Broadcast News and Writing Stylebook, 5th Edition

CHAPTER 8
	Stories

Charles Osgood, of CBS News, says we should think of broadcast writing in terms of music. “Good writing has to be musical, with a sense of balance, a sense of beauty, melodic, a sense of phrasing.” As with music, sentences should be constructed in a “graceful way.” As with music, “the beginning should sound like the beginning and the end should sound like the end.”

The point is, we call them stories, and we do best telling them that way. It doesn’t apply to every item in the news. There are timely events that simply require a straightforward recitation of significant information—well written and constructed. But they’re ...