting.
 Also, quotes in broadcasting cannot work as they do in print, where the readers can
see the quotation marks. It is just as effective to turn quotes into reported speech

Put attribution first

 Attribution in radio and television goes at the front of a sentence, as it would if you
were talking to that favourite aunt.
 This is unlike traditional newspaper style, which commonly puts attribution such
as he said at the end of the sentence, after the quote.
 In newspapers, readers can see both the quote and the attribution together. In radio
and television, your listeners need to know who was speaking before they can judge
what was said. Remember the linear structure of broadcast news.

Avoid unfamiliar words

 If a newspaper reader does not understand a word, he or she can return to it and
maybe look it up in a dictionary before proceeding to the rest of the story. Your
listeners cannot do this.
 By the time they have worked out the meaning of an unfamiliar word, the story will
be over and they will have missed all the other details.
 If you have to use an unfamiliar word or name, you must not hit your listeners with it
without warning. You should never put it as the first word in your paragraph, but
work your way towards it over familiar ground.
Repeat important words

 Because radio and television listeners do not pay attention all the time, and because
people often switch on their sets half-way through a bulletin, it is important that you
repeat the essential features several times in the story.
 They might be half-listening to the radio or TV until something - perhaps a word
relevant to them or their interest - triggers their attention. They then 'tune in' with their
mind but, because of the linear nature of broadcast news, they cannot go back and
retrieve any words they have missed. So repeat important words at least once in the
story.
 Of course, too much repetition can be boring, so do not overdo it.

Keep punctuation simple

 Keep punctuation as simple as possible. In broadcast news, punctuation marks are not
only there for grammatical reasons. They also give the newsreader clues on breathing.
 In general, the only punctuation marks you need are the full stop, comma, question
mark and dash. Some writers like to use a series of dots to denote a pause, as in the
following example:
 The Prime Minister... speaking at a business lunch... said the economy is looking
brighter.
 Where two words go together to form a single concept, hyphenate them whether or
not it is grammatically correct to do so. For example, write mini-market, winding-
rope, pocket-book.

Simplify numbers

 Numbers should be included to inform, not to confuse - either the newsreader or the
listener. Wherever there is the possibility of confusing the newsreader, write the
number in full.
 Better still, round off large figures, so that the example above becomes "almost three
million". This simplifies matters for both the newsreader and the listeners.
 The same rule applies to fractions. Write them in full, for example one-half, three-
quartersetc.
 With money, spell out the units, so that $1.50 becomes "one-dollar-fifty".

Avoid abbreviations

 As a general rule, avoid abbreviations. You can, of course, use "Mr", or "Mrs" in your
script, but do not abbreviate other titles.
 Where the initials of an organisation are read as a word, write them as such, for
example Nato, Asean, Apec.
 But if they must be read individually, separate each letter with a dot, as in U.N.,
P.N.G. or Y.M.C.A.. Some broadcasters prefer to hyphenate the letters, to make it
even clearer that they must be read out separately, for example P-N-G.
 The first reference must be written in full unless the initials are widely understood on
their own - as are the three examples above.
  Do not use the abbreviations a.m. or p.m. There is always a better way which tells
your listeners much more. Phrases like "this morning" or "tomorrow afternoon" mean
much more to most listeners.

Give a guide to pronunciation

 Pronunciation is a very large field. Most newsrooms should have a pronunciation

guide for place names and other difficult foreign words.
 Good dictionaries should give you correct pronunciations, but if you are in doubt,
check with a senior journalist or someone who is likely to know the correct
pronunciation. For example, if it is the name of a species of fish, check with a
fisheries officer.
 When writing an unfamiliar word for the newsreader, make their task as simple as
possible by writing it phonetically. For example, the state of Arkansas should be
written as ARK-en-sor; the French word gendarme becomes JON-darm, placing the
stress on the syllable in capital letters.
 2. News Bulletin: Types and Elements

A bulletin-

Also known as an announcement- is a collection or summary of current news broadcasted

over the radio or TV. It consists of reports that discuss matters of public interest that are then
issued to be aired straightaway- usually live.

