Week1: Discussion 1 and 2 Student Response

ThursdayNov 16 at 3:53am

Manage Discussion Entry

Writing for broadcast is very different than writing to be read; sound, body language, and tone are some of the elements that make the difference. "Writing for television is complex and multilayered. It requires skill and awareness involving several senses and multiple crafts, not to mention talent, plus knowledge of the principles and ideals that guide all of the journalism." (Konner, 2003). The story in this video is delivered by a reporter of the TV Station 7 News Channel. The story is about the dismembered body of a German Shepherd found inside a cooler in North Miami Beach, Florida. The video is two minutes long and makes use of the following techniques described by Stovall in the textbook:

Avoid abbreviations, even on the second reference.

Miami Beach Police Department could be abbreviated as MBPD; however, it isn't.

Use as little punctuation as possible

Not much punctuation is noticed in the report.

Avoid apposition

No appositional phrases.

Avoid extended description.

Instead of referring to the lady as the woman who found the dismembered dog; the reporter refers to her just as "the woman."

Avoid third-person pronouns

Third person nouns are used in the story, for example when the reporter says, "she and police want to find out who did it"; however, since there's only one woman in the story it's clear who the reporter is referring to.

Some other of the techniques out of the 15 mentioned by Stovall are used and over understood, like the use of little punctuation and the avoidance of symbols; they are apparent when listening to the report. "The broadcast writer should always remember that the simple sentence—subject, verb, object—is the best format to use." (Stovall, 2015).

References

Stovall, J. G. (2015). Writing for the mass media (9th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.

Konner, J. (2003). Make It Memorable: Writing and Packaging TV News with Style. Journalism and Mass Communication Educator, (3), 305