Wednesday Oct 27, 2010

Associated Press piece makes challenging rewrite for broadcast

Let's analyze a newspaper clipping for rewrite to broadcast.  Here's the story: Hurt teen athletes can see a doc free  (Associated Press). This story opens with what one could almost call a soft lede:

A local clinic will give free consultation to high school students with sports injuries on the next two Saturdays - Oct. 30 and Nov. 6.
Adding the dates spoils that notion, though. And the next paragraph is an amazing hard lede!
The University Physicians Healthcare's Arizona Institute for Sports Medicine, in conjunction with the University of Arizona College of Medicine Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, will host a walk-in clinic from 8:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. both Saturdays at the Arizona Institute for Sports Medicine, which is on the UPH Hospital campus at 2800 E. Ajo Way, Suite 200.
The fifth 'graph is pure radio:
Sports clinic officials say the free treatment encourages athletes to seek medical help quickly, because prompt treatment is a major factor in healing.
The facts we need for the last sentence are in the next 'graph:
More information on the Saturday sports-injury clinic is available by calling the Arizona Institute for Sports Medicine at 874-9000.
Pretty passive as it's written. Sounds like public radio.

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