| CHAPTER 9 | |
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Working with and Gathering Bites, Actualities and Natural Sound |
The most important concept to understand when writing into or out of bites, actualities and natural sound is that those elements are as much a part of the story as the script itself. Because you can’t rewrite what someone says, you must frame your writing to blend in the bites and sound so that everything flows smoothly and logically and becomes one cohesive unit.
Bites and actualities are the same thing: the actual sound of someone in the news. It might be a statement from the mayor, the argument of conflicting protestors or an interview with a young kindergartner. It involves sound that we can clearly understand and that tells some part of the story. In radio the term is actuality; in TV it’s bite. Otherwise, they’re the same. The third sound element we gather in stories is natural sound. Called variously natural sound, nat sound, background sound, ambient sound and possibly a few other terms, it’s the sound of real life captured by the microphone. It might be the chatter of children in a playground, the sound of traffic on the highway or a gunshot.
THE FEEL OF NATURAL SOUND
In both radio and TV, we collect natural sound to help give the audience a feel for “being there.” We run the natural sound under the voice track of the reporter. In radio a report from a city council meeting will commonly have the natural sound of the meeting under the voice of the reporter. In television the reporter track is recorded and blended with the natural sound under whatever we’re seeing in the video. The natural sound under the voice track gives the audience a sense of being there and puts an audio presence under the reporter’s voice.
We also use natural sound full. In both radio and TV, that’s when we bring up that natural sound—the meeting, the kids playing and so forth—so that it’s full volume in the story. It’s a short pause in the story, usually no more than a few seconds, when we let the story breathe and give the audience a real feel for what the location, meeting or event was like.
What exactly is the difference between natural sound full and an actuality or bite? Frankly, there’s no universal standard, but it’s easiest to distinguish between the two on the basis of function. Natural sound full is used simply as a pacing device or sound bridge in the story, and the content of the sound does not contribute to the information. Where the sound contains real substance and needs to be understood to contribute to the content, then we usually consider it a bite or actuality.
Natural Sound as Pacing and Punctuation
“Sometimes you can use actuality and sound as punctuation,” says KCBS reporter Mike Sugarman, like a comma or a period between thoughts.
In radio, Sugarman says that once he’s found that “center”—the focus of the story—he needs to find the sound that best represents it. If it’s something about homelessness, it might be a car door slamming when they’re living in a car or the sound of the soup line. “It’s whatever strikes your ear as trying to get that point across,” says Sugarman.
“You want just enough natural sound to keep you in a sense of environment or moment,” KGO-TV reporter Wayne Freedman says. Not so much, he says, that it breaks the flow of the story but enough to maintain the rhythm that you set.
NBC’s Bob Dotson says he uses natural sound to help people go beyond seeing or hearing about the story so that they’re actually experiencing it.
COLLECTING SOUND
Good Bites and Bad Bites: Technical
If the bite or actuality isn’t good, how you write into it doesn’t matter. Start with technical considerations. In radio, much of the listening takes place in the car, so you’re already competing with road noise, traffic and other people for the listener’s attention. People will not strain to hear or understand an actuality; they will not turn up the volume and quiet down the environment. If the technical quality of the actuality isn’t good, people will simply miss it. Having tuned out the actuality, they’ve now tuned out the story and the newscast. If the technical quality of an actuality isn’t on a par with that of the newscaster, don’t put it on the air.
Television offers a little more flexibility—but not much. It’s easier to understand people when we see their lips moving, so that gives us a little more leeway. A really compelling (or self-incriminating) bite that proves a story can always be supered on the screen to make sure the audience understands. But again, technical quality matters, and the typical bite for television should be crystal clear.
Natural sound that runs under a reporter track doesn’t have to rise to the same standards, but if you want to bring the natural sound full—and you should, as part of the story—then that, too, needs to be high quality.
Good Bites and Bad Bites: Content
Beyond technical considerations, most bites on radio and television probably aren’t worth putting on the air. Most bites involve a simple recitation of facts that the reporter or anchor could say better, clearer and in half the time.
The best bites generally fall into one of four categories:
1. Personal account. These are the bites in which people tell us what they saw, heard, felt, smelled or tasted. Note the response of the senses. These are the first-person accounts of what happened, told best by people who have an emotional stake in the outcome. These are the bites from people who survived the earthquake, searched for the missing child, got fleeced by a con man, ran the marathon and so on. Their firsthand account of having been involved cannot be duplicated by the writer or reporter. These people bring their passion and feeling to the story because it’s their story.
