Home › Teaching Journalism › Teaching Broadcasting ›

BBC Radio News Style Guide

Oct 01, 2007 - Posted by Mary McGuire
ShareThisBBC Radio News has posted a very helpful guide online to writing for radio. It's concise, clearly written and covers things such as getting the tone of story right and using only spoken English. The guide also includes a link to a detailed list of alphabetical rules about such things as the overuse of the word "but" and the misuse of the word "ironically." Some of the advice is specific to British journalists, such as the rule forbidding the use of the word soccer for football. But most of the advice would be valuable to Canadian journalists and journalism students.

Comments

Submitted by Barry Rueger (not verified) on October 1, 2007 - 12:30pm.
Oh, that Canadian reporters had this as a guiding principle: "Be sceptical at all times. Be particularly sceptical when dealing with assertions dressed up as facts. 'The government has announced a breakthrough in tackling inner-city crime' is what the government would like us to say. But we cannot judge whether there has indeed been a breakthrough, or whether a mass of statistics has been cunningly arranged to give that impression. So pin the assertion on the government. We should be even more rigorous with claims about medical and scientific advances." I can't begin to count the number of times when I heard absolute twaddle repeated verbatim in a news report.

Comment Policy

J-Source invites comments on any content items or on any other topics relevant to journalism. Those posting comments are expected to adhere to standards of accuracy and fairness that would be recognized by those who practise, teach or study journalism.

  • Comments are restricted to registered users. You must register with your full first and last name in order to be eligible to comment.
  • Please communicate as effectively and intelligently as you would in a professional or academic forum, focusing on the issues at hand rather than the characters or characteristics of those involved.
  • This forum is intended for discussion of the craft of journalism, not of the issues of the day that journalists cover; please do not post story tips or press releases.
  • We moderate the forum for adherence to these standards of discourse, and reserve the right to decline any comment or restrict any user from commenting without giving reasons. Every effort is made to approve valid comments within 24 hours of submission.
 Donate Now Through CanadaHelps.org!Support
J-Source
 
 
 COPA finalistBest online-only
article or series

 

 

J-Source and ProjetJ are projects of The Canadian Journalism Foundation in collaboration with leading schools and organizations
across Canada.

Editor-in-chief, J-Source:
  Janice Neil
Ryerson University

Rédacteur en chef, ProjetJ :
Jean-Philippe Cipriani

 

Recent comments

Peter Worthington: 10 facts about the journalist who wrote his own obituary

  • pcalamai

    Peter Worthington would have known that there is a venerable tradition of journalists writing...

    2 days 14 hours ago

Opinion: Why all journalists should study public relations

  • Sherwin Arnott

    I like this. It's very important to see the closeness of public relations and journalism....

    2 days 18 hours ago
  • Claude Adams

    Do journalists really need to take a course to learn that practitioners of PR are working for...

    2 days 21 hours ago
More »
source