A news bulletin is a brief summary of a day’s important stories in radio or television. It may be a part of a full programme or a separate short broadcast. The preparation of a bulletin requires the skills of journalistic writing and editing as well as sourcing, checking, selecting, ranking and preparing stories. It’s also necessary to know your audience and be aware of their concerns – health, jobs, housing, education, culture, social developments, sports etc.
It’s essential to choose the right music as an opening theme for the bulletin and any short music inserts that will be used (called stabs or stings). These can be used to separate different stories, but if used too often they can become annoying. The opening theme should also be used at the end of the bulletin to provide a link back to the beginning of the bulletin.
If a bulletin is to be read out by a voice, it’s important to choose a pleasant sounding voice. A grating voice will quickly make listeners switch off. Likewise, it is important to know the reading rate of the person who will be reading the bulletin. This will enable you to see if the pace is too fast or too slow for the bulletin.
A good bulletin will include short recorded audio called actuality, which are voices or interviews with people who have a direct connection with the story. These are an opportunity to make the bulletin more credible and add a human face to the news. They should be kept short and clear, and if they are in a language other than English should be overdubbed with the voice of a translator.