A news bulletin is the summary of the latest important stories in a radio station’s area. It’s a good idea to make it as brief as possible without leaving out important information. It also has to be up-to-date, because listeners are interested in things that happened on the day they hear the news – not yesterday or last week.
You need to rank the stories according to their importance in the bulletin, and you also need to think about the pace of each story. The report of a fire, for example, will have short snappy sentences, using simple words to convey straightforward ideas. But a story explaining a complex political controversy may need slightly longer sentences to express more complicated ideas, and it will have a slower pace.
Grabs should be kept to a minimum – they distract from the main news and can cause your listeners to switch off. If you are using a grab from another language, you should overdub it with a translation – this makes the sound clearer and more listenable for your audience.
Many stations like to have a light or funny story at the end of their bulletin, and it can be very effective if well written. However, it is a good idea to treat these differently from other stories if you want to maintain your bulletin’s credibility and integrity.
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