The news bulletin is the heart of any radio station, and a great way to keep your listeners coming back. It can also be one of the most difficult tasks to do properly.
The biggest challenge is to get the right pace of stories through your bulletin. Some stories will have a very fast pace – the report of a fire, for example – others will be much slower – such as the story explaining some involved political controversy.
It’s very important to remember the basic rules for a good piece of news reporting – is it new, unusual or interesting, significant and about people? Those are the criteria by which your audience will judge your bulletin.
Another important factor is the use of sound clips to give life to your bulletin. Using sound bites can make your bulletin easier to listen to, more authoritative (as it is based on first-hand evidence) and more interesting for the listener. However, you must be very careful not to fill the bulletin with’sound clips for the sake of it’ – you need to have an editorial reason to include them.
It is also very important to keep a good balance between hard and soft stories, and to ensure that your bulletin is not too long or boring. This is particularly important for a weekend news bulletin, where there are often fewer stories available. It is also a good idea to run briefs at the end of your bulletin – these are short, snappy stories designed to increase the pace of your bulletin if it begins to feel slow and boring for your listeners.
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