Writing news for television and radio

Eeekkk!

That's all I have to say about chapter 19 right now....aghhh!

So as you can tell I'm slightly intimidated by writing for the television/radio medium. It's just that this baby journalist finally was starting to feel at home in her new skin as a print writer. I was starting to feel that I was getting it...tight ledes and what exactly a nutgraf is as apposed to a theme paragraph. I had hiked the mountain of "rookie" and starting to approach the valleys of decent writing.

And now I'm slammed with writing for broadcast. It's funny because I read this chapter in intro-journalism -- the two books are basically the same things so alot of the information was familiar to me. But I have to wonder how do you on dedicate one chapter on this genre of writing, even the formatting is complex to me. What do you mean I don't have to work about APstyle as much?!? My head is spinning!

But the reality is that hopefully with a good base in print journalism I should be able to make the transition smoothly...right? I'm hoping so because right now I'm feeling like the minow in the sea again.

The criteria for news is the same; timeliness, information, and important people. I get this...this is good. But then there is the added need for audio/visual impact with each story.

The writing style is also very different. Instead of writing in the past tense we are suppose to write in the present to emphasize the immediacy of the news. Writing tightly is also key -- there is no room for wordiness. This especially worries me...I love my adjectives like a love peanut butter cups -- I real and it's deep people.

And how the heck do you cue listeners into paying attention as the chapter suggests. Do I yell, "Hey listen!" Of course not. I'll have to come up with some catchy news lede that will be completely different from what I've been struggling to master for print.

What's a baby journalist to do?