“If a reporter puts too many twists, turns, or facts into a story, he risks obscuring its message,” Freedman writes in his book, It Takes More Than Good Looks to Succeed at Television News Reporting, now out in a new second edition and available online from the publisher.

In this excerpt, posted with permission, Freedman shares a case study that illustrates a key point: To improve your storytelling, write for your audience, not your bosses.

Not long ago, a reporter sent me samples of his work from a small market. He was twenty-three, still finding his way in his first job, and struggling. “I feel overwhelmed,” he wrote. Translated, that means he had a problem focusing.

The reporter’s clips included a late-news segment about a water main that cracked during a blizzard. Barring complications, a public works crew would replace the damage before the next morning’s rush hour. They did have one concern—that the leaking water might freeze into a sheet of ice and block a major intersection.

In a small city on a slow night, that water main break made big news. The broadcast producer asked our young reporter for a live shot with a package insert. After watching the segment, it was clear that he tried hard with his assignment. If possible, he tried too hard.

The reporter began with a montage of running water accompanied by a symphony of jackhammers. In painstaking detail, he explained how workmen poked holes in the cement and used a special listening device to locate leaks. He filled the piece with so many facts, figures, and obscurities that after a while, it began to look less like a news story, and more like an instructional video about street repair. If a viewer had watched closely, he might have been able to pass a civil service test.

All of the reporter’s problems trace back to one fundamental error. He never put himself in the place of the people at home. He forgot that most of them didn’t care about the specifics of urban street repair. They simply wanted to know when Public Works would fix the break, and if they would need to find alternate routes for the morning commute. The reporter could have given them that basic information in the first fifteen seconds of his live shot.

Then, if he had thought past the assignment sheet, he might have told a narrative story to which anyone might relate—that on a frigid night this crew faced a mean, nasty job. Between their numb fingers, the freezing mud, and the struggle to keep flowing water from turning into sheets of ice, he had dramatic ingredients for a piece with universal appeal.

“Why didn’t I think of that?” the kid asked later. Simple. We chalked it up to nerves and inexperience. He should have taken a figurative step back and trusted his natural curiosity. At that stage of his career, however, this young reporter didn’t have the confidence. He worried so much about missing an element that he overcompensated. Rather than errors of omission, he committed errors of congestion, and crammed too many facts into a ninety-second package.

Put simply, he allowed his fear to confine him.

This is a common mistake. Learn to recognize it, and you will be well on your way to fixing it. When you find yourself in a similar circumstance, whether reporting on politics, economics, science, the law, a union dispute, or some local problem like a broken water line, identify a single theme, storyline, or character, and stay true to it. Get to the point. Write for your viewers, not your bosses. Just because the alphabet begins with “A” and finishes with “Z,” do not feel obligated to detail all twenty-four letters in between.

The next time an assignment overwhelms your focus, that simple rule will help.

Many thanks to Wayne for sharing this excerpt. We have other writing tips from Wayne and a video here.

Sourced from: NewsLab

Not everyone thinks Strunk and White’s advice for writers is worth all the adulation it’s received since it was first published more than 50 years ago. Geoffrey Pullum of the University of Edinburgh once famously derided it as ranging from limp platitudes to inconsistent nonsense. But I think the rules hold true, and in keeping with one of them, “omit needless words,” I will say no more.

“Even with profiles, it’s important to have a news hook — something to grab people’s attention,” says Jackson.

She suggests trying to tie the profile in with a timely event. If there’s something important about to happen in the profiled person’s life or something has just recently occurred, that may be perfect as a hook. If not, reporters have to be thinking about that attention-grabbing detail, even as they’re still conducting interviews and reporting the story.

“Don’t wait until you’re back at your computer to find the news hook,” Jackson says.

Another key to the effective profile is sourcing, according to Jackson.

“What makes a profile live and breathe is to have more voices in it,” Jackson says. “What adds depth and interest are the other people who know the person you’re profiling.”

The types of questions you ask matter, too. For example, if you’re interviewing a friend or loved one, try asking “What’s tough to deal with about this person?” When you’re talking to the profile subject, ask not only about their biggest successes, but also about their biggest mistakes.

“The first thing to realize is that everyone’s life has conflict,” Jackson says. She says profiles have to have some tension or some paradox explored to keep the audience interested. Profiles, like any other story, must be structured so that you lead the viewer from thought to thought.

“I look at stories as if I’m heading down a path on which I know where I’m going, but the reader doesn’t. I guide them and take them with me.’

“My goal is to go out and cover a story to make someone care about it,” says Huppert, “make you laugh or shed a tear.”

The award-winning reporter shared five solid pieces of TV storytelling advice at the Excellence in Journalism conference in New Orleans.

