MODUL 6
ENGLISH FOR BROADCAST
Juwarti Hafsah, SS, M.Si
SUBJECT:
WRITING GREAT LEADS AND OTHER HELPFUL TIPS
DESCRIPTION: While reading the news text or being the presenter, someone must think about how to capture the viewer’s attention because the great honor of someone who talking in front of the public is when his voice or his performance will be interesting for everyone. On this modul, learnt about the tips that is useful for the news reader or presenter to be the great one when he gives information to everybody, such as how to conversate perfectly and how to capture the viewer’s attention.
GOAL : By learning and understanding modul 6, wish the students can:
1. Write and tell the conversation perfectly.
2. Can give the good performance to capture the viewer’s attention.
REFERENCES:
1. Broadcast Journalism, written by Andrew Boyd (Focal Press)
2. Tata Bahasa Bahasa Inggris, written by Erhans Anggawirya and friends (Indah)
3. An Indonesian-English Dictionary, written by John M. Echols and Hasan Shadily (Gramedia)
4. An English-Indonesian Dictionary, written by John M. Echols and Hasan Shadily (Gramedia)
Hard news is new and important information about events of significance. Soft news and human interest items are stories run for entertainment value first and their information second.
In the hard news story for broadcast there is no room for padding. The information must have the impact of an uppercut and connect with the audience in the first sentence.
The news angle
Sebelum menghadapi keyboard, seorang jurnalis harus memikirkan terlebih dahulu tentang dari sudut pandang mana ia akan mengambil cerita atau berita. Hal ini bergantung pada tempat dimana kejadian tersebut terjadi, apa yang sudah siap untuk dilaporkan, dan fakta-fakta baru apa saja yang bermunculan.
Sebagai contoh tentang kisah kecelakaan pesawat;
All 329 people on board were killed when an Air India jumbo jet crashed off the west coast of Ireland. The disaster made headlines throughout the world, but had special significance in India and Canada. The Indian national airline was involved and the plane had taken off from Toronto, bound for Bombay.
Sejumlah sudut pandang pun bermunculan menanggapi berita tersebut. Yang pertama adalah fakta bahwa adanya kecelakaan, dan diikuti oleh pertanyaan-pertanyaan, ‘when, where, why, and how many dead?’
Contoh lain;
Two people die when a bomb explodes in a suitcase unloaded from another Canadian flight, from Vancouver.
Kedua contoh berita di atas adalah dua kejadian yang terjadi secara bersamaan. Selanjutnya, muncul pertanyaan tentang ‘siapa yang meledakkan bom tersebut?’ Dua kelompok militan mengklaim bahwa kejadian tersebut pihak yang bertanggung jawab - Kashmir Liberation Army, dan Sikh Dashmesh Regiment.
Seorang reporter harus mampu menganalisa latar belakang para kaum teroris di berbagai belahan dunia, mengetahui sejarah dan atau perkembangan mereka serta mengamati motivasi yang mendorong mereka melakukan hal tersebut.
Sementara itu, sebuah hasil pengamatan dari pihak lain. Seiring bergulirnya waktu, berbagai pihak terkait yang berhak mengurusi kejadian tersebut menemukan beberapa bukti yang juga memunculkan asumsi-asumsi baru.
Singkatnya, sudut pandang sebuah cerita akan terus berubah seiring dengan perkembangan berita itu sendiri. Perkembangan yang dimaksud mencakup temuan-temuan baru dari berbagai pihak yang turut andil dalam penciptaan-penciptaan sebuah asumsi. Selain menyimak berbagai masukan atau asumsi-asumsi dari pihak lain, seorang reporter harus pula berusaha untuk memiliki asumsi pribadi yang mungkin kelak akan bisa di bagi dengan pihak lain.
Multi-angle stories
Berita-berita televisi dapat memuat kisah-kisah dalam jumlah banyak dan bersifat kompleks. Berita-berita tersebut dapat dirunut dengan baik dalam bahasa-bahasa yang logis dan didukung dengan gambar-gambar hasil liputan. Namun permasalahan lain-pun kemungkinan akan muncul ketika kisah-kisah yang ada memiliki lebih dari satu sudut pandang yang serupa di berbagai stasiun televisi. Multi-angled or umbrella story.
