A news bulletin is a short radio or television news summary of the day’s main stories. It provides the bare facts of the story, which are then covered in more depth in a full programme or newspaper. Creating news bulletins requires discipline: clarity, brevity and vividness are crucial. It also involves editing – selecting, checking and ranking stories. This training module was written for journalism students in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, who are studying broadcast journalism and creating radio news bulletins.
It is important to understand your audience and what they want to hear. For example, a local, regional or national audience may not be interested in the world’s top stories if they do not have relevance to them. They are likely to be more interested in health, education, jobs, homes, science and technology, culture, social developments and sports.
The length of each news story should be kept to a minimum and it is useful to know the newsreader’s reading rate to ensure that they do not lose listeners during a bulletin. The use of sound bites can make a news bulletin more interesting and credible, especially when they include first-hand evidence from witnesses or experts.
It is also crucial that the newsreader speaks clearly, and does not rush. This is especially true if they know that they are about to pronounce a difficult name or place name and they should practice it before recording. The use of pauses and accents can help to give the impression that the speaker is really speaking to their audience rather than at them.