Accuracy and clarity are two of the most important principles of journalism, but at times the effort to achieve one of these goals can get in the way of the other. What does it take to accomplish both? Critical thinking…
Watch your words
Category: 06. Writing the Story: Broadcast
Writing wisdom from a prize-winner
You can learn a lot about writing from people who do it well. In fact, I don’t think you can ever stop learning about writing if you want to keep improving your craft. So I thought I’d share a few…
Books for writers
Writers read. Good writers read voraciously. That’s because the best way to improve your craft is to study it, learning from great practitioners. I’ve had a list of favorite books about writing on the NewsLab site for years now and I…
A social media ethics code you can support
If you’re a journalist and you use social media, you’ll want to read this. And if you work for a news organization — from student media on up to the top markets, you’ll want to read this, too. According to…
More tips for writing TV news
The single most popular post here at Advancing the Story offers tips on writing TV news. They’re just as useful now as they were when we first shared them in 2008, but the Canadian journalism site where we found them has just…
4 surefire tips for more effective TV writing
Reporters usually get all the credit for great broadcast writing, but if you consider the amount of writing TV producers do in a single day, you’ll understand why we thought WXII-TV’s Executive Producer Brian Neal might have some good advice…
TV reporter tips for better storytelling
The old inverted pyramid approach to storytelling — reporting the most important information first — is still a useful tool, especially in breaking news situations. But creative reporters like to change the approach to fit the content. Rachel Beech at…
Station says shorter stories serve audience better
At WXII-12 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, the newsroom has been rethinking the way it delivers news to viewers on air, now that so many are consuming content on smartphones. “The biggest change I would say from when I started in 2000…
Well-chosen details make stories stronger
One challenge TV reporters face is deciding what details belong in a story. Too many and the story bogs down. Too few and it loses impact. What works in a story is “telling” detail: information that conveys a basic truth…
15 rules of storytelling–and then some
Writing a two-minute TV news story is nothing like writing a screenplay for a movie. Or is it? Truth is, all writing has some things in common. Take this list from Emma Coats, a former screenwriter at Pixar, the movie…