SJC-style-and-production-guide-2012

Writing for broadcast(adapted from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s News & Current Affairs StyleGuide)What is news? What is current affairs?All material produced by the News and Current Affairs Division must adhere to the ABC’sfour key values – honesty, fairness, independence and respect – enshrined in Editorial Policies.They must also conform to our principles of editorial responsibility, which require accuracy,impartiality and balance.However, there are often significant differences between current affairs and news.Both can provide information, context and analysis. But while news is primarily involved ininforming our audience at the earliest opportunity of a current event or issue (and will generallyonly provide sufficient context and analysis to perform that primary function), current affairs hasa broader brief. Current affairs stories and programs will explore issues in greater depth, provokeand promote public debate by putting issues on the agenda for discussion, and investigatematters of public importance.Because of its broader brief to explore, provoke and stimulate, current affairs reports will oftenemploy a wider range of styles in their language and construction. Interviews and debates maybe more conversational, stories more discursive, and programs more adventurous by usingmusic, humour, and other story-telling devices.In both current affairs and news (and some programs will be a combination of both) there willoften be “live” unscripted reports and interviews. These are, by their nature, unpredictable,particularly when dealing with breaking news.broadcast writingAccuracy, brevity and clarity.These basic aims of writing for broadcast can be applied to all programming from TVdocumentaries to Radio News stories, from one-minute TV news updates to online stories.Journalists’ work should be characterised by simple writing and expression. The more complexthe subject, the greater the need for simplicity of expression.We should write the way we speak. That does not mean we use slang, but we don’t use formal,official words and phrases that often obscure meaning or sound inflated. Newspaper style haslittle relevance or application in the broadcasting business.Don’t surrender to the language of the police bulletin, the political rally, the computer blurband the myriad other sources of stodgy officialese. We don’t converse with people in long,convoluted sentences, which have several qualifying phrases, and commas, such as this one. Sodon’t write this way.Our audience usually gets only one chance to catch the message of what we’re saying. If wepresent them with convoluted phrasing, confusing syntax, too many ideas in a sentence, jargonor what some call “weasel words”, we will lose the audience.There are few stories that can get away without some context. Our audience is well-informedand some people will know more than we do about the subject of a story, but the majority willneed to be reminded of why the story is important, what led to it and how the latest developmentPAGE 79 – 2012UQ SJC STYLEBOOK