Everything I learned about writing for TV I learned in a community television station. At least the practical side of it. A classmate and I interned then later worked for (a year or so) the local television station back home. There we learned how to cover and shoot events, interview sources, write copy for the late afternoon newscast in the local language, edit video, sequence the news program, and even direct the live broadcast of several episodes.

Everyday it seemed was an exhilarating adventure that would begin with doing the rounds of government offices, the police station and military camps (this was in the late '80s), and other events we were requested to cover. We would be back at the TV station early afternoon, just in time for a late lunch and a quick conference of what stories to include for the early evening news.

The rest of the afternoon would be spent previewing and editing video footages (including some sent from the main station in Metro Manila) that would go with the news reports. This was really practical application of what I learned in class about visual thinking. 

Then we would soon be literally pounding on the sturdy typewriters the stories our news readers (we had two to write for) would deliver on air. Everyday we would always be rushing to beat the clock as air time neared. And to think that was only for a 30 minute news program -- actually less if you counted the "intro," "outro," "tosses," and the breaks for commercials.

It helped that we previously interned in a local newspaper and got used to writing news articles. We knew more or less what stories to explore, how to look for an angle that would grab our readers' interest, how to structure the information we got from our sources, etc.

But we soon realized that writing copy for TV news broadcast differed from what we wrote for print media. For one, we knew our copy should always come with some visuals -- and we don't mean just the "talking heads" reading the news.

At first I thought the visuals would do it. But my editor told me that visuals are only as good as the copy we write. And that's how I got into the habit of analyzing news stories broadcast on major TV networks and began to emulate how professionals would write their reports. My editor thought I was getting the hang of it, saying that my copy was beginning to "sound good" like the best of them.

For that's how copy should be composed -- it should sound good to the ear. Like writing for radio, copy always is directed at the listener's ear. For TV viewers usually treat television as background noise. They only turn their gaze at the screen once they hear something interesting. And so I learned that the first sentence should grab the viewer's attention, should literally "hook" them, so they'd watch and listen to the visuals and copy you've written.

It helped that our news program used the local language. Our audience, used to AM radio, wanted their news reported to them in a familiar language. While we would show footage of national news that was a day old (sent through courier), the feedback we got was that our viewers "understood" events better because our copy was written in their first language.

As W. Richard Whitaker and his co-authors say, in their MediaWriting: Print, Broadcast and Public Relations (2nd ed.; New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2004), copy for news broadcasts should be written in a simple, direct, and more conversational style. They suggest writers (in English) follow the "Rule of 20" syllables per sentence, with about 15 words or less per sentence, with variations in sentence length throughout, and with one thought or idea per sentence. They also caution writers from using too many s, th, and ing sounds as these would create some hiss or other annoying sounds over the air. It also makes reading the copy difficult for your news readers. Try reading aloud what you've written and listen to how your words and sentences flow, then rewrite the part that made you stumble over your words or where your tongue got twisted.

Yes, even for stories like the one below from GMA's 24 Oras:

More of a news feature than a report, the two-minute story packs quite a lot of information -- the so-called jejemon, their texting style, fashion, and their converts. It does with graphics, VOs (voice-overs), SOTs (sound on tape) and sound bites the more complicated info. But the copy sounds conversational enough. Of course, the polysyllabic words of Tagalog doesn't allow the reporter to follow the Rule of 20. But then, he makes up for it by structuring his copy into easily comprehensible parts.

But what if we have to tell our news story in a limited amount of time (like 30 seconds)? What to do? Whitaker et al. suggests we condense our data by deciding what's important about the story. Here's a link from NewsLab to help us find our focus. Once we know what news peg and angle to hang our story from, we sort out the info we can use and toss out the rest. Then we write our story, using lesser words than we would if writing for print. We also tighten our sentences, and make it more interesting by using the active voice and with vivid descriptive verbs.

We don't forget to have a short but attention-grabbing lead that will hook our viewers, of course. Whitaker et al. classifies three basic broadcast leads:

• Single-act lead – what happened, who did what, etc.
• Umbrella and comprehensive lead – related stories or several items in one story
• Chronological narrative lead – events over time

Whatever we choose to tell our story, we begin with a soft or delayed lead (also called warm-up or tune-in) but we make it work like how the headline works for a story in print.

We also need to decide how to package our story. And as NewsLab suggests, remember that stories don't come with a prefab format. We can always choose the format we think will tell the story best. News reports come in basically four formats:

• Reader copy with onscreen graphic insert behind anchor
• Voice-overs (V-O)
• SOT (sound on tape) and sound bites
• Standuppers, usually with B-rolls (and with lead-in)

But that should not stop us from innovating, or doing some mix-and-match. We just make sure we have the footage or the graphics to go with it.

Let's read Chapters 10 and 11 of MediaWriting: Print, Broadcast, and Public Relations for more tips on how to write copy for news broadcasts. Especially since our assignment this time will require a bit of production. We'll cover and shoot a news event in school, then sequence shots and write news copy for the story (using the dual-column format), and put together the news stories into a news program. Are we ready?

Here are two of the students' works (one in English and the other in Bisaya; still trying to upload another written in Tagalog):