A bulletin is a brief radio news broadcast, giving the bare facts of news stories before more
depth is added in a full programme. A bulletin (also called a summary) is usually broadcast
on the hour or half hour.

Journalistic writing skills - the art of being clear, concise and factual - are much the same
whether for print, online or broadcast. However, composing a radio bulletin also involves
editing skills - selecting and prioritising stories.

If you are writing a bulletin you must source, select, check, write and rank stories. A three-
minute summary normally has about eight stories, two or three with a piece of audio (e.g.
illustrated with an audio clip of someone speaking).

The anchor and the whole team are liable for the bulletin. It is made out of headlines, anchor
intros, reports and copies. It's a melody. It last between 10 and 15 minutes, or more,
depending on the radio station. Usually, there are a few bulletins in the morning, a long one at
noon and a long one in the evening. As with everything in radio, it must be prepared, written,
and is read out loud as many times as necessary before the anchor reads it on air.

Types of News Bulletin

Main Bulletins
AIR broadcasts hourly news bulletins. There are however, three main bulletins in English and
Hindi, broadcast in the morning, afternoon and evening. The morning bulletin in English
iscalled the Morning News and Samachar Prabhat in Hindi.
It is divided into three segments;
 the main news,
 a topical commentary
 a look at the newspapers' and
 finally the main points.
The segment, 'A look at the newspapers' has been designed to provide the listener with an
overview of the lead and other front page stories, editorials and sports stories in the National
Dailies. The compiling editor is assisted by two editors, one looks after the segment on
Commentary and the other 'A look at the newspapers'.
Generally, the break-up of 15 minutes programmes is like this:
  Main News- 8 minutes
 Commentary- 2.5 minutes
 A Look at the Newspapers- 2.5 minutes
 Headline and Signature tune- 2 minutes
The day and evening bulletins cover all the major developments of the shift. The five minute
duration 1800 hours bulletin in English and the 1805 hours bulletin in Hindi, give a resume of
important happenings during the day. They are treated as a preview of the 15-minutes Hindi
and English bulletins at 2045 and 2 100 hours. These bulletins give the listener a roundup of
the major events of the day. There are also hourly bulletins of five minutes each giving the
listeners the latest' news.

Language Bulletins
Language bulletins broadcast from Delhi and Regional stations are widely listened. You
would be surprised to know that the listener-ship of these bulletins is much more than the
combined listener-ship of all the English bulletins! The language bulletins broadcast from
Delhi have a national character to give the listener a feel of the important national and
international events in his/her language. The bulletins, however, do include important
regional items.

External Bulletins
The News Services Division of All India Radio, broadcasts three types of External bulletins.
English bulletins targeted at foreigners and Indians living abroad, foreign language bulletins
like Chinese, Burmese, Russian and French for foreigners and Hindi and other language
bulletins for Indians living abroad. Indian languages such as; Bengali, Tamil,Telugu, Punjabi,
Sindhi and Urdu are spoken in our neighbourhood and bulletins in these languages have a
wide listenership.
A common misconception among people is that external bulletins should carry more foreign
news. In these days of satellite television the notion that we will be the first to break a news,
say about African region to the people of that area will be entirely misplaced as other local
sources are better equipped to tell them about the happenings in their regions.

Special bulletins

We have been speaking so far mainly about regular news bulletins. There are, however,
special bulletins which need considering.

News flashes

A news flash is when the newsreader breaks into a program on-air to read an important,
urgent news story, such as a major disaster or the death of a national leader. The news flash
should only be used on extremely important stories.
Urgent news which arrives in the studio as the bulletin is going to air should be read at the
next most suitable break in the bulletin, although it usually makes sense to use it at the end of
the bulletin, just before any closing headlines.

The newsreader should have the story as soon as possible, so that they can decide where in
the bulletin to use it. If you intended ending the bulletin with a light story and the flash comes
through of a major air crash, you must drop the light story.

It is possible to interrupt a non-news program for a news flash, although you must warn
people in the studio that you are coming with the flash. The best method of introducing a
flash is for the program presenter to introduce the newsreader with words like: "Now we
interrupt the program to cross over to the news desk for some urgent news."