1. Find your focus. Huppert says he always takes time on the front end to ask, “What’s this story about?” His ability to find that focus and to stick with it, helps even potentially mundane pieces, such as an assignment to show how the economy is affecting people, become memorable TV.

“Focus equals the emotion and/or character and/or concept that holds the disconnected pieces together,” says Huppert. “It’s the spine that runs through it.”

2. Try the Christmas tree structure. Huppert likes to reward his viewers for sticking with him. So instead of the inverted pyramid approach, he likes to use the Christrmas tree.

“Each point on the tree is a reveal — I share the surprises I’ve uncovered with the viewer.  Before I write, I outline my surprises and build up to each.”

3. Sentences build to the most important point. Huppert also crafts his sentences carefully; his goal is to put the most important word in the sentence at or near the end. The reason? Your writing will have more impact on the viewer and they’ll have better recall of key points.

4. Write into your stand up.  ”Almost all of my stories have a stand up or live component,” says Huppert.  ”The best thing ever said to me by a photog is:  ’What are you saying BEFORE the stand up?’”  Huppert says that If you write the  lines in and out of the stand up first, the stand up itself will be more focused, shorter and better.

5. Try to get a “handshake shot.” When you meet someone for the first time, it’s not unusual to put our your hand and look them in the eye during a handshake.  Huppert likes to have that “handshake shot” in his stories, where the viewer can look the primary character in the face and get a sense of that person.

Huppert’s stories don’t just happen, they’re a result of his personal challenge to go beyond the standard.

“The time you spend on the front end standing back and thinking really pays off on the back end.”

Lamb says another key component is taking time to determine a story’s focus.

“Beyond just the story ‘subject,’ a focus tells you what person, object or theme you’ll be dealing with during your story,” Lamb says.  “You can start thinking about your story focus while you’re still on your shoot, or even before it starts.  When you write your story, if a line of reporter track or a sound bite doesn’t fit your focus, you should probably throw it out.”

While he’s in the field, Lamb tries to “take off his reporter hat” to take in the scene around him for a few moments.

“What would a normal observer – without the wireless mic, tripod and camera – say or think about what they’re seeing or hearing?  Sometimes you can get some great lines for your story, just by taking it all in,” Lamb says.

Armed with his focus, his observations and his video log, Lamb is now ready to write.

“When I write, I try to set up the moments I’ve identified with a line of reporter track, providing some context or an observation about what the viewer is about to see, then I let the moment play out, without talking over it,” says Lamb.

Lamb is making an essential point.

“Good writing is as much about what you choose to write as it is about what you don’t write.  There are no words I could say that would be more powerful then letting viewers experience a mother kissing her dying four-year-old boy.  I think it’s important to not say anything in those cases – and let the natural moment play out for the best impact.”

When he does want his words and video to work together, Lamb says he’s careful to avoid saying exactly what the viewer is seeing in the video.

“For example, I was writing a story about a police officer memorial, and I wanted to write to a shot of a sign on a storefront in the small town that read, ‘CLOSED IN HONOR OF TONY AND MATT.’ Instead of saying in my track, “Several stores closed so they could attend the memorial for the fallen officers,” I wrote, “Honor is something that causes people to put their normal lives on hold for just a moment.”

Lamb says that makes his writing less redundant because the viewer can already see that the store is closed.  Instead it gives the viewer additional insight on the theme of “honor.”

For many writers, crafting a strong ending is a significant challenge.  Too many take the easy way out and end the story on a sound bite.  Lamb says he tries to come up with a powerful closing line that gives people a sense that the story is over.

“Reporter Boyd Huppert has a good trick for coming up with closing lines, and it’s worked well for me:  Your closing line should make people say to themselves, ‘Ain’t that the truth!’”

It sure is. Thanks, Jason.

Last year’s national winner in the small market category was Jason Lamb of KTUU in Anchorage, AK.  In this first of a two-part post, Lamb shares how he crafts his award-winning stories by spending more time than most with his video.

“It’s important to remember that the goal of any memorable story should be to get information across in a way that makes it easy for people to relate and connect to,” says Lamb.  ”Logging your tapes (or your cards or your disks) well is a crucial step in that process.”

For Lamb, “logging” is much more than registering the clip number or time code.

He has three key components to his approach:

1.  Log as much of the video as time allows
Many less experienced reporters say they’re just too time-crunched to spend time logging, but even a few minutes can improve a story.  ”There is so much more of the raw footage to log than just the framed up ‘interview shots.’  I log as much as I can: interesting shots that I might want to write to, spontaneous moments with the person I’m interviewing, etc.,” Lamb says.

2.  Log “the moments”
According to Lamb, a “moment” is something captured on camera that helps make people forget they are watching a “news report” and makes them feel closer to the story.  ”They help people relate to what your story is about.  It could be the moment that a stem-cell recipient meets his donor for the first time, or a spontaneous reaction to a section of land being eaten away by a raging river.  Moments help drive your story,” says Lamb.

