Broadcast vs. Print Journalism

 I listened to a radio story from NPR and then I looked at the transcript to get a better sense of the style of writing and how it differs from a print story. It was about how the cosmetic company, Carol’s Daughter, was going to be bought by L’Oreal.

The attribution in the broadcast was very well done. Host Steve Inskeep introduced Karen Grigsby Bates before she came on air. He said, “Karen Rigsby Bates from NPR’s Code Switch team reports.” Then we heard from her for the first time. This is exactly the way it should be done in broadcasting and isn’t expected in print journalism. The radio broadcast personalized the news, which is extremely important especially because there isn’t a visual aspect in radio. It’s a good way for them to connect with the audience when what they’re saying is directed to the listeners. This is not usually common in print journalism.

In the broadcast, the statistic for Carol’s Daughter’s revenue was rounded to 27 million, while a print story would prefer to use the exact figure. There was little punctuation used and there weren’t any symbols in the transcript, which is important because it makes the writing clearer and smoother when it’s read on the air. It also reduces risk of making a mistake while reading. Some symbols can be used in print journalism, like the dollar sign, but it shouldn’t show up in writing for the radio. Most of the broadcast was in present tense, which is important because it gives a sense of immediacy to the information. I did notice some of the sentences were a little too long. Some could have been broken up into two since they were combining two thoughts. The language and word choice was easy for me to understand though.

Overall, this was very well written. Since I was hearing this as a form of audio reporting, it gave a voice to the story, which really added to the experience of listening to it.