In the three short years that I have been advising broadcast, I have learned that script writing for news segments is perhaps one of the most important skills you can teach. Students who go out to film a story without a plan have very little success filming a high quality segment.

The first step of course is to instruct students on how a producer/reporter should structure a script. The basic process is to set up a two column sheet: left containing video, and the right containing audio. Or as we also tell them – the left has everything you will see, and the right has everything that you will hear. You must have both sides properly planned in order to have a successful video.