Langkah untuk menuliskan teks dengan tipe ini dengan intro rangkap - yang jika tidak menunjukkan intro akan memiliki panjang yang rangkap pula:
‘Today’s record crime figures reveal violence and sex attacks at an all-time high ... Police chiefs say the streets are turning into no-go areas because of the shortage of trained officers.’
Di sini kita memiliki dua contoh berita, yang pertama adalah kisah di atas mengenai gambaran kejahatan dan yang kedua adalah tentang reaksi pihak kepolisian - keduanya akan dikembangkan pada pelaporan lain berikutnya.
Kisah-kisah yang memiliki multi-sudut pandang kemungkinan akan muncul dari pemberitaan awal yang baik yang diikuti pula dengan pemberitaan yang serupa untuk kemungkinan dikombinasikan.
Hard news formula
Ada beberapa formula khusus dalam pemberitaan yang diuji cobakan pada pemberitaan melalui koran, radio dan televisi. Formula tersebut mengarah pada jawaban atas pertanyaan who, what, when, where, why dan how. Jawaban-jawaban tersebut akan sangat berdampak pada pemberitaan yang disajikan.
- What has happened?
- Where did it happen?
- When did it happen?
- Who was involved?
- How did it happen?
- Why did it happen?
- What does it mean?
Dengan tambahan informasi lain, jika masih ada sisa waktu yang memungkinkan untuk disajikan.
Kisah pemberitaan berawal dari fakta-fakta yang sangat penting, yang kesemuanya didukung oleh informasi terperinci, latar belakang dan interretasi, digunakan untuk mengarahkan kisah pemberitaan yang dimaksud kepada pemberitaan yang logis yang jelas dan dapat menjadi pusat perhatian.
The intro/ the lead
Pada saat sebuah anggapan muncul, penulis berita harus terlebih dahulu membuat introduction (pendahuluan), atau yang juga dikenal dengan sebutan intro atau lead - UK, atau headline sentence - USA. Kalimat pertama atau pembuka sangatlah penting untuk menjelaskan kisah selengkapnya. Sebagai fungsinya, antara lain:
· Menegaskan poin-poin yang signifikan
· Menarik perhatian
· Merangsang rasa penasaran
· Sebagai langkah untuk menunjuk kepada kisah selengkapnya.
Dua puluh atau tiga puluh kata-kata pertama berperan sebagai penghias sebuah sudut pandang untuk memancing perhatian. Kalimat pembuka haruslah jelas, atraktif, mengarah kepada penjelasan selanjutnya. Perlu diingat bahwa para pemirsa akan tertarik dan menunggu kisah selengkapnya dari berita yang akan anda bacakan bila ia tertarik pada kalimat pembuka atau pernyataan intro yang baik.
Beberapa stasiun televisi mungkin langsung menunjuk pada poin utama berita dalam menyampaikan beritanya.
Intro yang baik dan ideal sebaiknya pendek - tidak lebih dari 20 atau 30 kata; dan harus singkat, tidak mendetail, langsung dan memiliki kekuatan untuk membuat orang berhasrat untuk tahu lebih dalam mengenai kisahnya dalam berita selengkapnya.
Placing key words
Looking more closely at the second examle above, it might seem more direct to say ’16 people were killed this morning in a multiple car crash in downtown Lagos’. This would get over the important information and communicate well enough in print, but for broadcast news, putting the main point right at the beginning of the story could create a problem.
The reader of newspaper is led around the printed page by its layout. Each story is clearly separated from the one before and the reader can choose which items to look at and which to ignore from the headlines, which also prepare the reader for the information to come. Television approaches this with its graphics and strong visual element, but in the radio the layout is invisible and sometimes inaudible. Stories are separated by pauses and there is only the reader’s voice and the writer’s ability to help the listener tell where one story ends and the next begins.
With radio the problem is compounded because people tend to listen with half an ear while they tinker with the car, splash paint over the ceiling or shout at the children. Absolute attention is usually reserved for times of national crisis when families huddle in silent anticipation around their receivers.