The newsreader should then read the story in their usual tone, speaking clearly and repeating
details. If you only have one sentence, you can read it twice to get the message across clearly.
You should end with words like: "Those are all the details available at the moment. We will
give full details in our next bulletin, at six o'clock."

Weekend bulletins

You may need to treat weekend news bulletins in a slightly different way from weekday
bulletins, because there are usually fewer stories available.

You will need to re-assess newsworthiness at weekends, perhaps running stories which you
would not use at other times. Your listeners will understand this. In fact, they may even
welcome a change from a diet of death, disaster and politics.

You may want to make your weekend bulletins shorter and perhaps include a segment on
sports news. You may want to save lighter stories during the week to run at the weekend, as
long as you still cover the major events as well.

Bulletins of a day

Morning Bulletins: Early morning news bulletins present the previous evening’s important
headlines, overnight developments and early morning updates. The objective here is to cover
yesterday’s news briefly.

People who prefer to get updates on their way to office so people tune in to radio news. The
objective here is to provide
 3. Elements of a News Bulletin
Elements of a news bulletin are:

1. Balance

Try to avoid seeing the bulletin simply as a collection of individual, self-contained stories. If
you put a string of economic stories (however important) at the start of the bulletin, you risk
losing your listeners' interest.

They expect a balance of items, some heavy and some light, some about major political
events and some about ordinary people. Of course, the actual mix of stories, their tone and
pace of delivery will depend to a degree on the format of your station; serious national
broadcasters tend to use more serious stories, delivered in a more deliberate style whereas
youth-oriented music station bulletins might be lighter and brighter with more stories about
popular culture.

Whatever your station format, your ranking of stories in order in the bulletin will give your
listeners some indication of how important you consider each story. But there is some
freedom within bulletins to re-order stories to add variety and balance to the bulletin as a
whole.

2. Pace

You must also get the right pace of stories through your bulletin. By pace we mean the length
and tone of a story as it appears to the listeners.

Some stories have a fast pace. The report of a fire, for example, will usually be written in
short sentences, using short snappy words to convey simple ideas. It will have a fast pace.

By comparison, a story explaining some involved political controversy may need slightly
longer sentences with words expressing more complicated ideas. The story itself may need to
be slightly longer. The whole effect is one of a slower pace.

Too many long complicated stories will slow the pace of the whole bulletin and allow the
attention of your listeners to wander. Too many short, sharp stories may leave listeners
confused, unable to keep up with the pace of changing stories.

Your ideal bulletin will have a steady pace throughout to maintain interest, with variations in
pace during certain sections; slower at times to let your listeners catch their breath or faster at
other times to pick up their lagging interest. How do you achieve balance and pace in
practice? You should rank your stories in order of importance then look at the order afresh, to
see that you have a good balance of items and variations in pace.

You may decide that your most important three stories are all rather serious political stories
about taxation, health insurance and an internal party squabble. Ask yourself: "What will my
listeners think of three minutes of this at the start of the bulletin?" If you think they will be
bored, what about putting the report of a street fight up to the third place in the bulletin, to
inject some pace into that section? This may force your party argument story into fourth
place, but you will now be giving it new life by changing pace after the street fight story.

3. Actuality

Short grabs of actuality are a useful part of news bulletins, for a number of reasons:

They can often tell the story more effectively than a script. If your story is about a violent
protest outside an embassy, a 10-second grab of demonstrators chanting and shouting will
convey the atmosphere better than any words.

They can add variety to the pace of the bulletin, breaking up a long section of reading by one
voice. On the practical side, they allow the newsreader to take a 30 or 40 second rest. They
are often a chance to let people within your community speak on the radio. People like to
hear their own voice on radio occasionally, or the voices of people they know.

Using a grab of someone speaking can convince listeners that the person really did say a
certain thing. They might not believe your report that the Government is resigning. When
they hear the Prime Minister announcing it, they have to believe. Actuality grabs should be
kept short (between 20 and 40 seconds), clear and well-edited. A minute-long grab of a dull
voice will slow the pace of your bulletin and may force listeners to switch off.