3. Log “the layers”
Lamb says good stories have multiple levels or layers to them that keep the audience engaged throughout.  ”A different layer could be an interesting detail or added ‘twist’ you can introduce in your story at just the right moment to keep people interested,” Lamb says.

Check out one of Lamb’s stories below and check back later this week when Lamb shares how he strives to put words and pictures together in the most compelling way.

“After you’ve gathered all the information you need, there’s one thing you have to do before beginning to write,” says Glenn.  “Put all the information away and think for a moment.”

Glenn says that’s where you’ll find your voice as a writer, once you’re able to put the most important information in your own words.

“You’ve probably heard that you should imagine that you’re telling your story to a friend,” Glenn says, then laughs.  “At Fox we say that you should tell it like you’re talking to a friend sitting in a bar.  You want to keep it as conversational as possible.”

To make your writing easy to understand, Glenn says you need to do several things:

• Use short sentences.  People are relying on their memories to keep track of what’s going on in your story; it’s best to break the important information up in to little bits.
• Use active voice – structure your sentences subject, verb, object.
• Avoid sentences within sentences or the use of dependent clauses.
• Assume viewers are only half paying attention.

Glenn also says it’s important that you’re able to adjust your writing style to every anchor, every market and every audience.

And for those who are just getting started, Glenn says he thinks the best source of information on writing well for television news comes from Merv Block’s “Writing Broadcast News” book.

This year, the Sigma Delta Chi Award for large market TV feature reporting has gone to some old friends of Advancing the Story — Boyd Huppert, Jonathan Malat and Bill Middeke of KARE 11 in Minneapolis. The story leverages everyday visuals and strong writing and editing to create a memorable moment.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

This team of storytellers works on a series called, “Land of 10,000 Stories.”   (WARNING!  Don’t click the link unless you have some time to spare — the stories are so good, you may want to watch them all.)

For those trying to learn visual storytelling or to improve their skills, notice how Boyd weaves his writing in and around the natural sound. He’s also well-known for the little surprises he sprinkles throughout the story — “gold coins” as he sometimes refers to them. The viewer gets little payoffs throughout each piece as he reveals more and more of the good information he’s gathered.

Congratulations to Boyd, Jonathan, Bill and all the SDX winners.

That said, there are some skills and values every multimedia journalist should bring to the job. On the SPJ Net Worked blog, Jennifer Peebles shared a terrific list that I’ve excerpted here.

1. Write a basic breaking news story in the inverted pyramid. The story must be accurate, fair, interesting and not plagiarized, among other things. To do this, they’ve got to have basic skills in interviewing people, basic writing skills (nouns and verbs have to agree, dammit) and a basic knowledge of journalism ethics (when we call someone up for an interview, we identify ourselves as a reporter, not as some long-lost cousin from out of town, etc.).

2. Be able to record the audio of an interview with someone, do a simple edit on the audio recording of that interview and upload it to the Web for an audience to hear.

3. Be able to take a decent photograph, even if it’s with their cellphone camera… They should understand a bit about the rule of thirds and basic photo composition (don’t have a tree growing out of the head of the your photo subject!)

4. Be able to make at least a short video story that doesn’t turn out looking like the Blair Witch Project.

5. Be able to perform basic functions in a spreadsheet and have at least a general understanding of how journalists use data to find stories.

6. Have an understanding of HTML and CSS and understand how they’re used to make Web pages.

7. Be able to decide which platform best suits a given story.

8. Understand the basic concepts of libel and defamation and understand that these aren’t old-fashioned concepts that only apply to us geezers who worked for newspapers… The same goes for invasion of privacy and copyright issues.

9. Understand the basic concepts of the First Amendment, freedom of the press and the people’s right to know, which everything we do is built on.

If you’re paying attention, you may have noticed that the list mentions only nine things while the headline promised ten.  What’s missing? Perhaps you’ve figured it out. Here’s my addition to Peebles’ list:

10. Recognize the importance of fact-checking and know how to review every story element for accuracy.

Have I proved my point? What would you add to the list of “must have” skills and values for multimedia journalists?

Rick Russell is news director at WJTV in Jackson, Miss.; he says the best way to assess the quality of your story is to have someone else read it back to you.

“You have to listen to that story,” Russell says. “The viewer doesn’t read your written word, they listen to your spoken word.”

Russell says there are three questions you should ask as you’re listening to your copy being read out loud.

1. Does the story make sense? If the person reading it isn’t sure about something, the viewer may be confused, too.

2. Is it conversational? You want to use words that help you sound like the Average Joe or Jane.

3. Is it easy to read? If your reader stumbles or gets hung up on a word or phrase, you need to revise your copy.

“If you can say yes to all three of those questions, you’ve probably written a very good story,” says Russell.