This document defines various terms related to reporting, writing, and technical aspects of newscasting. It explains concepts like camel squeezing, enterprise stories, evergreen stories, BOPSA videos, one-man band reporting, packed reporting, bumping heads in interviews, hyphenated words, planned events, and spot news. Technical terms covered include crash and burn live newscasts, double boxing, character generators, still stores, news blocks, commercial breaks, master control, ingesting video, and interruptible foldback earpieces. The document concisely defines 20 key terms for journalists and broadcasters.

1. TERMS
TO
KNOW
JCM 331
Spring 2019
20

2. 1. CAMEL SQUEEZING - Condensing an extraordinary
number of details into a short, crisp broadcast-style
script that's easy to listen to by omitting or
condensing unnecessary repitition, wording and
details; broadcast writing term for packing lots of
information into few words
REPORTING AND WRITING TERMS

3. 2. ENTERPRISE STORIES - ones that
reporters generate independently;
(NOT Planned events or spot
news)
3. EVERGREEN – A story that is not
time sensitive (can run any time)
4. BOPSA- “Bunch of People Sitting
Around” Video of meetings,
hearings, press confrences or
board rooms (using boring to
audiences)
REPORTING AND WRITING TERMS TO KNOW

4. REPORTING AND
WRITING TERMS
5. One-Man Band -A term for a
reporter who shots his or her
own video, writes his/her own
story, edits the video and reports
alone.
6. Pack Reporting - The mentality
of only speaking to officials on a
given topic and basically
transcribing the same
information that every other
reporter receives. This is lazy
journalism.

5. 7. BUMPING HEADS– Also known as butting heads; When recording two
SOTs, each interviewee should face a different direction so that when
one ends and the other begins it looks like they are “bumping heads.”
8. NON-ANTI-CO-SEMI – FOUR WORDS “non” “anti” “co” “Semi” that ALL
MUST have HYPHEN after them in scripting
9. PLANNED EVENTS - Events that people know are going to happen (i.e.
Governmental Meetings). The bulk of stories on a daily newscast are
events that are planned well in advance of the newscast.
10. SPONTANEOUS NEWS- also known as Spot News; Events that happen
without anyone's prior knowledge
REPORTING AND WRITING TERMS

6. NEWSCAST & TECHNICAL TERMS TO KNOW
11. CRASH – AND– BURN – term for live newscast
where there are multiple technical problems
(video doesn’t play, sound bad, live report not
ready)
12. DOUBLE BOX - When two different shots
appear on screen at the same time. For
example, when an anchor tosses to a reporter
in the field who is doing a live shot

7. 13. CG- character generator- machine used to type words
appear on screen
14. SS- still store- machine where “still” graphics stored
15. BLOCK - section of newscast (“A” is first block, “B” 2nd)
16. BREAK - when commercials play
17. SPOTS - the commercials themselves (spots)
18. MASTER CONTROL – area of station where commercials
played and that is responsible for over-the-air signal at all
times
19. INGEST – process of ”taking in” something (usually video)
to a server or electronic storage system (i.e. a computer)
STILL STORE for graphics like this
CG graphics on
On camera shots

8. 20. 18. IFB- Interruptible
Foldback – earpiece that is
worn by on-air talent to
broadcast over-the-air signal
and can be INTERRUPTED by
someone (usually director or
producer) speaking;
Note- LIVE REPORTERS in
field are fed the on-air signal
MINUS their own audio or
voice (called ”mix-minus”)