Grabs must be introduced, stating clearly who will be speaking. You only need to identify a
person after paying the actuality (called back-announcing) if the grab is long and the voice is
not familiar. Grabs in languages other than your own should be overdubbed with a
translation. This means that you fade down (reduce) the sound of the original speaker until it
can only just be heard, then play the voice of the translator over it.

You can occasionally use grabs in languages other than your own without overdubbing, but
only if you know that your listeners will be able to understand them. A short grab in simple
language may be usable without an overdub, especially when it is used to show the emotion
behind a speech, rather than the content.

It is occasionally possible to open the bulletin with dramatic piece of actuality, then explain it
with a back-announcement. Such a grab must be dramatic, short and make sense to your
listeners. For example, a radio journalist used a 10-second grab of guns firing and people
screaming during the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, then back-announced:
"The guns which destroyed the hopes of peace in the Middle East as President Anwar Sadat
of Egypt was assassinated."
Only use such opening grabs on special occasions, otherwise they lose their effect. Also, it is
not good to play the grab before the opening theme, as it will confuse your listeners.

10 tips for producing radio bulletins

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: Remember 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 organization 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.

You need to know who your listeners are and cover the issues that concern them

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.

Your bulletin should be wide-ranging in its subject matter

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.

The last thing you want is a grating voice that makes people switch off.

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.

It's better to have a short bulletin that people can remember than a long bulletin that
leaves the audience confused.

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.

Don't rush. Make sure your audience can understand what you are saying

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.

Refresh, rewrite and update your bulletin throughout the date.

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.

Every element of your bulletin has to have an editorial justification

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.

Write news stories as if you were telling the story to a friend

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.

Keep it simple, clear and easy to follow

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
sensationalize. Your audience will know when you are going over the top and your credibility
and integrity will be damaged if you do.
 If you don't believe what you have written your audience won't either

4.News writing: Opening, Headlines, Body and Closing/Conclusion

Now you understand the basic principles behind building a news bulletin, you can start
thinking about how the stories and components such as headlines and actuality can fit.
Bulletins are the broadcasting equivalent of a page on a newspaper, except that in radio and
television you are more limited in where you place the different parts because, as we know,
news bulletins are linear, therefore all the elements must be placed along the line of time so
they are used most effectively.

Starting the bulletin

The start is the most important part of any radio bulletin. It determines whether or not your
listeners will stay tuned. Just as the intro is the most important part of a news story, the lead
item is the most important one in the bulletin. If your listeners find this boring, they will
assume that there is nothing better to come and go out to dig the garden.

If you are faced with a choice between two stories of equal strength for your bulletin lead,
choose the story which is more dramatic. If your obvious lead story is rather dull, you should
write it in such a way as to add life. Keep the sentences short, the ideas clear and simple.
Although you should try to write every story well, you should give special attention to your
lead story. This is the one by which listeners will judge the bulletin.

Opening

Opening of a radio news bulletin is when the presenter introduces himself and the radio
channel in the beginning of the programme. Every radio channel has their own identity and a
different way of opening a programme. For example: the All India Radio has its own way of
opening a programme and if we talk about BBC radio they have their own way.

Headlines

There is no need for headlines in a newsflash because it's a series of short news lasting
between 2 and 3 minutes. However, headlines are needed for a 10 to 15 minutes bulletin.
They announce the major news so as to catch the listener's ear and make him want to keep
listening. “Hey, wonder what's new today?”

The headlines are the major news that will be discussed in the bulletin. The anchor chooses to
put the spotlight on them by putting them at the beginning of the newscast.

Once you have decided on the order of stories, you should write some headlines for the
bulletin. It is usual to start a long bulletin by headlining the major stories. This may not be
necessary for a short, three-minute bulletin, but for longer bulletins your listeners will want to
know what kind of stories they can expect.

Your listeners will use the headlines to judge whether or not the bulletin is worth listening to,
so write your headlines to promote the stories in the most powerful way possible.

It is good practice to headline the first two or three most important stories, and also one or
two dramatic stories which come later in the bulletin. Many stations also like to headline the
final story, on the assumption that, if they make the headline attractive enough, listeners will
stay tuned to the entire bulletin until they hear that story.