2. Witness account. Sometimes as strong as personal account, these are the stories of people who saw or felt what happened. They witnessed the fire; they saw the accident happen; they heard the cries for help. Although usually missing the personal involvement, these bites can be just as strong because they can supply us with a sense of what happened that we, as writers or reporters, would have to cite as sources to explain.
3. Personal opinion. Everyone has an opinion, and these bites can be good if they’re short and to the point. This is the person reacting to news of a tax hike, the election outcome, the demolition of a city landmark, the construction of a new highway or shopping center. Man-on-the-street (MOS) reaction stories fall into this category. Remember that these may or may not be informed opinions, and they should not be presented as representative of a larger group unless you actually have real survey data.
4. Expert opinion. There are experts on just about everything, and most places have several on any given topic. That puts the onus on the reporter to locate people who not only know the subject well, but can also speak about it clearly and succinctly. Keep in mind that in many cases, different experts see the same data or circumstances differently. Don’t limit yourself to one interpretation or viewpoint because you’ve located someone who speaks in good sound bites. Aggressively seek out a diverse group of experts from which to draw.
From a content standpoint, weak bites fall into two categories:
1. Hard data. A recitation of numbers or facts is almost never a good bite. Rarely can someone we interview express numbers or facts as clearly and succinctly as we can. Invariably, they hem and haw, they stumble and restate, they give us too much data or too detailed data. Talk to people and collect that information, but it’s almost always better to include relevant hard data in the reporter track or anchor script, rather than letting weak and tedious bites on the air. The fire chief may tell us it was a three-alarm fire that took firefighters two hours to get under control, but the better bite comes from the sweaty, soot-streaked firefighter telling us that he had to run for his life when he heard the roof start to go.
2. Anything not well said. Even if you talked to the right people, not everyone has something compelling to say or is capable of saying it well. Bites can confuse the audience just as easily as they can enlighten. Just because you recorded someone for a story doesn’t mean you should burden the audience with the material. Don’t punish the audience with a long, tedious bite because it took someone a long time to explain the situation. Children and teenagers can be especially difficult to get good bites from.
“Kill the babies,” says former NBC reporter Don Larson, referring to someone he knew who had trouble getting rid of bites she had worked so hard to gather. They became “like her babies.” Be ruthless. If the bite won’t really mean something to the audience, kill it.
Bob Dotson also argues that the quality of a sound bite has nothing to do with length but whether it’s something that will stick with the audience. “Robert Frost used to say that a good story starts with a lump in the throat,” says Dotson. The whole point of sound bites, then, is to add texture to a story or pound home a point.
“I’m looking for [bites] that are emotional,” says Wayne Freedman. “I don’t want facts, I want emotions. I want somebody to tell me how they feel. The story is about the people in the story.”
An Alternative to Traditional Bites
The use of sound can help tell a story, break up the monotony of a single speaker and prove to the audience that we covered the event. Even one-word responses or short phrases can work as bites if you write into them and out of them properly. Because they’re so short, using them can be risky in a live newscast, but they’ll work fine in a prerecorded radio or television package.
Look at how KGO-TV reporter Wayne Freedman wove one- and two-word responses through a portion of his script on the clean-up following the last San Francisco earthquake:
| Freedman: | For people in the quake zone, this has been a day for finding and taking care of essentials. |
| Man outside hardware store: Spackle. | |
| Another man outside: Metal straps to go around hot water heaters. | |
| Clerk in hardware yells: Roofing nails. | |
| Freedman: | They’re the building blocks of recovery. By beginning with little things, the big ones will fall into place as well. |
| Freedman to woman: So how’s the house? | |
| Woman: It’s standing. | |
| Freedman: And how’s the car? | |
| Woman: It’s dirty. | |
That entire sequence, including reporter track and bites from four different people, took a total of 18 seconds.
WORKING WITH BITES, ACTUALITIES AND NATURAL SOUND
Always keep the information flowing. The two most common errors in working with bites and actualities are (1) stopping the story flow dead in its tracks and (2) repeating in the lead-in what the bite or actuality is about to say.
