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Chapter (2) Television and Radio
The Announcer for the Electronic Media
The term announcer" refers to one who communicates over the public airwaves, as on radio-television-broadcasts- channels-or-by-electronic audio amplification, auditorium, stadium, arena, or theaters. as in an
Think of the spectrum of newsworthy events that reach us daily through modern media. Radio, television, and the Internet reach vast audiences scattered over thousandthe miles, and all possess instantaneousness. Radio made of possible for the first time history to describe events to millions as they occurred. As far back as the 1920s, radio presented "real time" communication and, because it was a "blind" medium, listeners could only receive news reports, interviews, and other communications from announcers
Television added pictures and experiences, bringing audiences into theaters, concert halls, SuperBowls and World Series, and jazz and rock concerts, taking them to faraway places, and giving them a visual sense that they are right there, participating in the televised program.
The Internet gave everyone with a computer and broadband connection a way to broadcast and communicate, not just with one other person but a voice which, through YouTube, Podcasts, and Internet radio, provided them with "stations" of their own.
On electronic media, announcers are communicators, and interpreters, and because their responsibility is considerable, they must possess native talent, acquire a broad educational background, and undergo intensive training and consistent practice as they develop professional competencies. So what kinds of careers can many areas of specialization: from? presenters,
commentators; and 1- Broadcast-Journalism: News-anchors;-field reporters; feature reporters; analysts; weather, consumer affairs, the environment, science business, technology, health, and traffic reporters.
2- Sports announcers: Play-by-play announcers, play- and-game analysts, and sports news program hosts
3- Music: Announcers on radio music stations or websites (DJs, deejays, or jocks), music video jockeys. (VIs or veejays) and mobile Dis.
4- Public affairs: interviewers and panel moderators. 5- Commercials: Voice-over announcers
(radio, television, and online), demonstration and commercial announcers (television), "infomercial" announcers (television)-who present lengthy commercials showing and demonstrating products, and salespersons on the Home Shopping Network or QVC.
6- Narration: Documentaries, informational programs, educational programs, voice-over readings of scripts for industrial or corporate presentations, and readers of feature reports for both radio and television.
7- Miscellaneous programs: Interview shows and topical political sessions with current newsmakers, interview and phone-in shows; comedy shows such as The
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Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report; magazine shows such as Sixty Minutes, features on Animal Planet, and All Things Considered and Science -Friday (NPR radio); food, gardening, home repair, and similar specialty shows; -children's programs; game shows; and introducers of feature films on television.
Aside from broadcast stations, many announcers, both men and women arkide industrials, also called corpomete media. Audio and video presentations are made for training employees, introducing new products, providing information to distant branches, and handling in-house Communication. The term industrial media is a loose one because it applies to media used by hospitals, governmen agencies, schools, prisons, and the military, as well as businesses. Few such media departments can afford the services of a full-time announcer, so if this work appeals to you, you should prepare for media writing and producing as well as announcing.
Education and Training
Informational media reach millions of people with messages of critical importance, and there's little room for narrowly educated announcers. For one thing. the influence-for good or bad-of media performers is immense and must not be underestimated. Announcers who don't grow with the times will be inadequate in this digital age.
Television program hosts, DJs, interviewers, announcers covering sports and special events, and talk show personalities use written material only occasionally; most of the time they're on their own. Radio and television field reporters covering breaking stories as they are unfolding
never work from scripts; they ad-lib their reports from hastily scribbled notes limited to basic information. The opportunity to frame your personal thoughts in your own words carries with it the responsibility to have much information at hand to share it effectively with your audience.
Coursework-Considerations
Within Your Major
Control room operations should include practice with audio consoles and associated recording and playback devices. Operation of consoles) is easily learned, and even though at larger stations, most radio announcers no longer actually operate them, it's important to be prepared in as many areas as possible because it's impossible to know in advance what turns your career may take. You could end up at a smaller station with limited support from an audio engineer or you could be announcing at your own Internet radio station, which will require knowledge of an audio console.
You should also take courses in video production and editing because many television stations expect announcers to record and edit their material. Courses in media writing are tremendously helpful as well. Aspiring anchors and reporters must learn to write news copy. Many stations in medium to small markets expect announcers to write commercial copy and station promotional pieces as well.
Beyond your Major
When studying to be an announcer, you obviously should pursue subjects that prepare you for your first announcing job, but you also should select courses that qualify you for one or more specializations beyond straight announcing.