You should write headlines for dramatic stories in such a way that you hint at the drama
without giving away all the details. Remember that if you tell everything in the headlines,
listeners have no need to hear the rest of the bulletin.

In English bulletins, headlines do not have to be grammatically complete. They can be more
like newspaper headlines, stripped down to the main words. The following are examples of
possible headlines:

"More trouble for the Asean alliance."

"Twelve die in a mine blast."
"Why Russia is angry with Israel."

When writing headlines about announcements or humorous stories, it is best to be

mysterious, to keep the real information secret until the listeners hear the story itself. Such
headlines are sometimes called teasers, because the tease the listeners' interest.

For example, if you have a story about rising petrol prices, you might write the headline
"Motorists face another shock at the petrol pumps". Never write the headline "Petrol is to rise
by 10 cents a litre" - that gives the whole story away, and your listener can now tune to
another station's bulletin or go and dig the garden again.

 Radio News Writing Structure

 Be brief : A good newspaper story ranges from hundreds to thousands of words. The
same story on television or radio may have to fit into 30 seconds—perhaps no more than
100 words. If it is an important story, it may be 90 seconds or two minutes. You have to
condense a lot of information into the most important points for broadcast writing.
 Use correct grammar : A broadcast news script with grammatical errors will embarrass
the person reading it aloud if the person stumbles over mistakes.
 Put the important information first : Writing a broadcast news story is similar to
writing a news story for print in that you have to include the important information first.
The only difference is that you have to condense the information presented.
 Write good leads : Begin the story with clear, precise information. Because broadcast
stories have to fit into 30, 60, or 90 seconds, broadcast stories are sometimes little more
than the equivalent of newspaper headlines and the lead paragraph.
 Stick to short sentences : The announcer has to breathe. Long sentences make it difficult
for the person voicing the script to take a breath.
 Write the way people talk :  Sentence fragments—as long as they make sense—are
acceptable.
 Use contractions:  Use don’t instead of do not. But be careful of contractions ending in -
ve (e.g., would’ve, could’ve), because they sound like “would of” and “could of.”
 Use the active voice and active verbs : It is better to say “He hit the ball” than “The ball
was hit by him.”
 Use present-tense verbs, except when past-tense verbs are necessary: Present tense
expresses the sense of immediacy. Use past tense when something happened long ago.
For example, do not say, “There were forty people taken to the hospital following a train
derailment that occurred early this morning.” Instead, say, “Forty people are in the
hospital as a result of an early morning train accident.”
 For radio news stories, write with visual imagery: Make your listeners “see” what you
are saying. Help them visualize the situation you are describing.

WHAT ARE HEADLINES USED FOR?

If your bulletin were a shop in which you were the seller, the headlines would be the window.
The headlines are what the listener will hear first and they’ll be a deal breaker in convincing
him to keep listening. They can be compared to the first sentence of an anchor intro or a
copy. They give the most important news and catch the listener’s ear.

WHICH NEWS SHOULD YOU CHOOSE FOR THE HEADLINES?

The three or four major news items in the bulletin: the lead item and the two or three capital
pieces of news of the day. You may also want to put the spotlight on some news that are not
the freshest, if they are intriguing: the closing story (tail-ender), if it’s humorous, for
example.

HOW TO WRITE THE HEADLINES?

Headlines should consist in one or two sentences at most – it’s a matter of rhythm. The first
sentence will peak the listener’s interest by giving the actual news. The second one sells the
angle.

HOW MANY HEADLINES ARE NEEDED?

You need at least three headlines, else the bulletin will seem to be “poor”. At most you can
have five headlines, because you need to choose which news to highlight. Please refrain from
simply listing every single news item.

DURATION

The headlines last a variable amount of time depending on the bulletin. For a classic bulletin,
lasting between ten and fifteen minutes, the headlines should last around 40 seconds.

WHEN TO WRITE THE HEADLINES?

Most of the time the anchor writes his headlines last. In a newscast, you need to be ready to
add some last minute news. If it’s major news, you will have to put it in the headlines. Better
then to redact the headlines half an hour before going on air.

HOW TO MAKE THE HEADLINES PEAK THE LISTENER’S INTEREST?

