Tips for Writing Faster on a Newsroom Deadline

Tips for Writing Faster on a Newsroom DeadlineTips for Writing Faster on a Newsroom DeadlineHow to write faster on a nachrichtenroom deadline is the skill that news reporters must master in order to advance in their careers. Miss too many deadlines and youll be writing a media resume as you head to the unemployment line. Plan Your News Story As youre leaving the newsroom to cover a story, use the time in the car to plan what you want to say. Sure, youre not even on the scene of the huge fire, news conference or ribbon cutting, but you already know something about the story or else you wouldnt be going. Try to get the focus of your story down to one sentence. That will be the basis for writing the lead, whether youre trying to come up with something for a TV news anchor to say or youre trying to write headlines for the web. Think About the Visuals Shooting great video used to only apply to television news. Today, newspaper reporters and web journalists are often required to br ing back video to go with their stories. Thats why you should think about what viewers or readers will binnensee along with your words. Considering what will make the most compelling visual images will help you get started with your writing. One of the top 10 tips for TV news writing is to write to your video that is, to say something about what viewers are seeing, rather than going off on an unrelated tangent. Conduct Focused Interviews If youre in a rush while on the scene of a news story, you can save time when conducting bewerberinterviews if you know what you want to ask and stick to that. Otherwise, youll easily fall victim to a rambling interview that you wont have time to review or use in your story. These TV interview tips can apply to all media. Get the facts quickly, ask the necessary follow-ups and stop. Develop the self-discipline to know when an interview is over so that youll save precious writing time. Conducting an interview in a combative news situation presen ts its own challenges that can eat into your time. Even then, the saatkorn planning beforehand will pay off because youll know exactly what you must get out of the interview and can cut it off before it veers off into an unwanted direction. Produce a Focused Story You already thought of your lead sentence, so now comes writing the rest of your story. Some basic writing tricks can help you write faster. Think in groups of threes the three points your interview made, the three parts of the issue youre covering, the three reasons why your story matters to people at home. These items construct the backbone for your story. Then you write to fill in the gaps. Check out these specific tips on writing crime stories, writing political stories or writing retail business stories. No matter what type of deadline you face, avoid making critical errors in your writing. Your boss would undoubtedly rather have you miss a deadline than being hit with a lawsuit because of your rushed reporting. Avoid the Obstacles That Will Slow You Down Some aspects of news gathering and writing can put you at a standstill. Plan for these issues so that you can avoid them. One is forgetting to get all the information you need at the scene, meeting or interview location. You return to your desk and suddenly remember a key question you forgot to ask. Often that happens as you start writing a sentence then realize you cant finish it because an important fact is missing. Working fast doesnt mean to get yourself into such a frenzy that you miss steps. Its far easier to ask a police investigator on the scene what type of gun was used in a robbery than to try to make phone calls later, only to find out the investigator went to lunch and your deadline is just minutes away. Take a few minutes before you leave the location of your story to ask yourself if you have everything you need. Make a mental checklist, or even a written one, so that you can mark off all of the essential elements you have to have video, interviews, and fact-verification. Prepare for the Follow-ups Writing faster usually means leaving out related, but unnecessary parts of the story. Many of those parts would make for excellent follow-up stories for the coming days. Knowing that you can always report on these aspects of the story in the future makes it easier to leave them out of your initial report. Itll be easier to fight the temptation to simply dump every bit of information into the computer and then face a struggle of getting it all organized. The parts of your story that need further investigation or confirmation can often wait for when you have time. As long as you can accurately report the basic facts, you can publish a story. Writing faster news stories will be a skill that youll constantly work on throughout your career. Sometimes you have an entire day to develop a perfectly-executed news story, sometimes you have only minutes. Be ready for both situations and youll have success.