Writing News for Broadcast

"This book is a classic. It’s filled with advice from Murrow, Sevareid, Trout, Rather and Cronkite. All men. There are no women in this book. It’s very old school. I think the first edition came out in the early 1970s or late 60s, and it hasn’t been updated for years. But it’s still a classic, because it outlines the basic commandments for writing for broadcasting. Write in a conversational way – speak to your audience, like you would anybody else. Be concise. Use active and not passive language (‘Mr Smith baked an apple pie today,’ rather than ‘An apple pie was baked by Mr Smith’). And then something that print journalists wouldn’t think about is the rhythm of what you say. The way a long sentence sounds next to a short sentence, the cadence. When I write a script I really think about that rule. It essentially says to you, once you’ve written down what you want to say, read it out loud and don’t even pay attention to the meaning of the words. Just listen for the rhythm of the way they sound. That’s an essential part of writing for broadcast. It’s not just about the information, it’s about the way that information is absorbed, in one ear… One cool thing in the book is that it includes scripts that Edward R Murrow rewrote. Scripts that were handed to him, and it shows how he rewrote them. For example, one he was handed said: ‘Mao Tse-Tung has relinquished one of his posts,’ and Murrow changes it to: ‘Mao Tse-Tung has given up one of his top posts.’ It’s things like that. You wouldn’t use ‘relinquish’ on the radio. You don’t say ‘prior to’, you say ‘before’. You don’t say ‘protracted’ legal battle, you say ‘long’ legal battle. The book says: focus on the important ideas you want to get across. It means you’re careful with numbers and statistics. It doesn’t mean you eliminate details. It’s about painting a picture in the mind’s eye. You can go back and read an account of an event as Edward Murrow covered it, and then compare it to how an AP or UPI wire reporter covered it. It might as well be a completely different event. Murrow will talk about: ‘the sound of footsteps running quietly through the streets of London.’ That will be the opening line as the bombs are falling. The UPI report will be: ‘Axis warplanes launched an aerial assault on London.’ It’s a completely different way of communicating. When it comes to straight news writing, this book is still invaluable. I refer to it at least once a week; it’s in my office, and it’s just a great source for checking up on yourself."