Putting together a news bulletin requires careful planning and a good understanding of your audience’s information needs. A typical radio news bulletin lasts about three minutes. That gives you the space to run a mixture of stories, some of which are more important than others. Often the lead story sets the tone for the rest of the bulletin so it is particularly important to get it right. It is also vital to get the pace of your stories right.
A good newsreader will not rush through the stories but read them in a way that entices listeners to stay with you and to listen to them properly. This means putting enough emphasis on the first words of a story, pausing to allow the audience time to absorb them and not rushing to get the next one in. It is a good idea to practice reading your bulletin to work out how long it takes you (or the newsreader) to read a line of text. This will help you to avoid rushing through foreign names and other unfamiliar terms.
Grabs of actuality are useful as they break up the monotony of long sections of reading by one voice and give a different flavour to the bulletin. Whenever possible you should try to use grabs of people who are known to your audience or at least have a familiar accent. If you must use a grab in a language other than your own it should be overdubbed with a translation.