This blog was originally published on my LinkedIn profile.
I recently began studying the book Writing News for Broadcast by Patterson and Bliss.
If I could post the entire work I would because it is extraordinary.
I would like to share though some passages from the Foreword by Fred W. Friendly.
“A reporter’s primary job is to explain complicated issues and you cannot explain a complicated issue until you understand it. Of course, before a reporter can understand, he must search. And before he can do that, he must be predisposed to examine with parity facts and personalities he dislikes, as well as those he may support.”
“He must also know the tools of his trade. The grammar of broadcast journalism involves not only words but the vocabulary of sound and the dialect of pictures. The broadcast reporter is at once audio engineer, visual editor–and the producer.
…he is not only an explorer looking for the story, but he is also the artist looking for the key that will unlock the viewer’s curiousity.”
“Understanding the complicated issue and concieving how to explain it with style and imagination are two of three critical steps in broadcast reporting. The final essential is the narration to tie it all together. Whether that narrative represents 2 percent of the airtime or 80 percent of the airtime, the linking copy can make or destroy the report.”
(I omitted some words from the final passage for flow.)
All quotes in this post are by Fred W. Friendly from the Foreword of Writing News for Broadcast by Patterson and Bliss.
When you go looking for a news story to read or a news program to watch on television do you prefer to read or watch those types of organizations that are 100% impartial and only report the facts and nothing else? Or do you enjoy catching some of those that share a little of their point-of-view on the story while also sharing all sides fairly?
One thing that Tom Kent pointed out in a piece that I read was that you must be careful about how you share your point-of-view because we don’t as journalists want to look as if we have given an endorsement to a certain side.