Don’t Stop the Story
Here are some examples of the most common ways to kill the flow of a story:
| TERRIBLE: | The mayor had this to say on the proposal. (bite) |
| TERRIBLE: | The mayor explains what she thought of the proposal. (bite) |
| TERRIBLE: | I asked the mayor how he felt about the proposal. (bite) |
None of the above lead-ins has any redeeming qualities. In all of those cases the lead-in brings the story to a dead stop because the audience learns no information from the sentence. Those are just empty words whose only function is to tell the audience that a bite is coming. We would never put a line into a story saying that the next sentence will contain information on what the mayor thinks, so never go into a bite using anything like the above examples.
Don’t Repeat
The other common error is to repeat in the lead-in what the bite is going to say:
| ALSO | |
| TERRIBLE: | The mayor says he’s against the proposal. Mayor bite: “I’m against the proposal.” |
Doing this makes it sound as if you have no idea what’s going on in the story. It’s not that the lead-in is bad per se. The problem is the repetition of the material. Even having the lead-in repeat just a key word or phrase from the bite makes the whole thing sound repetitious.
Watch Out for Partial Lead-Ins
Generally, don’t go into a bite that’s being played live with a partial sentence lead-in:
| RISKY | |
| EAD-IN: | But the mayor says: Mayor bite: (bite) |
If the bite doesn’t come up—usually because of technical problems that seem to be reserved specifically for when you’ve violated this rule—you’re left hanging there with you and the audience waiting, knowing something went wrong. Partial sentence lead-ins should be reserved for packages, in which all the material is prerecorded. Even then, you should be cautious about partial sentence lead-ins when the bite completes the sentence started by the reporter. The audience adjusts their listening each time the speaker changes. It doesn’t take long, and a pause built into the end of one sentence and the beginning of the next will usually handle the adjustment. When you switch speakers mid-sentence, the edit is tighter, the adjustment period is shorter, and it will be harder for the audience to follow what’s being said. It’s even riskier when the voice quality of the reporter or anchor is similar to the voice quality in the bite itself.
Making the Story Flow
All the words in your lead-in must contribute information to the story and keep the story moving. The story flow should not be interrupted just because you’re using sound.
| GOOD LEAD-IN: | The mayor says he’s against the proposal. Mayor bite: It’s too expensive; it won’t work; and I think there are better ways to approach the problem. |
The transition from the lead-in to the mayor’s bite flows as seamlessly as if the writer had scripted everything—including the bite. That’s exactly the way it should sound. No wasted words. Easy to follow and understand.
Finding the Lead-in
The best place to look for material for a good lead-in is the first line of a good bite:
| GOVERNOR: | The issue is jobs. We’ve got thousands of people who want work here but not enough industry to support them all. |
In this case, use as a lead-in the governor’s opening line about jobs, and pick up the bite with line two:
| LEAD-IN: | The governor says the issue is jobs. |
| GOVERNOR’S | |
| BITE: | We’ve got thousands of people … |
This type of lead-in also won’t make you look foolish in the event of technical problems. If you’re running this story live and the bite doesn’t come up, you simply have a slight pause. Depending on how well you or the anchors know the story, it’s possible to ad lib a line summarizing the governor’s view—or you can just keep going. Either way, the story will sound reasonably complete.
Occasionally, there isn’t good information for the lead-in. In that case, minimize damage:
| LEAD-IN: | Mayor John Smith. (bite) |
This type of lead-in isn’t nearly as good as the other because it doesn’t really keep the information flowing smoothly and seamlessly. But it’s a decent second choice, since it’s short and to the point. All it does is give the next speaker’s name.
Television Lead-ins
There’s less of an issue leading into bites in television because we seldom introduce anyone. Mostly, we just cut directly to a bite and super the name and position in the lower third of the screen. That helps to keep the flow of the television story going, and it prevents the painfully weak five or six seconds of video of someone not talking (but usually sitting at a desk) while that person is introduced. Introducing people on TV can work if you need to and have some interesting video of that person actually doing something. But if that isn’t the case, skip the introduction, just go to the person and tell us who it is with a super.
