Elements of a News Bulletin

Radio bulletins are usually made up from three types of material:

1. News Script (Written stories)
2. Voice dispatch (Voice reports from journalists, either recorded or live)
3. Actuality (Recorded sound of the event).
4. Music
1. News Script (Written stories)
The basic criterion for selecting news stories for a news bulletin is that the information
should be new, unusual, interesting, significant and about people. Each of these criteria
will help you to decide what stories you should include in your bulletin and where you
should place them within your 05-, 10- or 15-minutes bulletin.
It is usual to give the most important story first and the least important story last. Some extra
factors such as the
balance and pace of bulletin can also be considered while writing a proper news bulletin.
Try to avoid seeing the bulletin simply as a collection of individual, self-contained stories.
If you put a string of economic stories (however important) at the start of the bulletin, you
risk losing your listeners' interest.
They expect a balance of items, some heavy and some light, some about major political
events and some about ordinary people. Of course, the actual mix of stories, their tone
and pace of delivery will depend to a degree on the format of your station; serious national
broadcasters tend to use more serious stories, delivered in a more deliberate style
whereas youth-oriented music station bulletins might be lighter and brighter with more
stories about popular culture.
Pace is the length, speed and tone of a story as it appears to the listeners. Some stories
have a fast pace. The report of a fire, for example, will usually be written in short
sentences, using short snappy words to convey simple ideas. It will have a fast pace.
By comparison, a story explaining some involved political controversy may need slightly
longer sentences with words expressing more complicated ideas. The story itself may
need to be slightly longer. The whole effect is one of a slower pace.
Too many long complicated stories will slow the pace of the whole bulletin and allow the
attention of your listeners to walk away. Too many short, sharp stories may leave listeners
confused, unable to keep up with the pace of changing stories.
The ideal bulletin will have a steady pace throughout to maintain interest, with variations
in pace during certain sections; slower at times to let your listeners catch their breath or
faster at other times to pick up their lagging interest. To achieve balance and pace, you
should rank stories in order of importance then look at the order afresh, to see that you
have a good balance of items and variations in pace.
2. Voice dispatch
Apart from giving scripted stories, an important part of a radio reporter’s job is to give voice
dispatches which have become an essential part of radio bulletin. The purpose of a voice
dispatch is the correspondent’s voice is to supplement, add colour and authenticity to the
basic news. An eye-witness account or an on-the-spot report complete with background
sound can be very convincing. Writing a voice report is different from writing straight news.
In a voice report you can add something to the news that is more personal.
3. Actuality
This is usually the sound of someone speaking, perhaps taken from an interview or a
speech. A short segment of actuality is called a grab. Grabs are used in a similar way to
quotes in a newspaper story. In some countries, grabs are called cuts or inserts. Short
grabs of actuality are a useful part of news bulletins for the following reasons:
They can often tell the story more effectively than a script. If your story is about a
violent protest outside an embassy, a 10-second grab of demonstrators chanting
and shouting will convey the atmosphere better than any words.
They can add variety to the pace of the bulletin, breaking up a long section of
reading by one voice. On the practical side, they allow the newsreader to take a
30 or 40 second rest.
They are often a chance to let people within your community speak on the radio.
People like to hear their own voice on radio occasionally, or the voices of people
they know.
Using a grab of someone speaking can convince listeners that the person really
did say a certain thing. They might not believe your report that the Government is
resigning. When they hear the Prime Minister announcing it, they have to believe.
Actuality grabs should be kept short (between 20 and 40 seconds), clear and well-edited.
A minute-long grab of a dull voice will slow the pace of your bulletin and may force listeners
to switch off.
Grabs must be introduced, stating clearly who will be speaking. You only need to identify
a person after paying the actuality (called back-announcing) if the grab is long and the
voice is not familiar.
Grabs in languages other than your own should be overdubbed with a translation. This
means that fading down (reduce) the sound of the original speaker until it can only just be
heard, then play the voice of the translator over it.
You can occasionally use grabs in languages other than your own without overdubbing,
but only if you know that your listeners will be able to understand them. A short grab in
simple language may be usable without an overdub, especially when it is used to show
the emotion behind a speech, rather than the content.
It is occasionally possible to open the bulletin with dramatic piece of actuality, than explain
it with a back-announcement. Such a grab must be dramatic, short and make sense to
your listeners. For example, a radio journalist used a 10-second grab of guns firing and
people screaming during the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, then back
announced: "The guns which destroyed the hopes of peace in the Middle East as
President Anwar Sadat of Egypt was assassinated."
Only use such opening grabs on special occasions, otherwise they lose their effect. Also,
it is not good to play the grab before the opening theme, as it will confuse your listeners.
4. Music
A special opening theme should be used to announce the bulletin and may occasionally
be used within the bulletin, perhaps to separate different segments. We call such short
music inserts stabs or stings.
Your opening theme should be short and dramatic. It should either end before the
presenter starts reading or should be faded out under their opening words. Many record
companies now produce selections of electronic or instrumental themes especially for use
as stabs.
Any stabs within the bulletin should echo the opening theme as a link throughout the
bulletin. However, too many stabs will annoy the listener and reduce the amount of time
available for real news.
Never use music as background to a news bulletin. It is distracting and ruins any variations
in pace within the bulletin.
It is possible to use a closing theme at the end of the bulletin, although this should be
different from the opening theme (you do not want to fool your listeners into thinking that
this is the start of the bulletin). The best compromise is to use the opening bars of a theme
at the start of the bulletin and use the closing bars at the end.