Basic Radio Journalism

4 News writing

The business of radio is to communicate. If we fail to communicate, then we fail as radio journalists. Your aim must be intelligibility – immediate intelligibility. A carelessly turned phrase, an ambiguity of expression, a complicated sentence and an illogical sequence of events are all fatal to news on radio. There is no room in radio news bulletins for complexity, vagueness or obscurity. You must know what you want to say – and you must say it with directness, simplicity and precision.

Remember that dullness is a sin. No story should be regarded as routine. The way to capture the listener’s interest is through your enthusiasm. If you take a jaded and apathetic attitude, it will produce a dull story. There is no reason to reduce ...