A news bulletin is an item of recorded news issued for the purpose of public information. It is usually based upon information received just before the time of publication, but may also be prepared in advance.
A successful news bulletin has to be relevant to the interests of its audience, so that it can keep them listening for a good length of time. If they listen to stories that don’t interest them, they will soon switch off, so it is important to know your audience and understand their concerns. You also have to consider the pace of your news bulletin, that is the length of each story and the way it is written. A report of a fire will often be in short sentences with snappy words that convey simple ideas, while a story explaining a complex political issue will require longer sentences and words that convey more complicated ideas.
Using actuality – recordings of people speaking – in your news bulletin can add variety, authority and credibility. They can be a voice reading a written article, or an audio clip (called a grab) from an interview or speech. In the case of the latter, you can overdubbe it by playing the original sound and then overlaying it with a voice to translate.
You can also use grabs at the end of your news bulletin as a sort of filler, but they must always have an editorial reason for being included. If a light story is planned, but then the flash comes through of a major air crash, you must drop it and go straight to the important news.