You need to choose AND write them well. Packaging also plays a great part. You will have
to put a jingle before the headlines and a stab after them. The headlines can be underlined by
a shunted musical loop that will give rhythm and intensity. Make sure the anchor’s voice can
still be perfectly heard and understood.

Body

When you start writing the body of news for radio the first thing you decide is your lead story
and after that you decide your closing stories.

The Lead Story

Examining the news with regards to these criteria must lead you to make a choice: the news
you’ll start your bulletin with, the lead story. Once you’ve chosen it, you will have to
structure the rest of the bulletin in different chapters. Let’s imagine for example that your
bulletin starts with politics. You must therefore follow up with the rest of the news in politics.
If you think that economics must come afterwards, put all of the news item regarding
economics. Repeat this manoeuvre until you’ve fully structured the bulletin.

Closing stories

Sometimes called tail-enders, closing stories are almost as important as lead stories. They are
the last stories your listeners will hear and remember from the bulletin. You need to choose
them carefully. However, because many listeners do not maintain their attention throughout
the whole bulletin, you should not keep your best stories to the end.

Light or funny stories make the best tail-enders. They add relief and a change of pace to
heavy bulletins. They should be written in a more informal way than other stories, possibly
with a play on words which your listeners will appreciate. It is usual in English radio
bulletins to signal the light tail-ender with the words "And finally...", as in the following
example:
And finally, police in Apia are looking for a thief who broke into a house last night ... and left
his trousers behind.

Be careful, though. Humorous stories may not be appropriate if the rest of the bulletin is
dominated by a major tragedy.

Closing/ Conclusion

Closing headlines

With longer bulletins, you can use closing headlines to remind your listeners of stories they
may (or may not) have heard 10 minutes earlier.

Again they should be the major stories of the bulletin, excluding the tail-ender, which they
should have just heard anyway. Unlike opening headlines, which should attract your listeners
to listen to the bulletin, closing headlines are simply there as a service, especially to listeners
who may have tuned in late.

Each closing headline should be a summary of the main point of the story, written in one
sentence. Any longer and they become a repeat of the story itself. Do not simply repeat the
opening headline or intro of each story as a closing headline. This is laziness which does not
serve your listeners. Never repeat teasers as closing headlines: give the details.

Closing headlines are usually introduced with a phrase like: "Now to summarise the main
stories, "
 Writing and Packaging for Radio Infotainment Programs

Infotainment, radio program that presents information (as news) in a manner intended to be
entertaining. Infotainment came about through the blurring of the line between information
and entertainment in news and current affairs programming, whether in the selection of news
stories (e.g., more emphasis on celebrity gossip, crime stories, and human-interest pieces) or
in their presentation (stylistically, fast-paced editing, music, and sound effects, as well as in
terms of tone and approach, through the use sensationalism or satire).

While writing and packaging radio infotainment programs .

Radio for Information

Radio is an important medium for disseminating information on key community issues. For
instance, when people in the region loose their lands due to heavy floods/ cyclone, their
immediate information requirements would be for alternative cultivation methods. The radio
station not only broadcasts the essential information, but also can give insights on issues, such as
safety and health.

On – air Internet browsing & comments by experts during the broadcast make the programme a
dependable and credible source of information.

It includes:

Documentary Programme

Interview Programme

Panel Discussion Programme

Social Awareness Programme

Radio for Entertainment

Radio is very good entertainers. Even in this era of Internet & Social media, there are people who
look forward to radio for entertainment. It is undoubtly medium of education & information, one
of the good instructional medium and is why radio is being used by the government for giving
instruction to the masses in developing countries.
Entertainment Program In Radio

1. Songs: film song

Classical song
Pop Song
Folk Song
2. Serials: A fiction work continued in various episodes constitute in a radio serial.
3. Radio Drama: It has the added advantage of getting over in an hour (or utmost two)
when compared with the serials that would run for weeks.
4. Film Based Programme: Films are absolute entertainers in all parts of world. Hence,
film based programme entertain the entire world. Film Reviews, film in audio format,
film song, playing popular film dialogues , etc. Are liked by most of the audiences
and hence they enjoyed good popularity.
5. Folk Media Performance: