ABSTRACT

Writing for Broadcast Journalists is the essential guide to writing news for television and radio, guiding readers through the significant differences between writing text to be read, and writing spoken English that will be heard. This book helps broadcast journalists at every stage of their careers to avoid newspaper-style ‘journalese’, clichés, jargon, and inaccurate grammar or pronunciation, while capturing the immediacy of the spoken word in creative broadcast news scripts. It also gives advice on providing concise online material for broadcasters’ websites.

Sections include:

• Practical advice on how to write accurately but conversationally
• How to cope with a dynamic English language, with new expressions and words changing their meanings
• Writing scripts that match the TV pictures, and use real sound on radio
• Detailed guidance on correct terminology and the need for sensitive language
• An appendix of ‘dangerous’ words and phrases to be avoided in scripts.

Written in a lively and accessible style by a former BBC news editor, Writing for Broadcast Journalists is an invaluable guide to the techniques of writing news for television, radio and online audiences.

chapter 1|1 pages

Introduction

chapter |2 pages

W H AT THISBOOKDOESNOTCOVER

chapter 2|5 pages

Good spoken English

chapter |9 pages

WHICHMODELOFTHESPOKENWORD ?

chapter 3|21 pages

The language of broadcast news

chapter 4|9 pages

Writing broadcast news scripts

chapter |1 pages

Redundant words

chapter |2 pages

Adjectives and adverbs

chapter |6 pages

ACCURACY

chapter |2 pages

Gongs

chapter |1 pages

Names of organisations

chapter |8 pages

Registered names

chapter |3 pages

Wales

chapter |17 pages

England

chapter |3 pages

Stereotyping and loaded language

chapter |3 pages

Race

chapter |4 pages

Disability

chapter |1 pages

STORYSTRUCTURE

chapter |1 pages

Kipling’s questions

chapter |11 pages

WRITINGINTROS

chapter |5 pages

Pyramids or lines?

chapter |8 pages

Using actuality and description

chapter |17 pages

What am I looking at?

chapter 2|1 pages

4 -H OURNEWS

chapter |1 pages

Live on location

chapter |6 pages

Live in the studio

chapter |21 pages

Appendix Dangerous words

An alphabetical checklist

chapter |4 pages

Further reading