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Writing Broadcast News Stories. The Beginning (lead) The Middle (body) The End (Pages 33-38 in our textbook). The Lead, the Body, the End. There are thoughts that should go into each of these three parts of any story, no matter the subject and length
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Writing Broadcast News Stories The Beginning (lead) The Middle (body) The End (Pages 33-38 in our textbook)
The Lead, the Body, the End • There are thoughts that should go into each of these three parts of any story, no matter the subject and length • You have a lot of choices with your lead– how you choose to start the story • Better broadcast leads are concise– 12 words of so, not much more
Leads • You have a variety of types of leads from which to choose: • Summary/hard news leads—stress key newsworthiness of the story • “Soft” feature leads using irony, color, humor, anecdote, questions, quotes
The Body of the Story • After the lead, the story needs to continue in a natural, logical manner • Think of organizing the story as a series of main points and supporting evidence • Newspaper-style “inverted pyramid” can be employed: follow lead with facts in descending order of importance • No holes! Be sure to answer most obvious questions (often covered by the 5 Ws of journalism: who, what, when, where, and, if possible, why) • Always try to include the most unique, unusual and surprising elements of a story
Endings are Important Too! • Ending a story or report can be as difficult as starting one • Most of the time you simply finish with the last bit of supporting evidence for your final main point • You can also end by providing a piece of “background” information about someone or something in the story • Or end with what is next going to happen or is likely to happen next • Or end by telling viewers/listeners how to obtain more information • Or use the “circle technique” to “tie the story up” by making a clear connection to something mentioned at the beginning of the story ###