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The news bulletin is a major area of programming for a television station. It is telecast live and thus has to be made error-free. News may be any item of importance that takes place in a certain areal locality, something unusual, something that interests us or concerns us. While the stories for TV news must also be shorter and conversational, the rule is to write in a conversational style for pictures. When writing for television, the pauses necessary to coordinate words with visuals are taken into consideration. The words omit what the pictures show, and tell what the pictures omit.
Fundamental Principles
The TV news story is presented for both eye and ear. The golden rule for TV news is write like you talk and not like you write.
Clarity: The first rule of TV news is that the story must be clear at once. TV news is written on the wind-here for the instant, gone the next moment. The understanding must be immediate in the TV News Bulletin.
Brevity: Clarity comes not only from writing simple sentences but also from writing short ones. Long sentences cannot be read easily and the viewer has a hard time following them. TV news has been described as a headlines service. It is intended to give the viewer only an outline of the event.
Conversational: TV news writers use everyday words; the language of conversation. TV journalists use a vocabulary that corresponds to the one used in daily conversation.
Time Reference: The element of immediacy is one of the biggest assets of the TV medium in reporting news. Every effort should be made to include up-to-date reports and to write copy in a manner that sounds fresh and timely.
Active Voice: Avoid the passive voice; it is the voice in which the subject is acted upon. Use instead the active voice where the subject acts upon the object. It is important to keep the action in the verb. The active voice is stronger than the passive voice.
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