Broadcast News and Writing Stylebook

Robert Papper

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000094541
• Edition: 7
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Journalism
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Broadcast News and Writing Stylebook is the go-to resource for writing broadcast news, offering readers the know-how to write excellent stories for television, radio, podcasts and online media.

Through clear and concise chapters, this text provides the fundamental rules of broadcast news writing, teaching readers how to craft stories on government, crime, weather, education, health, sports and more. It covers the necessary mechanics news writers need to know, including the nuances of reporting, grammar, style and usage. This new seventh edition is updated with the latest on how stations incorporate online and social media strategies, as well as insights into the directions local news is headed. Author Robert A. Papper has over a quarter century of broadcast news and industry research experience and once again updates this vital text with the information necessary for being a successful news writer today. Also available for this edition is an Instructor's Guide, found on the book's webpage.

Whether you're a student seeking to learn the mechanics of successful broadcast news writing or a working professional looking for a definitive reference for your desk, Broadcast News and Writing Stylebook offers a comprehensive guide to writing for television, audio and beyond.

1

Ethics, Legality and the RTDNA and SPJ Codes of Ethics

Ethics

Proper ethical decision-making shouldn’t be tough. After all, it’s just doing what’s right, isn’t it? Yes, but apparently that’s harder to do – or perhaps harder to stick to – than it sounds.

Inventing quotes and interviews, stealing (plagiarizing) columns, inadequate fact-checking, running PR-supplied video or stories as if they’re news … the list of print and broadcast news failures has been widely reported.

The toll on the public’s perception of journalism is incalculable. The notion that it might be necessary to tell people not to cheat or invent or plagiarize seems absurd. Surely some things should go without saying. Apparently not.

Broadcast appears to have less of a problem with invented quotes and stories, but it’s probably just the nature of the beast. Television must have pictures, and it’s hard to fake that, although one network did use its “green screen” to make it look like their reporters were outside on location rather than inside a studio. Broadcast also relies heavily on bites which it either has or it doesn’t. Since broadcast journalists seldom ever quote (other than running bites), making them up would most often be a meaningless exercise.

There are still plenty of potential failings available. Getting the bites right doesn’t prevent them from being taken out of context. And editing one part of a bite to another could well change the meaning of what someone said.

Where broadcasters can and too often do go wrong:

• Stations periodically run video that they get from public relations or government sources without identifying the source of the video. A few stations were embarrassingly burned when it turned out that they ran PR-supplied video complete with a PR-supplied “reporter” – again, without identifying the source of the video.
• A number of stations have run what looked like news interview programs without identifying that the people interviewed had paid to be on the program. The stations justified the practice by arguing that active news people didn’t produce or host the show. But a more relevant question is what the audience thought.
• Electronic altering of images is now so easy that it’s not hard for the unscrupulous or thoughtless to change backgrounds, signs or other visual elements. Of course, this is also a danger in print.

There are probably two bigger threats to journalistic credibility and integrity. Not unique to broadcast, to be sure, but problematic.

1. Advertiser influence. Is a station willing to take on an advertiser if that advertiser has done something wrong? Think about how often you’ve seen news reports – print or broadcast – critical of a local car dealer. Hardly ever.
2. Sensationalizing and the consequent cheapening of the news. It’s probably worse in promos and teases than the news stories themselves, but that’s not a distinction the audience is going to make or care about. Every time journalists say a word, every time a picture airs, media credibility is on the line. It’s infinitely easier to damage a reputation than regain one.

A useful guideline: If you wouldn’t tell the audience everything you did to gather and report the story, then don’t do it.

Advocacy journalism (like that practiced by Michael Moore in Sicko and Capitalism: A Love Story) has its place and a long history in this country. But it’s not what we do day in and day out. The news audience shouldn’t be able to determine where a reporter stands politically based on what’s supposed to be an impartial report. At the same time, allowing a politician to make a blatantly false claim – without challenging that assertion – misleads and disserves the audience. It’s all in how you handle the material.

Years ago, when I was news director at a public radio station, I called in one of our reporters to ask whether she was aware that a bite she used from a state legislator was factually incorrect? Yes, she was aware of that, she said. So why did she run it? Because he said it, and he’s a state legislator. Not the right answer. Our primary – really, our only – obligation is to our audience. You cannot run factually inaccurate information without ensuring that the audience is told what is true. Running a factually inaccurate bite and explaining what the facts really are may make sense if you’re dealing with someone who frequently invents information, and you’re trying to demonstrate that. But if that’s not what you’re doing, then you’re just using up precious air time for no particular reason or working at belittling someone. We are in the business of telling people the truth about events. Everyone is entitled to his or her opinion, but they are not entitled to their own facts. Don’t censure opinions … but don’t mislead your audience on facts.

