"Spot" News can be breaking stories, daily updates, important items, and total trivia. The idea is that these stories encapsulate what's happening right now, that radio listeners should hear. And hear quickly. For our purposes, the spot news story is no longer than 1:15.
A few examples include the
sad but silly story of "The Nut Lady," a 94-year-old Connecticut resident who devoted her life to, well...nuts. It includes a few interesting, archival pieces of tape - telling the important parts of a life in a very short bit of time.
A "newsier" spot might include the elements of
this story about pending legislation at the state capitol. A controversial issue, where you hear both sides of the story...again, very quickly. When we include audio in a story like this, it's a "wrap."
Here's another story, basically ripped from the day's newspaper.
It's what we call a "voicer" - just a story, written by a reporter, and read as a script. There's no sound bite involved.
