Broadcast Journalism, 6th Edition

20 Editing

 

Few raw interviews appear on air without some form of editing – live interviews are the obvious exception. But where an interview has been pre-recorded, and time permits, the reporter will usually want to tighten it up and trim it to the required length.

Just as important is editing out irrelevant questions and statements to throw into focus comments that are newsworthy. You may also want to alter the sequence of questions and answers to point up a strong angle that emerged during the interview.

Finally, recordings are usually fine edited to give them polish by removing hesitation, repetition and intrusive background noise, such as a passing lorry or a ringing phone.

Editing has four main functions:

•  To reduce length

•  Remove ...