Saturday February 04, 2012

CCJ Books

The Elements of Journalism: What Newspeople Should Know and the Public Should Expect

Completely updated and revised
"The most important book on the relationship of journalism and democracy published in the last fifty years." – Roy Peter Clark, The Poynter Institute
We Interrupt This Newscast: How to Improve Local News and Win Ratings, Too

Just Released
A landmark study on what people watch and why. The most exhaustive study ever of local TV news -- what helps ratings, what drives viewers away, and what editorial approaches and story-telling techniques most influence viewership.

Converting TV Scripts to the Web

Cory Bergman, Director of Digital Media - KING-TV, July 30, 2006

A Handy Ten Minute Checklist

Sometimes TV people are so naive. Can't you just copy a broadcast script straight over to the web?

Uh, no. It's no easy task hiding the (near) illiteracy of TV news with stuff like verbs and punctuation. For web producers, it's a nightmare. Ask a reporter to convert her own package script, and you'll end up with something like:

Said Smith, "the flames we're too hot."
Good grief! It's time to teach reporters how to write for the web, starting with Lost Remote's handy, ten minute checklist:

  1. Combine Copy
    If you're converting a package script, combine the toss, lead-in and tag on the same page. Delete any redundancies. Make sure the story starts off with a strong sentence, not a tease line.

  2. Remove Extraneous Remarks
    Strip out computer coding, including director, editing and graphics notation.

  3. Fix Capitalization
    Convert the script from upper case to upper and lower case, correctly capitalizing as you go along. Many newsroom computer systems let you drop an entire script to lower case with a single keystroke.

  4. Add Quotes
    Change the sound bites to quotes, adding the correct attribution. To speed up the process, reporters should get in the habit of writing out the full text of each sound bite in their package scripts. Here's the correct format:

    "The scumbag shot at us," said Bill Smith, police spokesperson.

    If the sound bite is more than a simple sentence, split it up and put the attribution in the center:

    "The scumbag shot at us," said Bill Smith, police spokesperson. "He better watch his back."

  5. Form Complete Sentences
    Drop unnecessary punctuation like ellipses and hyphens, and convert sentence fragments into complete sentences.

  6. Remove References to Video
    The best TV stories are written to video, but not on the web. Delete any language that makes a direct reference to video and audio, but add appropriate adjectives to bring a visual element to your copy.

  7. Beef Up the Story
    Add any important details that hit the cutting room floor. Web copy is shorter than newspaper copy, but should deliver more information than 20-second TV stories (except with breaking news).

  8. Bring it all Together
    Make sure the story reads well from beginning to end, with appropriate paragraph breaks. Usually, a little smoothing is in order.

  9. Add Interactivity
    Finally, add links to any relevant reference materials. Tack on interactive elements, pictures and multimedia -- and run the spellchecker. See, wasn't that easy?
 
 
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