Writing Out of Bites
Usually, we don’t need to do anything special coming out of a bite or actuality. Normally, the bite is so short that we don’t need to remind people who was speaking; we can just move on. In any case, writing out of a bite or actuality involves the same concept as writing in: Keep the information flowing. Never come out of a bite with something like this:
| WEAK | |
| WRITE OUT: | hat was Mayor John Smith. |
If you need to repeat the name because the bite was long, include new material:
| BETTER: | |
| WRITE OUT | Mayor Smith also said … |
PACKAGES
Writing into Packages
A TV package (or pack) is a prerecorded report, normally with reporter narration over video, a stand-up, and bites. Radio’s equivalent is the wrap or wraparound, which includes the reporter narration, preferably over natural sound, and one or more actualities. In both cases these go on the air only after being introduced by the news anchor. As with writing into bites or actualities, always try to keep the information flowing. This common form of package lead-in isn’t very good:
| WEAK | |
| LEAD-IN: | Mayor John Smith has come out against a new highway plan for the city. Jane Jones has the details from city hall. (package) |
It’s not a terrible lead-in, but it’s weak because the last line serves only to introduce the reporter. Otherwise, it says nothing at all. We should be able to do better:
| BETTER | |
| LEAD-IN: | Mayor John Smith has come out against a new highway plan for the city. Jane Jones at city hall says the mayor is ready to fight the issue in court. (package) |
That’s better because, in this example, the same last sentence that introduces the reporter also says something about the story (that the mayor is ready to fight the issue in court). Make every word count.
| PROBLEM | XXXX’s John Smith was in Clark Lake this morning when Virginia Jones got the word of her husband’s release and he has more in this report. (package) |
| LEAD-IN: |
Strengthen this network lead-in by eliminating the extra words (underlined) that slow down the story:
| BETTER LEAD-IN: | XXXX’s John Smith was in Clark Lake this morning when Virginia Jones got word of her husband’s release. (package) |
This version is better because it’s tighter and more to the point. Those seven extra words that were in the original story just slow it down and weaken the writing.
Introducing a Package That Starts with a Bite
How a package begins determines how the lead-in should be written. Most package lead-ins are designed for a package that starts with the reporter track or, preferably, natural sound full followed by the reporter track. In the above example the dual introduction of the reporter and Virginia Jones would actually allow the package to start either way. If you’re going to start a package with a bite, make sure the package lead-in is written in such a way that you don’t confuse the audience.
| PROBLEM: | Reporter John Smith is at City Hall and has the story about what’s happening with the city budget. (package that starts with a bite from a city council member) |
This doesn’t work because the lead-in clearly has the audience expecting to hear from reporter John Smith. If you’re going to start with a bite, this would be poor form in TV and confusing in radio. In television, a super can reorient the viewer, but the confused radio listener may never catch up with the story.
| BETTER: | Reporter John Smith is at City Hall and spoke with Council Member Jane Doe about what’s happening with the city budget. (package that starts with a bite from a city council member) |
In this example the audience clearly knows that John Smith will report, but they’re also expecting to hear from Jane Doe. No one will have any trouble following the beginning of the story.
Understand Where the Story Begins
Nothing improves lead-ins (and tags) to reporter packages as much as the reporter understanding that the story actually begins when the anchor lead-in starts and ends when the next story is about to begin. The reporter may think that the story begins and ends with the package itself, but the audience doesn’t see (or hear) it that way, and why should they? The story begins with the anchor introduction.
Too often, reporters write the prerecorded portion of the package first. After that’s all done, they go back and try to tack on an intro and sometimes a tag. The problem is, they’ve said just about everything in the package, leaving nothing of consequence to say in a lead-in or tag. That results in weak, sometimes redundant lead-ins and meaningless tags. Reporters should start writing with the lead-in and end with the tag, before recording anything. Even when time is tight, the reporter must at least figure out what the lead-in and tag will say—before writing the package itself.
Package Tags
Generally, a reporter package is self-contained and requires no additional information coming out of it, but that’s not always the case. Sometimes there’s additional information that is most logically added to the end. Sometimes there’s another aspect to the story that is better handled in a short tag. Sometimes TV stations insist on an anchor tag after reporter packages to improve the flow of the newscast and reestablish the anchors for the audience. The concept is good; the execution frequently is not. If the tag doesn’t contain meaningful information, the effect is to grind the newscast to a virtual standstill at the end of every package.
| TERRIBLE ANCHOR TAG: | That was John Smith reporting. |
| NOT MUCH BETTER: | John Smith will be following the story as the petition drive progresses. |
| MUCH BETTER: | John Smith says the group hopes to deliver a thousand petitions to the mayor late next week. |
A good tag can be a tough balancing act. It needs to contain meaningful information but must not sound as though the reporter forgot to tell us something.
