by Beth Johnson | Apr 11, 2024 | App Articles, Survival Kit, The Latest, Writing Help
If I had a dollar for every shot of generic video in a story, I would be rich, on the beach living the high life! It’s so common, it’s almost become accepted in the industry. And that’s a big mistake because generic video does nothing to help viewers trust that you...
by Beth Johnson | Jun 17, 2022 | App Articles, Management Issues, Producing, The Latest, Writing Help
The TV news industry is in flux. Crisis point: finding and retaining producers. Consider this: Your job will remain if reporters are phased out in the digital age. There is always a need for content finders and editorial context. Producers must be the best truth...
by Beth Johnson | Apr 9, 2021 | App Articles, Survival Kit, Writing Help
Our cliche list is still the most read section of Survive: 10 years later! So it seems like a good time to remind of a few ways to avoid cliche writing. In the past, we’ve discussed trimming words away, to eliminate a cliche. We discussed reading copy aloud in...
by Beth Johnson | Dec 14, 2020 | App Articles, The Latest, Writing Help
I recently posted a question on Twitter, “ Should ‘breaking news’ go on the cliche list at this point?” The amount of views on that post was tremendous. So let’s delve in a bit more shall we? I get asked how and when to use the term breaking news a lot. For good...
by Beth Johnson | Dec 2, 2020 | App Articles, The Latest, Writing Help
This is a million dollar question in a lot of ways: How do I figure out what should be in a TV story vs a digital story? There are teams of researchers, consulting groups, and higher ups in the broadcast industry weighing this question every day. But you are a...
by Beth Johnson | Jul 31, 2020 | App Articles, Survival Kit, The Latest, Writing Help
This isn’t easy to admit. I get that. But if you keep writing fact errors, you need to own up to it and do these things to stop. In newsrooms nowadays, prevention techniques are not being taught much, and many times scripts aren’t being reviewed for accuracy. So...
