Fourteenth Day- News, News, and NEWS! - Posted on 2016-01-21 by Jon Francois

Jay and I kicked things off with a review of the newscast I produced over the weekend about President Obama’s final State of the Union address. Based on Jay’s notes from the original recording, I adjusted my high pitched delivery and edited the 3 ½ minute segment down to a solid 3 minutes by chopping sections of Obama sound bites. Jay complimented the change in my delivery, but said the sound bites could still be shorter. In fitting with one of the chapters of the curriculum, I cut the newcast down to 90 seconds by chopping significant chunks of the sound bites and my narration for a concise, quicker-paced result.

I then had to write and produce four additional brief newscasts: 90 second straightforward newscast that could be presented on an all-news station, contemporary 60 sec newscast that might be on a youth-oriented morning show, 60 sec entertainment newscast, and a 60 sec sports newscast. I was able to get through three out of four this week and the following are some helpful notes Jay gave me on each of the newscasts:

1. Straightforward

• Do not adlib. It’s called “straightforward” for a reason. Stick to the script.

• Great pacing during the hard news segment, but it slowed down as I got to sports. Keep pacing consistent throughout.

2. Contemporary

• I added a great conversational quality to the hard news, keeping the 18-34 audience in mind

• Whenever I trip up on words, saying “excuse me” or “sorry” isn’t necessary. Correct the pronunciation of the words and keep going.

3. Entertainment

• While reporting the death of Glenn Frey, I mispronounced his last name. Prepare for things like this before going on air.

• I slowed the pace of the newscast in my attempt to sound sensitive and reflective during the announcement of Frey’s passing. A tonal change in my delivery is fine, but that shouldn’t affect pace.

• Some of the wording seemed to undermine the importance of Frey to The Eagles. Instead of saying “Glenn Frey was a part of the Eagles...The Eagles produced hits like…”, I should’ve said something like “Frey was responsible for penning Eagles popular hits like….”

I’ll definitely keep these notes in mind as I produce a final version of these newscasts for submission next week.