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Plan your coursework to obtain a broad background in the liberal arts and sciences.
Because announcers perform not only on broadcast stations and cable but also on the Internet, on recorded commercials, as narrators for documentaries, and as mobile DJs, they must be knowledgeable in a number of areas. Assuming that you're majoring in "electronic communication" (or whatever term is used at your school), you should consider enrolling in one or more minor programs that focus on specific area(s) of announcing you intend to practice, such as history, political science, urban studies, literature, sociology, economics, acting, journalism, sports history, and meteorology.
If you're serious about an announcing career, your education must have breadth, so maintain a positive attitude about required general education courses-even if they seem unrelated to your career goals, they will add to a storehouse of knowledge that you'll visit many times over the years. Expand your ability to pronounce names and words in French, German, Italian, and Spanish. Whether you become a specialist in news, sports, voice-overs, or interviewing, your ability to pronounce names and words in languages other than English will be of great importance. The Spanish language is of increasing importance with the growing Latino population nationwide. The field of Spanish broadcasting continues to expand in many states, including Texas, Florida, California, New Mexico, and Arizona. Consider taking Spanish classes, because if you are bilingual, you can double your announcing opportunities.
Many general education courses, including English composition, are required for a liberal arts degree. You may
73want to go beyond minimum English requirements by choosing from such offerings as creative writing and dramatic writing. But, as you work to improve your skills in writing traditional English, be aware that there's another writing challenge that is unlikely to be met by English instructors: learning to write for the ear and the eye.
While it may be obvious, it must be emphasized that, unlike stories written for news- papers and magazines, radio scripts are written to be heard, and television scripts to be seen and heard. It's important to remember always that your scripts will never be seen or read by your audience. Scripts are blueprints to be turned into sights and sounds by interpreters. To write well for the electronic media, you need to cultivate the ability to conceive and then encode your visions into words and sentences. So a different kind of -writing from that used for print is demanded.
For television, you must use words that enhance and clarify what's shown on the screen. For radio and Internet streaming, you should practice putting together words that create pictures in the minds of listeners. Clear writing for the electronic media is a necessity, not because your audience is simple-minded, but because sentences received by our ears are processed differently from those received by our eyes. Take advantage of every opportunity to write scripts and then experience them when they're turned into productions. Aside from attending scriptwriting classes, look for opportunities to write for production classes and community-access cable outlets.
Computers are central to video-editing systems, character generators, word processors, graphics systems, scheduling and billing systems, and data-retrieval systems. Most DJs
work with a console and a computer to record intros and back-announcements of music played. They work air shifts and from time to time go "live," but much of their work is saved in a digital file and inserted into the running schedule of the station for play during holidays, weekends, or days of. For more information on this, see Chapter 11, days Announcing."
Newsroom software, such as AP ENPS, AVID INews, or EZ-NEWS, is used to write and edit news copy. Familiarity with these systems is highly desirable, and the ability to type scripts quickly and accurately is essential.
Evaluate these suggestions in light of your own aptitudes, interests, and career plans. College counselors can help you determine the appropriateness of the courses available to you. The important point is that only you can apply your growing knowledge to your announcing practice.
Most community colleges require sixty semester hours for an associate in arts or science degree. Four-year colleges or universities require about one hundred and twenty credit hours for a bachelor's degree. Whether you're enrolled in a two- or four-year program, it's unlikely you'll have available more than six semester hours of performance courses.
Clearly, announcing encompasses a wide range of activities. Most modern liberal arts colleges and their broadcasting departments are well equipped to help you begin the process of becoming a competent and versatile communicator-which is what you must become if you're to manage challenges such as these:You're a staff announcer and must read news headlines containing the place names Qatar, Zimbabwe, Eritrea, Schleswig-Holstein, Bosnia-
Herzegovina, Santa Rosa de Copan, São Paulo,and Leia Leicester.
a pharmaceutical company demands that you pronouncfungicide, and bromide, gingivitis, ketoconazole.
You're a play analyst on a sports broadcast, and you need to ad-lib knowledgeably about game youtegies and give examples from the past of incidents relating to the game in progress.
You're the play-by-play announcer for a semipro baseball team, and you must pronounce such "American" names as Buchignani, Gutierrez, Yturri, Sockolow, Watanabe, Engebrect, and MacLeod.
