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TV
News Reporting and Production MCM
516
VU
LESSON
17
WRITING
OF THE NEWS
News
is very important thing in
today's media scenario and there
are a numbers of factors to modify
the
importance
of news in actual practice.
The
policy of news medium may
increase or diminish the importance of
the story.
The
class of viewers and listeners
that dominates the audience of a channel determines
largely what is
news
for that medium.
The
amount of time available on television
determines whether is told briefly or in
detail and thus time
alters
the value of a news
story.
Repeating
the same news also sometimes
decreases the importance of a news
story.
How
to write the
news?
The
news story is totally and
radically different from all
other kinds of composition. A
narrative, a short
story,
a novel, a play, a drama,
book, or a film script begins
with a description of the background or
with
the
introduction of various characters and
conditions. The story ends
soon after the climax is
reached.
On
the contrary, a standard news
story starts with the climax
and leaves the details for
the closing
sentence.
The
story in all other cases
opens gradually and major
information is given in middle of a
story while in
news
it opens with a bang all
concrete things are
mentioned at start and then the
relevant detail is
described.
The
inverted pyramid
The
pyramid or the upright triangle is
the style of fiction or
literary writing where as the news
follows
the
inverse triangle or inverted
pyramid style.
Contents
of news
What?
What
happened? What is the event?
When?
When
it occurred, at what time it took
place?
Where?
The
place, where the incident occurred.
Who?
The
persons involved at that
occasion.
Why?
The
reason of that particular
issue.
How?
The
sequence of the event.
Lead
It
is the heading of the news that contains
the above-mentioned five Ws and one
H.
Intro
It
means the introduction and it is
first and the foremost part of the
news as it contains the gist of
whole
news.
Many features and essay have
also the intro.
Credit
line
Credit
line is the thing mentioned in the
start of a news that's is the place of
news with its source
from
where
it has been obtained.
Body
text
Intro
is followed by the body text
that contains the details of a particular
story.
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TV
News Reporting and Production MCM
516
VU
Types
of news according to contents
·
News
based on facts
·
News
based on statement
·
News
based on action
News
based on facts
The
structure of the news based on fact
will be as follows;
Leading
fact
Secondary
fact
Other
fact
In
the lead the most important
facts or the climax of the story is
given and as the story proceeds
further
facts,
secondary or subsequent information is
revealed. Such kind of story
is not very difficult to
write.
The
important thing is to judge the
relative value of data and
fact available and to arrange them in
order
of
their importance. The
composition breaks logically at
every paragraph and can easily be cut
down or
lengthened
as according to time
available.
News
based on statement
The
statement or the quote of some
prominent personality is also
taken a s a news as in our
country
there
is a lot of statement
journalism.
The
structure of such news will be as
follows;
Lead
summary of the statement
Summary
of less important
part
Summary
of even lesser important
part
These
include speeches, views;
interviews talks, comments and
opinions based on recorded
information
delivered
either in written form or
verbally told to the news
reporters.
News
based on statement
The
action news is quite
difficult to write as compared to
rest of two types of the stories.
The reporter
only
narrated the action but he has to keep in
mind the dramatic incidents,
description of persons
involved
in that action, statements of
eyewitnesses and explanatory
data as well. After the lead
is written
and
important events are given
in chronological order, important
information, background and
detail is
provided.
Finding
out the lead
A
reporter while writing a
news story of any kind is
constantly in search of a fact or a
combination that
will
be suitable for a lead.
After all the fact and
information the reporter faces the
task of converting
them
to in to a brisk beginning. In most of
the news stories, the most
important act or information
is
given
in the opening paragraph, which is lead
and for lead usually "answer
the five Ws technique"
is
followed.
The
lead should be clear,
provocative and simple, as one
can easily understand it.
Usually it should be
with
a name, a noun, or an article,
rarely with a participle,
proposition or complete passage.
Example
Three
persons (who) killed and
nine injured last night
(when) as a speeding truck
(what)
collided
(why)
with a coach while
overtaking another bus (how) at GT
road (where).
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TV
News Reporting and Production MCM
516
VU
The
television newsroom is more complicated
than that of radio or a paper's newsroom
as television
newsroom
has editing equipment and
production experts and other technical
apparatus.
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