This or That?

Some differences between writing for print and writing for broadcast are listed below:

• Print journalism answers the five W questions, while broadcast journalism has the Four Cs: correctness, clarity, conciseness and color.
• Broadcast writing needs to sound more conversational than print writing.
• Broadcast writing is for the ear. Print writing is for the eye.
• Broadcast writing omits the time element to achieve immediacy while print writing must answer the "when" question.
• Broadcast writing also contains more present tense verbs than print writing to put emphasis on the immediate.

Broadcast writing and print writing both need to be simple, but simple broadcast writing is on a new level. When writing for print, the author knows the readers can re-read if they didn't catch something the first time. When writing for broadcast, the author has to realize that listeners and viewers must catch the news the first time because there is no going back. This writing characteristic makes it more difficult.

On the contrary, what might make broadcast writing seem easier is the writing characteristic of omitting the time element. For print, it is important the author answers the question when. Time can be important in broadcast and should be mentioned sometimes, but most of the time the viewers assume that news stories have happened close to the time of broadcast.