SUMMARY
Bites and actualities involve the actual sounds of people in the news. We call them bites in TV and actualities in radio, but otherwise, there’s no difference. Natural sound is the actual sound of life (traffic, kids on a playground, and so on). The key in using sound is maintaining the story flow while giving the audience the sense of “being there.” Beyond making sure the technical quality is high and the sound clear, the best bites involve personal account, witness account, personal opinion and expert opinion. Generally, weak bites involve hard data and anything not said well. The two most common errors going into bites are stopping the flow of the story and repeating the same information that’s in the bite. Generally, in TV, don’t introduce people before bites; that’s what supers are for.
KEY WORDS & PHRASES
bites
actualities
nat or natural sound
personal account
witness account
personal opinion
expert opinion
don’t stop the story flow
don’t repeat the information
partial lead-ins
EXERCISES
A. Some of the following situations and quotes are made up, and some are real. For each of them, write a lead-in and all of the words of the bite that you would use on the air at your Springfield television station. You may use all of the bite or just part of it.
1. Speaker John Boehner on the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords:
“Recent events have reminded us of the imperfect nature of our representative democracy, but also how much we cherish the ideal that our government exists to serve the people. Even in the wake of tragedy, Congress has an obligation to carry out their will and provide solutions to keep moving our nation forward.”
2. Lab worker John Smith on the past experience of accused serial killer James Jones:
“He did not seem to understand why all of this could be important and how deadly the chemicals could be for animals. He never really acknowledged our concerns. We were concerned about him not following the rules that the supervisor had clearly explained to him, and we told him not to return until he was willing to abide by the rules. That was the last we saw of him.”
3. Springfield Mayor Marvin Summers on complaints about poor snow removal during the last storm:
“We recognize that we did not do the job that Springfield residents rightly expect of us in the last storm. We were admittedly a little late getting started, and I think we really didn’t follow through in all cases as aggressively as we needed to. We intend to make sure that does not happen again.”
4. Former President Bill Clinton on the angry political rhetoric prior to the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords:
“No one intends to do anything that encourages this sort of behavior. But political commentary should not degenerate into demonization because it falls on the unhinged and the hinged alike. This is an occasion for us to reaffirm that our political differences shouldn’t degenerate into demonization, in the sense that if you don’t agree with me you’re not a good American. I’m hoping there will be a lot of good debates that go beyond turning this into politics.”
5. Jonathan Smythe, an analyst for Research Ltd. in London, on the financial difficulties facing Portugal:
“Eighty percent of Portugal’s debt stock is held by foreigners. But the flow, now, is being financed domestically. A year ago, the I.M.F. published that the outlook for Portugal’s economy is bleak. The staff’s baseline scenario envisages modest adjustment, weak growth and continuing unsustainable imbalances.”
6. Jonathan Smythe, an analyst for Research Ltd. in London, on the financial difficulties facing Greece:
“A large part of the Greek debt is hidden on the balance sheets of the Greek banks. You cannot just say ‘Let’s restructure.’ It is not so easy. In fact, it will be extremely complex even to untangle the intricacies of the entire financial system.”
7. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on education:
“I propose that we reward the best teachers, based on merit, at the individual teacher level. I demand that layoffs, when they occur, be based on a merit system and not merely on seniority. And perhaps the most important step is to give schools more power to remove underperforming teachers.”
8. Mary Smith, head of Gun Control Advocates on the shooter of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords:
“The reason he was able to be tackled was he had to pause to reload. The problem is, he didn’t have to pause to reload until he’d already expended 30 rounds. We need to go back to the slightly saner laws that we used to have where these high capacity clips were illegal. That’s the way it used to be. If that were still the case, then maybe at least some of these innocent souls would still be alive today.”
9. Deborah Parsons, head of Guns for Protection on the shooter of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords:
“The criminals are going to have guns, so why should we as law-abiding citizens be punished for what a criminal does? Maybe if more people attending the event had been armed, they could have done something before so many people were hurt. The judge who was killed knew how to shoot, but he’d just been to church, and he probably didn’t have his gun.”
10. East Springfield Chief of Police Evan Coulter:
“A man was fatally stabbed in Springfield County on Monday evening in the 10th violent attack there in 10 days. We have stepped up efforts to curb the outbreak of deadly violence that has provoked concern and alarm in the suburban jurisdiction. In the most recent incident, the victim was stabbed during a fight in a supermarket parking lot in East Springfield.”