While charges of bias get more attention, journalism is probably more at risk from the sheer volume of mistakes made every day. Talk to anyone who has been touched by the news, and they’ll complain about how a reporter confused dates, misspelled the name of the street or town or people, misstated the number of something. The list goes on and on. Death by a thousand cuts. There will always be issues of interpretation or emphasis. Someone may feel that a journalist didn’t emphasize a particular point enough or left a subtle misimpression. That’s a different and debatable issue. Not open to interpretation or debate is getting the facts right.

Journalism is neither rocket science nor brain surgery, but everyone needs to remember that people’s lives, livelihoods and reputations are at stake in virtually every story.

Consider this a plea for more care and attention to detail to help preserve your reputation, the reputation of the news outlet you work for and, most importantly, the reputation of the people whose lives you touch.

Ethics isn’t simply a topic handled in one chapter of a book. You’ll find issues involving ethical decision-making and ethical behavior in almost every chapter.

Fake News and the Question of Whether Facts Are Facts

Journalists and news organizations have been under attack to an extent not seen since the early days of the republic. Constant railing against the media and stirring up anti-journalist fervor in a large crowd and among extremist groups have made journalism an increasingly dangerous profession. Four journalists were shot dead in Maryland in 2018.

Fake news exists – primarily in material invented by political operatives in this country and in other countries – aimed at disrupting the American political system or specific candidates or simply to sow distrust in the media.

Every news organization is likely to make a mistake now and then. But there’s a difference between error and fake news. Fake news operations don’t apologize for their mistakes; they were intentional, after all. Real news organizations make corrections and apologize for errors and omissions.

We also need to draw critical distinctions between facts and opinions. Facts are facts. They may be subject to differing interpretations, but the facts themselves are immutable. Again, different people may interpret those facts in different ways and draw differing meanings or conclusions from them. But the facts, themselves do not change.

The president of the United States may say that he didn’t say something. But, in the final analysis, he either did or did not, and there’s likely a record of that fact. He may wish he hadn’t said it; he may feel that he has misspoken; he may have changed his mind. But none of that alters the fact of whether he said it.

Supporters and detractors may all have opinions on whether the president’s comments were appropriate or not … whether they were well thought out or reckless … whether they were cogent or irrational. And all those people have a right to their opinions, and a journalist should seek out differing opinions and perspectives. But none of those opinions change the facts. So when a presidential aide said – as she did – that there were “alternative facts” … that’s simply not true. There may be additional facts that come to bear on a topic. There are undoubtedly plenty of differing opinions about those facts. But there’s really only one set of facts.

Trust in the Media

A lack of trust in the news media is clearly a significant problem today, but whether that’s getting better or worse seems to depend on the interpretations of the same data.

Gallup has been surveying trust in the news media since 1972. That year, 68% said they trusted the news media a great deal or a fair amount. The number actually rose to a peak of 72% in 1976 (think shades of Watergate).

The next time Gallup surveyed news media trust was in 1997, and the level of trust was down to 53%. It remained in the 50s until 2004, then it dipped to 44% … rising to 50% in 2005 … then back in the 40s until 2016, when it fell to an all-time low of 32%. Trust in news media went up to 41% in 2017 and to 45% in 2018.

That 2018 number led Gallup to issue a release in October of 2018 entitled, “US Media Trust Continues to Recover from 2016 Low.”

But just a month before that, Columbia Journalism Review published an article entitled, “Most Americans say they have lost trust in the media.” The article was based on a new Knight Foundation and Gallup poll. Yes, that’s the same Gallup.

But the results are based on two different surveys conducted in June 2018 (in conjunction with Knight) and September (for Gallup’s own survey). And the methodology was different. Gallup’s simple trust in media survey was conducted via phone; the Knight-sponsored survey was far more detailed and done online by a Gallup-recruited panel. Online surveys are relatively inexpensive and easy to do, but a lengthy online survey means you’re dealing with a subset of the country because you’re excluding those without internet at home and almost certainly those without high-speed internet at home (because the survey would take too long without a high-speed connection).

The two surveys present their own caution to journalists. The surveys appear, on the surface, to make contradictory claims. But they’re actually looking at the same picture from different angles – and choosing to emphasize different points. Neither is wrong, but they leave very different impressions with their audiences.

In the Knight-sponsored survey, 69% said “their trust in the news media has decreased in the past decade,” with 4% saying it had increased and 26% saying their trust was unchanged. The political views of the respondents made a huge difference in their response. Ninety-four percent of Republicans and 95% of conservatives said their trust had decreased in the last decade. Compare that to 75% of independents; 66% of moderates; 42% of Democrats; and 46% of liberals.

Clearly, political views make a difference, and a majority of each group said they trusted “only some [news media], but not others.”

Trust issues centered on inaccurate/misleading reporting and bias on the part of the news media. Or at least some of the news media.

Of course, it’s hard to argue that point given Fox News and its conservative/right-leaning/Republican orientation and MSNBC with its liberal/left-leaning/Democrat orientation. But that’s cable news. ...