Putting together a radio news bulletin is like serving up a satisfying meal that nourishes and prepares your audience for the day.

It’s not about making you sound great.

It has to be focused, digestible, easy to listen to and catch the attention of the audience.

You need to remember who you are broadcasting for, cover the issues about which the audience is most concerned, ensure you have the latest information, deliver it clearly and at a pace that can be understood, and use short and simple sentences.

Compiling your bulletin

1: Remember who is listening and broadcast for them

Think target audience. You need to know who is tuning in for the information you are delivering and what they need to know.  A national audience is not the same as an international audience. Focus on the news stories and information that is relevant for your radio station’s targeted audience.

Think target audience and know who your listeners are and what they need to know about.

2: Variety is the spice of life

Offer an information mix. News tends to be multi-coloured and multi-faceted, as is real life.

If you are covering politics you must highlight how the issue impacts on the lives of your audience and not dwell on the politics alone  (unless you are running a narrowly focused radio station.)

Offer a mix of news, current affairs and other information items.

Presentation and format

3: Would you want to listen to yourself?

A voice that pleases is important to ensuring the audience returns.

Try recording a few of your bulletins and listen back to them. Would you like to wake up every day and listen to that?  If not, do something about it. 

Audio creates emotions. An attractive voice that catches the attention of the audience is important. The last thing you want is a grating voice that makes people switch off.

Avoid the sing-song voice that plays the same tune for every sentence, going up in tone and down at the end regardless of what is being said.

And never give the impression that you think you know more than the audience. There will be someone listening who knows far more than you. Never patronise.

The last thing you want is a grating voice that makes people switch off.

4: Small may be beautiful

Longer is not necessarily better. A seven-minute news bulletin is not going to be an improvement on five-minutes if the extra two minutes is made up of filler material, or if you draw things out and fail to get to the point.

Try to imagine yourself in the place of the audience and think through what pressures they may be under. They will probably be doing other things as they listen. You are asking for their time.

Be sure you are clear on what makes up the top three stories and then aim to get those stories across as clearly and crisply as possible.

It’s better to have a short bulletin that people can actually remember than a long bulletin that leaves the audience confused or, worse, tuning to another channel.

It’s better to have a short bulletin that people can actually remember than a long bulletin that leaves the audience confused.

5: Slow down, it’s not a race

Don’t rush. Make sure your audience can understand what you are saying.

Reading too quickly could result in your audience not understanding what you are saying and not being able to absorb your information. You end up becoming background noise.

News readers often read fast when they are nervous or when they know that they are about to pronounce a name about which they are uncertain. If you know there is a foreign name coming up in the bulletin, highlight it and practice it until you are sure. Then approach it slowly, pause, and pronounce it clearly.

Don’t rush. Make sure your audience can understand what you are saying.

6: Don’t serve up stale news

Is your bulletin fresh, dynamic, and stimulating? Re-writing is essential. Many people will listen to several bulletins during the day.

It's important they are not served up stale news that hasn't been reworked. If you don't refresh your audience might think you are either not doing your journalistic job properly or are being lazy.

When you come out of studio after reading the latest bulletin consider sitting down and rewriting all the top stories and refreshing the key points. Don’t just put the bulletin down and expect to pick it up again an hour later untouched and unchanged.

If you have a news bulletin at the top of the hour and headlines on the half hour, the headlines can’t just be shorter versions of the main bulletin.

You will have to rework them and create a stronger headline that tells more of the story in fewer words in one short sentence.

You may also want to use the half hour bulletin to add stories that you could not or did not want to include in the main bulletin. However, if you choose that kind of presentation format, make sure that you stick to this pattern so that your audience knows what to expect.

Don’t change your format randomly as this will confuse your audience. A confused audience may switch channels to a place where there is less confusion.

Refresh, rewrite and update your bulletin throughout the date.

7: Radio is about sounds, not just your voice

Sound bites are important. A longer news bulletin becomes a lot more attractive for audiences if you include short sound bites. This can be a five- or 10-second audio clip from an interview or sounds from the scene of an incident.

Such sound bites can make your bulletin easier to listen to, more authoritative, more credible – and more interesting for the listener.

However, all sounds have to have an editorial reason for being there. You should not fill with sound clips that distract because they don’t relate to the thrust of the information you are delivering.

All sound bites in your bulleting must have an editorial reason for being there.

Writing style

8: Tell a short story

Write news stories as if you were telling the story to a friend. This means: short, simple and straightforward sentences.

Remember, unlike with a newspaper, the audience cannot go back and check what you said 10 seconds ago. Well, they can if they record it or are listening online, but the majority will be listening on the move and won't be able to rewind the bulletin.

You need to be clear, focused and memorable.

Crafting complex information into a simple sentence is a skill. Don’t obscure the essential facts with verbiage.

Write news stories as if you were telling the story to a friend. This means: short, simple and straightforward sentences.

9: Small and effective packaging

The bulletin is a compilation of short, but powerful stories. This makes it much easier for people to grasp the information.

Writing for radio is one of the most challenging journalistic disciplines.

Long, heavy sentences may work for print but they don’t work for radio audiences.

Remember subject, verb, object. Don't try to be clever with words. Use words that make most sense and can be understood by all and present them in short, clear sentences.

10: Summing up the main points

If you are putting together a longer bulletin (e.g. seven minutes or more), you may want to end the bulletin with a brief recap of the main stories. This can help audiences recall the top stories and/or other relevant information.

And you must remain credible at all times; your bulletin is only as good as the news stories you are compiling.

If you don’t believe what you have written and what you are saying your audience won’t either; and what is more, they will not respect you for broadcasting information that anyone with average intelligence would not swallow.

Make sure you are honest in how you describe situations and events, don’t over sensationalize. Your audience will know when you are going over the top and you credibility and integrity will be damaged if you do.

If you don’t believe what you have written and what you are saying your audience won’t either

Happy broadcasting.