11. Springfield Mayor Marvin Summers on the new convention construction in downtown:
“Now we have a convention center and hotel set-up, airport and downtown that few cities in this nation can match. This will allow us to compete for some of the biggest and most important conventions in the country. And don’t kid yourself, it’s serious competition. Sure there’s pressure. But all the pieces are in place here.”
12. National weather service forecaster Carmen Hyde on the upcoming snow storm:
“At this point, right now in the Springfield area, there will be 4–6 inches of snow when it’s all said and done. Wind will enter into the weather picture tonight, so blowing could become a problem by morning. Temps during the day will be in the 20s. The accumulation by rush hour this morning means commuters—as well as buses and parents taking their kids to school—will need to slow down. As we’ve seen, you don’t need a lot of snow to create a lot of problems. Conditions are going to be deteriorating throughout the day. Take necessary precautions.”
13. Gerald Jones on the fire that destroyed his home today:
“I left with my two dogs to run an errand, and when I returned home, my house was on fire. I think it started between 9 a.m. and 9:30 a.m., maybe near my wood stove. I left the house to go to the post office, and when I got back it was fully engulfed. My neighbors are helping all they can. I’m sure it hasn’t hit me yet. If I’d have been home 20 minutes sooner, I maybe could have gotten enough water to it to put it out. But I couldn’t even get into that room. There was too much smoke.”
14. Springfield Mayor Marvin Summers on an ongoing dispute with a private water company on whether the company’s assets are taxable:
“Hopefully we can work out a solution. We have a good relationship with the company, and there are going to be issues of discussion moving forward. We’re not trying to pull a fast one here, we just have different interpretations of the law and we need to resolve that. A legal opinion provided by the state Municipal Association stated that the activity is taxable, and the town attorney concurred.”
15. Springfield City Council Chair Helen MacDonald on a new proposal to clean up the town:
“I’m concerned that the plan would be making too many demands on businesses that are already having a hard time. I also think that some recommendations in the draft plan seem to be very personal, such as that specific driveways or yards be improved, might alarm people. A few business owners were alarmed. I explained that we wouldn’t force anything on them and that the implementation committee, if so charged, would contact the owners and discuss possibilities of volunteer work or other options to help them spruce up their properties. We’re not trying to be draconian; we just want to spruce up our image.”
16. Jayne Darrow, head of the Business Development Office for Springfield:
“While downtown business comparisons turned negative for the first time since January 2011, we believe today’s results simply reflect a minor bump along the road to a broader Springfield recovery. I know business conditions are difficult and painful, but recoveries take time. Our conversations with local retailers lead us to believe the next quarter of this year will see results largely exceeding expectations.”
17. Sarah Devine, Springfield Police Chief:
“We found Springfield dancer Mary Flores’s body in concrete 2 miles from her home. The coroner said she died from asphyxiation due to neck compression. Her death has been ruled a homicide. We have arrested Jason James, her ex-boyfriend, and have charged him with murder. It appears that this was a crime of passion that occurred in the heat of the moment after an argument.”
18. Daniel Clemente, State Corrections Chief:
“State correctional officers can be given one unpaid furlough day per month without jeopardizing public safety. The last time we did this, we saw no increase in incidents in our prisons. Since those are the facts, and all other state workers are being forced into furloughs in order to save the state money, I simply cannot justify exempting correctional officers from the same pain that every other state worker is experiencing. Those furloughs will save the state $312,700 a month.”
19. Alexander Mullins, professor of economics at Springfield State University:
“That’s a big reason why much-ballyhooed loan modification and foreclosure mediation programs aren’t saving people from losing their homes. There are issues because we have banks that not only hold their own mortgages, but they sold off mortgages. It’s difficult for the homeowner to work with servicers and investors. Much of the time, it’s hard to tell who even owns the mortgage—much less getting that company or those companies—to give the owner any kind of break.”
20. Jermaine Hathaway, Assistant Chief of Police in Springfield:
“A 3-year-old boy was taken to Springfield General Hospital this afternoon after he was found at the bottom of a swimming pool on North 17th Street. The boy was unconscious. We do not know exactly how long he had been in the water, but we do not think it had been long. A neighbor spotted the child and pulled him out. At this point, the boy is in critical condition. We have no information that indicates this is anything other than a horrible accident.”
B. Which bite or bites (above) would you edit differently if you were running the bite on your Springfield commercial radio station? On your Springfield public radio station?
C. List the bites in A in order from strongest/best to weakest … and explain why.