Capturing and keeping the interest of your audience in the items you are presenting is essential – it’s too easy for viewers to click on to another channel.

Ben Fajzullin is a highly experienced broadcast journalist and one of Deutsche Welle’s most versatile TV presenters. Ben is one of the station’s main news anchors, presents and produces business news and hosts Made in Germany. Ben also presented and reported for the sports desk and DW Radio. In his native Australia, Ben hosted the national evening news on the public TV broadcaster SBS.

For this post, we asked Ben to offer his tips for writing introductions for news and feature reports.

Along with Ben’s top ten writing tips, you can read example introductions and watch the corresponding video clips to get a sense of his style of delivery; writing to pictures; and most importantly, hear how his words sound on air.

1.  READ IN thoroughly – Get the whole story! Headlines can be misleading and the first couple of pars of wire copy may only give one side of the story.

2.  Establish THE CRUX of the story – This is the most important or interesting part. You can even spell it out, using phrases like: “The stunning part of the find is…”

Move over Dolly, the cloned sheep. Wally, the woolly mammoth, could soon be coming to a zoo near you. Global warming has lent Russian scientists a helping hand in discovering what they call the best preserved specimen of the prehistoric animal to date – a huge carcass, conserved deep in the melting ice off Russia’s far north. The stunning part of the find is liquid blood inside the creature, which could be used to clone it.

3.  GET THE AUDIENCE’S ATTENTION! – Think of a clever, funny or attention-grabbing way of introducing that key idea to your audience in your very first line, as in my example above. Forget formalities. News is serious enough. Have fun. Enjoy your job!

4.  KEEP IT SIMPLE – Use short sharp sentences (no subordinate clauses) and everyday words. Stick to just one figure in your introduction, if you need one. Using lots of figures will be confusing:

Now to the business of football – a serious one, with serious money involved – especially here in soccer-mad Germany. Last season, the Bundesliga raked in a new record in revenues – a total of two-billion euros. Of course, we’re talking about world-class football – and not to forget, a faithful and dedicated customer base. Here’s more.

5.  Scrap the prose and make it CONVERSATIONAL – Think: how would I explain this to my mother, my best friend or somebody who doesn’t know anything at all about the subject?

Yesterday, we were reporting on Germany’s dream run at the World Handball Championships. The young team was doing so well – surprising most pundits. But the Germans came up against hosts, Spain, in the quarterfinals, and were made to fight for every goal. But it still wasn’t enough.

6.  Use the ACTIVE VOICE – Better to use the simple present tense or present progressive and try to avoid adjectives.

7.  Drama doesn’t need to be over-dramatised. There’s no need in calling it “fierce fighting” or a “bloody conflict”. AVOID TAUTOLOGIES. A war itself is dramatic enough.

8.  Don’t forget your intro needs to FLOW into the first line of the report. And the end of the report can also influence your next intro. You may need to buffer shocking pictures, by pausing or commenting (and a warning before showing the footage would be good). Links or segues are also useful in guiding your viewers through a bulletin.

9.  Posing a QUESTION may work if you can’t think of anything else. This can be a good way to connect with your audience. Just make sure the question gets answered either in your introduction or in the report. Here’s an example of where I directly asked my co-anchor a question about dwindling newspaper sales to begin the intro: “Do you still subscribe to newspapers?” We also swayed from the script a little, ad libbing in parts, making it more genuine:

BEN: Do you still subscribe to newspapers? The hardcopy that is – as supposed to online editions? Well, that’s becoming a rarity. More and more newspaper publishers are faced with dwindling sales numbers. And as advertising revenue dries up, many papers are forced to downsize to stay afloat.

MONIKA: There is a lot to discuss at this year’s European NewsPAPER Congress which kicked off in Vienna today. While some blame the Internet for the downfall of traditional print media, others say that print media simply needs to reinvent itself.

10. READ IT ALOUD! – Always read your script out loud to make sure it sounds good. Rewrite anything that seems weird or is difficult to say. If you get it wrong in the first read, you’ll often get it wrong on-air – so change it!

If you have questions for Ben on broadcast writing leave a comment below or on our Facebook page.

By far the book that is always most sought after, if I refer to it during a workshop, is Rick Thompson’s Writing for Broadcast Journalists (Routledge, 2010).

It’s an excellent reference book, especially for news writing and language.

Thompson has packed this very travel-friendly volume full of useful examples of news scripts and different writing techniques for radio and television. My much thumbed second edition also has a chapter on online journalism and social media.

Yes, this book is very Anglo-centric and many of the examples are drawn from UK broadcasters, particularly the BBC. Workshop participants within the broadcast footprint of the BBC World Service will probably nod with approval. Our American journalist cousins might take issue with the section devoted to Americanisms, but some of us (including this Antipodean journalist) might say this is a good thing!

