Week 7

October Blues

Monday October 5, 2009

*Professor Eisman handed back the Obama assignment from last week.

Here are some tips:

-Report what happened

- Distant, but detailed

-Don’t use long quotes

-Don’t start a story with a quote

-Tuck in quotes; REMEMBER quotes are gems

-Ex: Use Mass. not the postal address MA

-Watch opinions

*The Feature assignment is due on NOVEMBER 9, 2009. It is worth 10% of our grade.

-The assignment should be double spaced and five pages or less.

-Everybody you talk to is on the record

-Everything you write can be published

-Explain that something is on the record:

Example: Hello my name is _________________ from Amy Eisman’s writing class. I’m doing a story on _______________. I need to interview students, officials, etc. This interview will only take about_________ minutes. It may be published in the school newspaper, a school publication, American Observer, The Northwest Currant, etc.

-Don’t use fake names

-Everything you do for stories needs to have evidence and hard facts.

-Do not be in the mindset of “Oh, I got a student!”

-Interview until you get a good quote/idea for a story.

-The reference librarians can help you find original sources.

-Attribute research to the original source.

-Do not quote a blog that isn’t credible.

-Do not interview friends, roommates, etc. This should not be a hard assignment, and you do not want to have a potential conflict such as a close friend telling you after the interview to not use their name.

-Interview Professors from other campuses, if possible, instead of just AU professors.

-Be able to write down your story idea in ONE sentence before you write.

-FOCUS, FOCUS, FOCUS, FOCUS, FOCUS

-Stay focused in whatever direction you take.

-First get the facts; then write the story.

-If you have a question, or want to do a type of story you aren’t sure about, make sure to ask. “Clear everything with the boss of all bosses.” Aka Professor Eisman. Make her happy.

*Writing Tips for Broadcast

-Simple Sentences: subject, verb, object

-Use active verbs and avoid passive voice.

-Avoid clauses that sound unnatural.

-Avoid Run-on sentences.

-Attribution is at the beginning.

-Don’t begin a story/idea with an unknown name.

-Use hyphens between things you want to say separately. Example: At the U-N.

-Avoid using too many pronouns.

-Use phonetic spelling.

-Auto only-no sound-bites.

-Remember; you are writing for the ear. Tell the story as if you are picking up the phone and telling your friend.

-READ the chapter from the other textbook for more tips.

-Use a conversational tone; keep it short and easy to follow.

-You do not have to use the inverted pyramid.

-Use present tense: “says” is ok to use instead of “said”.

*After, we listened to NPR.

-The context was before the news story.

-More descriptive and humorous than a regular news story for print.

-Do not put words in “quotes”; the listeners cannot see them.

-Listen to NPR’s 5 minute Daily Summary.

*We practiced summarizing a story for listeners and will continue to work on broadcast in the next class.

Thursday October 8, 2009

*Reminders

-Exercise 9.9 will NOT count.

-Washington Post assignment will count.

-Next week, we will go over how to cover a forum (Tuesday Oct. 13).

-There is no homework this weekend.

*Our guest speaker was Professor Carolyn Brown. She teaches journalism at American University. She came to the SOC after working as a producer for MSNBC News, Fox News. She also worked as a producer in local news in San Francisco, Washington D.C., and Arizona. Her new career started at CBS News, The Early Show, and other television shows. She is an excellent broadcast writer, and she graciously took the time to look over our work and prepare a class for us!

*Here are some of her notes (also see handouts)

-Producers are the writers for broadcast.

-TV directors have more of a technical job.

-Use conversational writing;write how you would speak.

-Read aloud after writing.

-Always check multiple sources and do research.

-Use clear, short, simple sentences.

-Emphasize the latest news of a continuing story, but give necessary background

information. What is going on TODAY.

-For TV, write for a 10-year-old.

-Keep the lead simple: Who, what, when, where, why is too much for TV writing.

-The most you can fit in is probably two or three “Ws”. Put them all in, but not in

the first sentence.

-Avoid highly technical terms like “police talk” and “PR talk”.

-Example: Instead of vehicle, use car or truck.

-Instead of the location of the vehicle accident, say- The accident happened on

Mass. Ave.

-Be careful when writing crime stories- use the correct terms.

-Do not convict a person before they are actually convicted of a crime. Say

“person of interest.”

-Avoid clichés. Example: Lucky to be alive.”

-Write in all CAPS for spoken text. Usually, sound bites are in lowercase.

-Remember, you are writing to video/pictures.

-Connect the words with the images, or you will lose the viewer.

-Use contractions if you want; this is how we speak.

-Don’t forget the basics-even though it may be a short news story.

-The “How” is sometimes hard to include in video, but include as much as possible.

-You have 1 Pass at making sure the viewer understands the story.

-There is no going back to reread parts as in print journalism.

-Using commas in TV writing is NOT a good idea.

-Commas do not show up well on a teleprompter. Use ellipses instead.

-If you need to use a comma, consider writing two sentences.

-Example: Garlic . . . Onions . . . and Salt.

-Needs to make sense when read aloud.

-Round up big numbers, unless you MUST give the exact numbers.

-$201,300.01à 2-Hundred Thousand Dollars.

- Only write for as long as you have compelling images.

-Example: A School Board Meeting about a budget would be a boring picture. So

get footage of school children instead and tell the story to images of kids.

-Sometimes, print stories and just words cannot capture a story like a video can.

Example: Obama on election night.

Use Active Voice. Do not use Passive Voice. (Subject, Verb, Object)

Tense has nothing to do with voice.

-Never use the word yesterday. If you don’t have another choice, say the day of

the week you are talking about.

- VO-Voice Over. About 20-25 seconds.

-Don’t start with “Last week”à start with current news

-For local news, give the exact location. Ex- 1400 block of Mass. Ave.

-Gray areas need attribution usually.

-Present Continuous Tense. The Subjects are_______ing.

-Be conversational to a certain extent. Do not use slang unless it is in a sound bite.

-Be aware of what video you have and when the story is going to air.

- :00-:10 zero to ten seconds.

* After the notes, Professor Brown went over our Dog broadcasts from 9.9.

-For the correct format, go to Table—Insert—Columns 2—Rows 1—Enter to make bigger.

-Here is what we came up with...

A Frederickson dog is chasing cats again after getting a pacemaker implanted. The 14-year old retriever named Wrangler is recovering today. The owner took Wrangler to the vet last week after he collapsed. Dr. Charles Eulau did the surgery. Wrangler is the first dog in the area to get a pacemaker. The pacemaker came from the local hospital.