2 CBBJ3203: Topic 3: TYPES OF BROADCAST NEWS AND COVERAGE.

2 CBBJ3203: Topic 3: TYPES OF BROADCAST NEWS AND COVERAGE.

INTRODUCTION

In broadcast news, journalists have to identify the form and the types of news reports. Every type of news has a different coordination structure, nevertheless they require the same commitment.

This topic explains the types of news and coverage that is usually reported in broadcasting. This part will discuss the techniques that can be used by journalists during their news coverage.

3.1       OFFICIAL FUNCTION

To report news on official functions requires great creativity. This news is categorised as non-visual news because the visuals are restricted to what is happening in a room or hall.

Visuals that are usually highlighted are the attendees, officials and the speakers as well as several other side activities. Thus, if the concept of visual narration has to be incorporated here, the news reported will not portray the actual news. The news that is intended to be presented by the journalist usually does not report or tell the public about the existence of certain seminars, workshops, press conference or the like. What is reported are issues and/or personalities found at the time of the event, meeting or discussion in the workshops held.

SELF-CHECK 3.1 Since coverage on types of functions has been explained earlier in this topic, how do you write and present a youth assembly news package at your place?

3.1.1 Tips to Make a Good Coverage about Official Functions.

In an official coverage, you have to abide by several functions’ ethics. Several tips on journalism must also be looked into carefully so that you will not feel awkward being in the ceremony.

Figure 3.1: Tips to make function’s coverage

Arrive early at the event.

Get text / statement

Be well-mannerred

Journalist’s involvement

Appearance

Make-up

Prompting Technique.

(a) Arrive Early at the Event It is important for you to determine the suitable position of the camera. As a journalist, you have to be near the cameraman so that it would be easy to give instructions.

- Arrive Early at the Event

- It is important for you to determine the suitable position of the camera. As a journalist, you have to be near the cameraman so that it would be easy to give instructions.

(b) Get Text/Statement

Usually the organiser will prepare press kits. From the press kits, get all the significant information for the news.

(c) Be Well-mannered Being well-mannered is important in every situation. To be an excellent journalist who holds on to high ethical values, follow these tips:

(i) DO NOT disturb other journalists and other people while reporting. Respect the event although you are doing your work at that time.

(ii) If you are doing a stand-upper, find a location that does not disturb other journalists. If the location does not allow stand-upper to be done at the time the event is being held, find a place that is a little further, quiet so that the report can be done effectively.

(d) Journalist’s Involvement As a journalist, you have to play an important role. You have to pose questions for answers that you want. Identify the information that you need to know from your involvement.

(e) Appearance

You have to respect the event held. Adhere to the following principles so that you can be a dedicated and disciplined journalist: Choose a suitable dress. For a female journalist, DO NOT wear excessive accessories or wear very bright clothes or anything outstanding which can catch people’s attention.

(f) Make-up

A female journalist can put on light make-up, which suits the event being covered.

(g) Prompting Technique

If you need to report an event outside the studio, there are several aspects that you need to look at carefully before you start doing your report. Study the following aspects to enhance your skills in covering this broadcast.

3.2 CRIME NEWS COVERAGE

SELF-CHECK 3.2 What are the challenges faced by journalists during crime news coverage?

Normally, crime news is easy to do because it is more interesting and needs immediate attention.

Even though in terms of visuals, crime news have better appeal, in terms of its reporting, it is a little difficult compared to other types of news especially for crimes that involve police and the court. Usually journalists face difficulty if the victims refuse to be interviewed and certain incidents cannot be reported because they have not gone to trial yet.

The main question that should be asked when journalists cover crime news is:

High crime rates daily makes it difficult for journalists to select the news. Here, news judgement is vital and discretion should be practiced.

3.2.1 Tips to Make Good Crime News Coverage

(a) Identify Those Who are Involved You have to identify those involved in solving the problem related to the event or the incident. You also have to know who are involved in collecting evidence, weaponry and bullets experts, post-mortem, etc. At least you know what is being done. By doing so, you can start to record spontaneous visuals without having to wait for what the source has to say.

(b) Talk to the Police Involved Before Conducting an Interview This situation can promote intimacy. Besides, it can also avoid the usage of jargon or terms, which are unknown to journalists. However, if jargons are used, try to get clarification from the source.