Advertisement in Lilongwe, Malawi (Photo: Guy Degen)

Writing for Broadcast Journalists is of course a book about language and using good English. If you cringe at weasel words such as “stakeholders” or “facilitate”, or hollow phrases such as “capacity building” or “scaling up”, (particularly when they are lobbed into interviews by development types) you’ll find the book’s appropriately titled appendix Dangerous words a good reference for jargon, cliches, journalese or misused words to avoid. I think Dangerous words also makes for a lively topic for discussion during a journalism workshop.

You can preview the book via Google here. And, do let us know if you have a good journalism reference book to recommend.

Author: Guy Degen

Understand what you write

That may seem obvious, but journalists often know only very little about what they’re writing. Don’t fool yourself into thinking readers won’t notice. Instead, take the time to familiarize yourself with the subject matter. I remember the time I was looking for an explanation of the eurozone bailout fund when it was a hot, new topic. Everything I found in wire reports and newspapers, whether online or print, all repeated the same mantra: a mass of technical jargon incomprehensible to lay people. Probably not even the authors understood what they were reporting. So instead I made a quick call to an institute and spoke to a real economics expert who was able to give me a straightforward explanation. That was just what I needed. And that brings me to the next point:

Ask! You’re a journalist!

“I once heard that South Pacific tortoises dance on three legs during the full moon as part of their mating ritual. But surely you already know that since you’re a journalist!” Nope, I didn’t know that. Journalists should be informed, but they don’t have to know everything about everything. We’re not walking encyclopedias. We should, however, know how to track down the people who do know a lot about a particular topic.

So be creative when it comes to searching for sources. You don’t have to keep going back to the usual suspects for all your research. Nowadays, the Internet makes that easy. While reading, searching and surfing you’ll come across all kinds of potential sources – and new, unanswered questions. Ask away! Don’t let your lack of knowledge hold you back.

What’s the story?

By now you’ve researched, read up on your topic, asked questions and understood all the details, so you’re already half way there. If you approach your article with clear ideas and enough information, your writing will flow much more easily.

You’ve probably collected more data then you can feasibly use. Separate the wheat from the chaff by weeding out any unnecessary information. You can follow rules, such as the hypothesis of thesis, antithesis, synthesis, or even break them if you like. But whatever you do, it’s important to have a clear idea of the story you want to tell and how you want to tell it.

Killer headlines

To be honest, I’m not good at writing headlines. I’ve read lots on the topic, but that hasn’t helped much. I simply don’t have a gift for them. But headlines are an essential part of the process. They can make or break your article. If headlines and subheads pose as great a problem for you as they do for me, there’s only one solution: Seek out a colleague who’s good at writing headlines and be very kind to that person. He or she could become an invaluable mentor!

Start out strong

The teaser and intro are essential. Even after a riveting headline you could still lose your readers’ interest. Straight news items don’t leave much room for movement, but if you’re writing in a different genre, such as an opinion piece, reportage or a feature story, be creative, courageous and innovative! The who/what/where/when/why/how questions and the inverted pyramid principle are the bread-and-butter tools of news writing. But in the freestyle parts of journalism you’re allowed to break the rules once in a while – if and when appropriate.

Surprise your readers, grab their attention so that they are compelled to read the next sentence, and the one after that, right through to the end.
Pace yourself. Don’t dish it out all at once.

I know that the 5Ws+1H are holy – and I’m not arguing for sacrilege. But not all the answers have to be packed into the very first sentence. Give your readers time to soak in the story, find their way around, contemplate what you’re saying and catch their breath on occasion. If there’s a lot of technical or complex information, it’s an especially good idea to present it in doses. Find the right rhythm for your story, anticipating when your reader needs important details. If he has to wait too long, he’ll lose patience and stop reading. But a little suspense is by all means okay. In between the hard facts there’s room for a more human-interest touch, for example reporting on a particular patient’s fate in a story about flaws in the healthcare system.

Stay on track

Nothing is more important than maintaining a logical train of thought. Playing with unexpected intros and different ways of storytelling doesn’t mean opening the door to anarchy. Every text needs a structure. Its parts must form a whole. Make the transitions – from the extraordinary to the commonplace, from the hard facts to the personal experiences – flow coherently and logically. Your reader should be able to follow how you move from A to B. Don’t let him get stuck or stumble. The path you take him down should be clearly discernible and point to an end. That way he’ll be willing to go along for the journey.

Wrapping up

The conclusion is equally as important as your introduction. After all, you don’t want to give your readership a sense of disappointment after having reached the finish line. Besides, you’d like them to come back to read your next piece, too. So muster up all your creativity to write a strong ending.
You can wrap up your article by drawing a conclusion, if that’s possible, or by posing a question if there are still open aspects, or with a brief summary if the topic is complex. A common and often useful method is to end with a quote. During interviews, take note of any strong, insightful remarks. They might make a good beginning or ending to your story. If you’ve got literary flair, this is a good time to exhibit your skills. But don’t be overly dramatic.
Regardless of how you choose to finish, make sure that the closing fits in with the rest of your story. Don’t end abruptly. That would be like leaving a gaping hole for your readers to fall into, never to be seen again.

Author: Luna Bolivar