COUNTRY SOUND ======== RADIO ======== | News Cue Sheet | |||||||||||
Title | Musician | Bulletin/tick/notes :::::::::::::: Bulletin/tick/notes | ||||||||||
Date | 29.9. -- | Time | 12.10 | |||||||||
Credit | Copy taken by | 06.00 | 14.00 | |||||||||
07.00 | 15.00 | |||||||||||
08.00 | 16.00 | |||||||||||
Words | Natalie | Audio | Natalie | 09.00 | 17.00 | |||||||
For broadcast today --- lunch | 10.00 | 18.00 | ||||||||||
Cut taken from |
| |||||||||||
Detectives hunting the triple railway killer - who murdered HORSLEY schoolgirl MARTY TAMBOEZER - are fiercely denying reports the man they want to trap is a musician. And they say he didn’t kill all THREE victims by tying guitar string arund their throats and throttling them to death. SUPERINTENDENT JOHN HIRST at GUILDFORD CID says the article in a SUNDAY newspaper is totally inaccurate. | ||||||||||||
CUT | Musician | |||||||||||
DUR | 19 | |||||||||||
OUT | Irresponsible | |||||||||||
Total | 40 | |||||||||||
Under normal circumtances, the first few words of a news item may easily slip by unnoticed. If the main point does escape the audience, then by the time their attention is drawn back to the story, the whole meaning of the piece may be lost. So avoid putting key words right at the beginning.
Feature openers
Not all opening sentences follow the hard news formula. The feature, human interest or soft news story is primarily for entertainment, so the order in which the information is given less important. What matters most is that the story brings a moment of light relief to the audience, and this calls for a different writing technique:
‘If you’ve got thing about creepy crawlies and the thought of stepping on a snake makes you sick, then spare a thought for Jeb Winston from Canberra.
‘Jeb’s going to be surrounded by snakes … many of them poisonous … for up to a fortnight. He’s planning to sit cross legged in an eight by six tank with more than forty serpents to keep him company in a bid to break the world record for snake-sitting.’
The hard news formula calls for the meat of the story in the first line, but the introductory paragraph here teases the audience into wanting to get to the bottom of the matter by beginning with a tantalizing appeal to the emotions.
The style is conversational, even anecdotal, and contrasts with the brisk formality of hard news. The story is relaxed, and so is the style of its writing and delivery. This easygoing and informal approach is often used for cheerful end-of-bulletin items.
Most bulletin stories will be written in the straight-backed, concise, hard news style. But the same story can undergo a revolution in style when written in greater detail for a longer programme. Where the presenter is given room to be a ‘personality’, the writing will often loosen up to take on chattier, more relaxed and discursive approach:
Bulletin intro: ‘Three counties in New Mexico have been declared disaster areas after a winter storm claimed the lives of five people.’
Programme intro: ‘The weather continues to make big news. Some places have more snow than they handle and others, it seems, can’t get enough of it. While St. Paul in Minnesota is having to import 600 tons of snow before it can stage its Winter Carnival, elsewhere snowdrifts of up to seven feet are paralysing whole areas and claiming lives. In New Mexico, three counties have been declared disaster area, after being hit by savage winter storms which killed five people.’
The feature style, which leads the audience into the story rather than presenting them with the facts in the first line, is used more freely, wherever greater emphasis is placed on entertainment and a lighter touch than on straightforward and sometimes impersonal, hard news.
Developing the story
Finding the intro is the hardest task in newswriting. Once that is settled the rest of the item will usually fall into place.
The next step is to list the points in their logical order, constructing a story that progresses from point without running back on itself or leaving the listener dangling for an explanation.
Explanation usuallyfollows the introduction, and after that comes more detail (beware of clutter), and the tying up of loose ends. This has been described as the WHAT formula:
The WHAT formula
W What has happened? The introduction tells the story in brief.
H How did it happen? Explain the immediate background or context.
A Amplify the introduction. Flesh out the main points in order of importance.
T Tie up loose ends. Give additional background material.
The final story should answer the questions, who, what, when, where, why, and how, though not necessarily in that order.
The trickiest part is deciding which facts to include and which to leave out. A 20-second story is only 60 words long, which leaves no room for superflous detail. Frequently, important points have to give way if vital points are to remain.
The test of non-essential information is, does the audience need it to make sense of the story, or will the story stand up without it?
In the case of our snake sitter above, his name and where he comes from are important, but his middle names, the name of his road and the number of his house are irrelevant. The details of how he and the snakes will be fed over the fortnight might be interesting, but could be dropped if space is short, while his chances of surviving unbitten and what would happen if a snake did sink its fangs into him would be well worth a mention.
Simply stated, the skill is to write up the information in order of importance until space runs out and then leave the rest.
