Understanding Radio

People listen to radio news when they need to know quickly what is going
on. They realize that because radio news is so simple and short, it is up to
date and has to concentrate simply on reporting the facts.

Speed and simplicity
Radio is probably at its best when it is ‘live’ or reacting to an event
happening ‘now’. Because there are relatively few technicalities, a news
story can be on the air in seconds and updated as it develops. Radio works
best with news stories which require a quick reaction. There is a flexibility
which exists in no other media because comparatively few people are
involved in the process.

Radio can simply be one person and a telephone. There are no cameras,
lights or production assistants. Usually, it is just one broadcaster and a
microphone or telephone separating him or her from the listener. You
should always strive to make use of radio’s greatest assets – speed and
simplicity.


Making pictures
Radio is the best medium to stimulate the imagination. By doing what
radio does best – getting on the air from a scene quickly and describing
the event so the listener can visualize what is happening – you are using
the most powerful tools you possess: immediacy and imagery.
The listener is always trying to imagine what he or she hears and what is
being described. These pictures are emotional – such as the tearful voice
of a mother appealing for information about her missing teenage daughter.
Pictures on radio are not limited by the size of the screen; they are any
size you wish.


Person-to-person
Radio is a very personal medium. The broadcaster is usually speaking
directly to the listener. This is why it is so important to think of the audience
as singular. When you talk on the radio, you are not broadcasting to the
masses through a gigantic public address system. You are talking to one
person in the way you would speak if you were holding a conversation
over a cup of coffee or pint of beer.
Radio also allows the full emotions of the human voice to be heard, from
laughter through anger and pain to compassion. The sound of a voice can
convey far more than reported speech. This is because the way something
is being said is just as important as what is being said.


Localness
The biggest strength of broadcasting news on local radio is that it gives a
station its sense of being truly local. Local radio stations aiming for a
broad audience ignore news at their peril. In an increasingly competitive
marketplace, news is one of the few things which makes a local station
sound distinctive and ‘close to you’.

News from ‘around the corner’ is often just as important to a listener as
news from around the world – if not more so in many cases. However,
there is a danger of becoming too local. Policy judgements have to be
made about what is local and what is too parochial or parish pump. Local
radio news bulletins are not audio versions of local newspapers, for
reasons of space if nothing else. The judgement of how local is local is an
important one. For example, a story about a cat up a tree is too parochial
for all radio stations. The same story about a firefighter being killed while
trying to rescue the cat is not only a good local story, it is almost certainly
a national one as well.


Basic Radio Journalism
Paul Chantler and Peter Stewart