(c) Reconstruction of What has Happened Journalists covering crime news usually use this technique. You can use the following tips to get a good and effective coverage:

(i) Get the details from the source, whether from the police or witness at the scene.

(ii) Use the camera to show every step of the scene. At this time, evidence like the bodies, victims, bullets and others no longer exists. However, if you are able to successfully reconstruct the scene as per the visual provided, you will be able to help the audience picture the incident better.

3.3 COURT NEWS COVERAGE

A journalist’s main challenge in the courtroom is to get visuals. Usually, the court does not allow cameras. However, today there are courtrooms that allow cameramen to take particular pictures.

In a normal condition, the farthest a camera can be placed is at the corridor of a courtroom. Therefore, most visuals we get usually show the judge, witnesses or convicts going in and out of the courtroom. Because of the difficulty of getting visuals that illustrate the scene in the courtroom, the service of a courtroom artist is used to get visuals of the event.

Another way of getting a meaningful visual is for a journalist to do the coverage on the first day of the event. Visuals that tell “what” happens can be made into file footage for following days.

ACTIVITY 3.1 From your observation, how does the local TV report crime news?

3.4 SPORTS NEWS COVERAGE

Basically, writing sports news is the same as writing any other news coverage. The only thing that differentiates sports news and other news is the writing of leads. The lead of sports usually emphasises “who” and “how” the sports event was held while the leads of other news usually emphasise “who” and “what” happens in the coverage.

3.4.1 Tips to Make Good Sports News Coverage

(a) “Appreciate How” the Sports is Played As a journalist, you have to “appreciate how” the sports taking place is played. Or else, at least you make an effort to understand the rules of the game. The challenge at this moment is to “teach” the audience about the sports, is played or just tell what is happening.

(b) Read a Lot of Sports News You have to read a lot of sports news as well as whatever is relevant to sports like the sports magazines and others. Besides that, you must meet the teams competing in the game to get the game plan, strategy and the players who are competing, especially the main player who is expected to be the play maker.

(c) Form Your Own Presentation In terms of presentation, it is not wrong to imitate the style of presentation of the current news presenter. However, you have to form your own presentation.

Figure 3.4 explains the way to do sports news coverage. Figure 3.4: Way to do sports news coverage

The biggest challenge in covering sports news is looking through the viewfinder and trying to follow the game movement and action quickly. In order to overcome that challenge, you can utilise the following tips:

(a) Use as Many Wide Shot (WS) Although WS can create loss of concentration, excitement and audience interest, yet it can record the actions in the overall games.

(b) Use Follow Action This is the most vital aspect. You have to use follow action because it can make the audience “feel” and follow the sports event.

3.4.2 Form of Sports Report

Before doing a sports report, you need to get the game plan and a the playmaker. This means, as a sports journalist, you have to meet the teams, competing to get the game strategy, the main player line-up and teams, expectations for use as broadcast news materials.

There are THREE forms of sports news coverage, first: shoot highlight, second: shoot feature story or documentary, and third: combination of the first and the second.

Figure 3.5: Forms of sports report

(a) Shoot Highlights of the Sports Event In doing such coverage, you have to choose a suitable camera location. If you are skilful in doing such coverage, you can take various shots. Nonetheless, you have to be wise in choosing what is the suitable to be used as highlights of the sports event. Sports highlight report will not be meaningful if you fail to record the main thing that is, taking the shots of goals scored when results are announced. Thus, you have to be quick just like the nature of the sports.

(b) Feature This form of coverage is the same with the highlight coverage. There are only a few more added elements that is you have to do, such as sequence, matched action and develop the report that comprises all sports events from beginning to the end. All these elements are easily obtained because the sports itself is an action. In sports news, your prudence of predicting the next move is needed and vital. You can anticipate when the score will be made and several other actions. There are two things that you need to concentrate on, especially in the sports events that use objects like balls, shuttlecocks and others.

(i) You have to be in a prepared position.

(ii) Put the object in the frame. This is to give space for unexpected actions, for instance ball flying up too high. Refer to the following figure to understand better.

a) Correct

(b) Incorrect

Figure 3.6: Visualises correct and incorrect object Figure 3.5

(a) shows the visualisation of the correct object because it does not go out from the frame compared to Figure 3.5 (b).

