8.2 Before you start shooting

Let’s start by acknowledging the fact that TV is the most superficial medium of all. Its popular power comes from the strength of its images, not the amount of words or number of ideas you are trying to convey.

Even if you have done just as much preparatory work and research as your print media colleagues, your final report will use only a small fraction of the information compared to a newspaper article. While at the beginning, you are bursting with acquired knowledge, as you proceed you will realise that the amount of information you can present within a given time is getting smaller and smaller. Pretty soon, you will find that in a 10-minute report you cannot explain the nuances of quantum physics or the biochemical processes in a cell.

A TV show cannot be stopped to let a viewer think or check an unfamiliar term in a dictionary. A TV show also competes with other distractions, both in the home and on other channels via the remote control. Therefore, you have to be perfectly clear about what you want to say and what really matters in your presentation, and you need to present it in an engaging and entertaining style to hold a viewer’s attention. For the viewer, it is always most attractive to discover the relationship between research and their everyday life, or how their life can be possibly changed or affected by research.

Naturally, this makes you interested in who your audiences are. In many countries you can find this information through peoplemetric surveys carried out by your TV station's management. In any case, audiences need to be treated as complete lay people. Not even a well-educated person is necessarily informed about all the research topics you are going to report on. At the same time you should never think that your viewers are stupid – rather, imagine them to be intelligent but just not very informed about a particular issue. It is always useful to check with your editor – if he or she understands your story, your viewers probably will, too.


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