You've been assigned to interview a Nobel Prize winner in astrophysics, and you must obtain basic information about the field as well as biographical data on the winner-and do so under extreme time limitations.
You're narrating a documentary and must analyze the intent and content of the program to determine the mood; rhythm; structure; and interrelationship of sound, picture, and script.
You're a DJ, and you're on duty when word is received of the unexpected death of a great American (a politician, an entertainer, or a scientist). Until the news department can take over, you must ad-lib the breaking news appropriately.
It's obvious that no one type of course will completely educate you as an announcer. In addition to academic
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studies, and an internship at a television or radio station, you may benefit from becoming a member of one or more organizations open to students. Through such organizations, you may attend meetings and conventions and receive news and information over the Internet. You also may make connections that may some day pay off. Join broadcast- related organizations such as College Students in Broadcasting, National Association of Broadcasters, Alliance for Women in Media, Association for Women in Communications, International Radio and Television Society, Alpha Epsilon Rho, National Association of Hispanic Journalists, National Association of Black Journalists, Society of Professional Journalists, and Society of Environmental Journalists.
Students with a broadcast journalism emphasis may become members of the Radio-Television Journalism division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. Membership in the student category of the Radio and Television Digital News Association (RTDNA) is also available to you. The Broadcast Education Association, which holds yearly conventions, is open to student participation.
The Announcer's Responsibility
Before committing yourself to a career as an announcer, you should recognize that, along with the undeniable privileges and rewards that come to people working in this field, there are several areas of responsibility as well. First is the obligation all performers owe their audiences: to be informative, objective, fair, accurate, and entertaining. Announcers who are sloppy, unprepared, or just plain boring usually get what they deserve-two weeks' notice.
There are, as you undoubtedly know, announcers who work hard and possess talent, but who at the same time pollute the public air, chiefly on radio and television talk and interview bubws. A number of radio and television performers are willing to say al- most anything, however outrageous of hurtful to others, in order to attract and hold an audience. In bur free society such announcers are protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution; the only protection the audience has resides in the integrity of each announcer. Most departments of broadcasting offer courses in ethics and social responsibility. Grounding in this subject, together with serious consideration of the effects of mass communication, should be understood as vitally important to your development as a public communicator.
Social responsibility goes beyond the normal obligation of performer to audience. Nearly all announcers, whether they realize it or not, have influence because of their visibility and prestige. Years ago, Paul F. Lazarsfeld and Robert K. Merton perceived and described what they called the status- conferral function of the mass media. In essence, they said the general public attaches prestige to people who appear in the mass media, and that the average person is more readily influenced by prestigious people than by equals. The public's reasoning is circular: "If you really matter, you will be at the focus of attention, and if you are at the focus of mass attention, then you must really matter." A newscaster, then, is not simply an efficient conveyer of information; as a radio or television star, he or she is trusted and believed as a qualified authority. Even an entertainment show announcer or a DJ has automatic, though sometimes unwarranted, authority. As an announcer for any of the electronic media, you should be aware of your status and measure up to it.
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BACKGROUNDS OF SUCCESSFUL ANNOUNCERS
Most radio and television stations have their own websites. and many include brief biographies of on- air perfobsites, Using theseuncers whoseurce, compile information mest Usveral announcers whose work you admire. You want to look for these information items: Where did thmay want School? In what academic area did they major? Where did they begin their announcing careers?
Announcers must demonstrate a sense of social Aommitment. Be aware of opportunities you may have to either enlighten or confuse the public. As a nation we've been slow to perceive and attack the serious problems of urban deterioration, increasing crime, environmental pollution, racial inequities, world hunger, poverty, home- lessness, AIDS, the rise of antidemocratic action groups, and increased drug use. If you're committed to using the mass media to help build a better society, you're already socially responsible and potentially important as the kind of communicator demanded by our times.
Another area of responsibility for announcers is that of emergency notification. When floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, and other disasters occur, broadcast announcers are in a position to save lives through early warnings and post disaster information. The US government has established the Emergency Alert System (EAS) -to replace the long-established Emergency Broadcast System (EBS). The alert system requires broadcast licensees to disseminate disaster information. Even though text messages to cell phones are often an efficient way to alert the public to an emergency, radio has a wider reach,
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particularly in rural areas and for drivers behind the wheel It's imperative that all broadcast announcers study the disaster manual (found at all stations) and be prepared to act swiftly and appropriately in emergencies.