3.5 DEMONSTRATION NEWS COVERAGE.

SELF-CHECK 3.3

What is the best appearance for broadcast news journalist covering demonstration news? Television visuals can manipulate situations. Since the TV screen is small and limited in space, therefore a 10-people demonstration may be portrayed as tensed situation as if attended by 100 people. Besides the types of coverage that have been discussed, the following are several other forms of coverage in broadcast news in different fields. The following are the types of news coverage that are usually broadcast to the viewers (Cohler, 1994).

3.6 INVESTIGATIVE NEWS COVERAGE

Bob Green, winner of Pulitzer Prize for Journalism, defines “investigative report” as a report that is related to something that has been kept a secret by individuals or a group of people or organisation. The best example of investigative journalism is the Watergate case in the United States, which was exposed by two journalists - Woodward and Bernstein. Most investigative reports are handled by the printed media, specifically, newspapers. However, now there are several TV stations that have formed teams of investigators in their respective stations to compete in producing crime reports. There are at least six reports annually. This total is actually still insufficient and very limited for the broadcasting industry, especially to cater for a wider market.

3.6.1 Investigative Reporting Techniques

EXERCISE 3.1

In your opinion, how should the appearance of a journalist be, to conduct an investigative task? It is not easy to become an investigative journalist. You have to be involved in the world of journalism with solid experience, confidence and have the voice that can influence the viewers. According to Bob Green (Quoted in White, 1984), some people have a natural instinct that urges them to investigate. However, without the basics and solid experience in journalism, the talent will not be revealed through specified methods in the usage of sources as well as evaluation of news produced. Thus, as a broadcast journalist, you have to follow the following tips so that your report is able to satisfy the criteria of strong and effective investigative news based on the gathered sources.

(a) Steady Sources The source is the most important aspect in any news reports. In investigative reports, as a prudent journalist, you have to identify the sources including those that need their identities to be kept a secret. The use of the secret sources can only be used as an issue breaker. Sometimes, there is a useful third party in investigative reports. Thus, you have to study the next source including through documentation, old records, etc.

(b) Confidential Source Should you know what really happened, report the actual to the viewers. Do not hide facts although it is still considered as confidential to certain parties. If you do that, you have “betrayed” viewers by hiding the information that should be made known to them.

(c) Develop the Source Developing the source and knowing where to get the information is a vital skill that should be studied by investigative journalists. To learn that, you can probably ask other investigative journalists how they develop their sources. You can also the sources directly, who you think are honest in answering all your questions without hiding any facts, like the police for instance. Figure 3.7 explains the techniques of investigative news report.

Figure 3.7: Techniques of investigative news report

3.7 ECONOMY AND MEDICAL NEWS COVERAGE A good broadcast news coverage is when a journalist is able to report it specifically, orderly and firmly, but is still able to show how certain policies, issues or events effect and influence two or three individuals. As a journalist, you should not report the number of people who are unemployed, instead the news that you write should show how unemployment brings bad effects to a family, society and nation. The same applies when reporting medical news. It is not appropriate to report on the number of patients that can be treated, instead report how certain diseases are treated. The public is more interested in news that is able to enhance their knowledge. Thus, reporting the solutions of certain diseases is more appropriate than reporting news about the total number of patients that have been treated successfully by a medical centre and others. If you still insist on using this issue as your news scope, make it a side issue that supports the other points in your main topic. To test your understanding, please answer the following questions.

EXERCISE 3.2

1. Imagine you are a journalist in one of the local television stations. While you are on your way to work, you run into a horrific accident. At that time, you are without your cameraman. However, you brought with you a still camera. Explain how you would choose the sequence that has news values to be developed as a complete report about the incident.

2. Based on the news that you have chosen, write a broadcast news that is between one to three minutes. Use all the skills that you have learnt to report your news.

- After studying this topic, it is hoped that you will be able to discuss types of news coverage reported in broadcast news.

- It is important for a journalist like you to report certain issues or news that need to be made known to the audience.

- Therefore, the ability to identify precisely the types of news is needed for you to prepare yourself before going to the real reporting location.

- Later, we will discuss the technical aspects in gathering and producing broadcast news.