“Friendly” Journalism Quotes

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.