Interview with David Williams: Late-Breaking Writer

By Jennifer Maciejewski

In the fast-paced world of online news reporting, David Williams’ job as a writer is essential. Although his first experiences with writing were for the student newspaper in college and for television, David now writes news stories for CNN.com. After earning a Bachelor’s Degree in Broadcast News from the University of Georgia and a Master’s Degree in Political Science from Akron University in Ohio, David pursued a career as a Television News Producer. David decided to apply at CNN saying, “I figured it would be a good place to start out and would look good on a résumé, even if I was only there for a short time doing grunt work.” Nine years later, David is still working at CNN and has had a variety of positions, including video journalist, editorial assistant, show writer, and writer for CNN.com and Wires.CNN.

Starting Out at CNN

David started working for CNN’s Headline News as a video journalist, VJ, which was the entry-level position at all of the CNN television networks. The producer gave the VJ a rundown of the show, and his job was to pull tapes for the shows, put them in order, and take them to the playback person who would load them into six video decks. Once the tapes ran, David made sure they were cued up for the next show and put them away. David also ran the camera and the teleprompter. Although the VJ position still exists at CNN, many of David’s former duties have since been replaced by digital technology.

David was promoted to an editorial assistant, EA, which was a script ripper. The scripts printed out of a large Dot Matrix printer on five-part carbon paper. The job mainly consisted of ripping out the carbon paper, dividing the scripts into five piles, and then giving them to the teleprompter, the anchor, the director, the producer, and the font person. Although that was considered a promotion, David felt like both “a delivery boy and an advanced copy machine.” The EA position has been replaced by personal printers next to the individuals’ desks that automatically print out the scripts.

Learning CNN’s Writing Style

While working as a VJ and an EA, David began training to be a television news writer through CNN Headline News’ Write Training program. Every week he had a day to write news scripts and package-tosses, which occur when an anchor introduces a pre-produced reporter piece, such as “Police are investigating an explosion that killed fourteen people at a bank in Kenya. Katherine Thomas has the story,” and then the tape runs. A senior writer edited the work and went over any mistakes with David.

It took David about a year and a half to learn to write in the Headlines’ style. David recalled his difficulty with learning the style saying, “When you’re learning, you have to have someone beating you over the head with the rules. There’s a certain amount of gradual progression; but, for me, it was literally one day I didn’t get it, and the next day I came in and I got it.” A few months before David completed the Write Training program, he started writing every day which sped up the process. Once he learned the writing style, he took a writing test and was promoted.

When writing for CNN.com, David says he follows the Associated Press, AP, style guide to a large extent, except that some CNN style trumps AP style. Because CNN is an international news network, Ted Turner banned the use of the word “foreign” in copy, jokingly known as the “f-word,” unless it was in a title such as foreign minister. Also, writers do not abbreviate. If a city is not on the AP’s list of cities that can stand alone, the writers will include and spell out the state’s name. In addition, David says some anchors had words they did not want used in copy, such as the word “deadly”: “‘a deadly explosion that killed seven people.’ It’s just an explosion that killed seven people – it’s obviously deadly.”

Although David does not write his news scripts and articles for a specific audience, he has a clear and concise style. He says, “I try to take out jargon, but I try to be technically correct. I try to use basic words instead of fifty-cent words. I see some words in stories and think, ‘I’ve got a Master’s Degree, and I’m running to the dictionary!’ But, sometimes I put the exact term to be accurate then quickly explain it.” Word choice is critical in news writing. David explains, “Diplomats mince words to a ridiculous level. The difference between ‘will’ and ‘may’ and ‘action’ and ‘condition’ is huge for them.” Since nothing is guaranteed to happen, David avoids using the phrase “will do” in copy. David says he tries to “hedge automatically and use ‘is scheduled to’ or ‘is set to.’”

After nine years at CNN, David finds that it is harder to impose personal bias than to write a neutral piece, in part, because of the Write Training. One way David eliminates the appearance of bias in a news story is to balance loaded terms, like “partial birth abortion,” with neutral language. According to David, writers often become cynical with experience, especially about political events. David sometimes finds himself thinking “These people are both annoying. I just want to get my story copy edited so that I can go home.” He believes “there’s so much less bias than people perceive.” If David does have a strong opinion about a topic, he is harder on the side with which he agrees to ensure he presents the story fairly. CNN.com will even change a news story’s pictures if there is a hint of bias. For instance, if President Bush had a mean expression on his face in the picture for a story about proposed budget cuts to a children’s social program, the picture would be changed to one conveying a neutral expression.

When David needs to find information to write a news story, he often first turns to the news wires. David says, “Wires.CNN, which is CNN’s internal news service, and CNN’s reporters are the primary source of information for the networks and CNN.com, and we supplement that information with the AP and Reuters wires.” CNN pays for AP and Reuters rights, so David can directly use that material for a story without needing to attribute the information to a source. However, if the information is only being reported by the AP, then CNN attributes the story to them. David explains, “Since the AP is made up of every major paper, they might get the information a little faster if somebody died or a plane crashed. Then, until we can confirm it, we attribute it to the Associated Press.” David also watches the video of an event and describes what happened from that source. The direct quotes in the news stories come from news conferences, press releases, interviews, and sometimes from reporters through Wires.CNN.

Writing for Television

David found writing for Headline News to be a fast, adrenaline-filled type of writing: “You’re always moving and everything seems like it’s going slower. A minute is a really long time if you need it to be or if you’re screwing up, which also makes it fun.” Television news writers simplify a story by distilling it into key points. The goal was to cut a long, print article down to thirty seconds or less. Since a television news story is so short, David always looked at the text of the sound bite, which is a video clip of a brief statement, in order to avoid having the anchor’s script repeat the content of the clip.

David had to have his scripts done on time to be on the air at ten o’clock or he would have two minutes of dead air or a promo. If something went wrong, like a satellite signal going silent right before a live shot, David had about thirty seconds to figure out what to do. He had to completely restack his show: kill the script for the live shot, throw in an old script from the last half hour, take the package from the bottom of the show and move it up. While the show was going on, he had to solve the problem by finding another package that would fit so that he could get everything into a fifteen-minute show.

Depending on the time available, David wrote about three scripts an hour and completed additional tasks. A main news story at Headline News might be complex and take longer to write; for instance, a two-minute story contained several parts: a fifteen-to-twenty second script of the story, a sound bite, a bridge, a sound bite, and then a fifteen-second tag. David believes writing for television was even more immediate than writing for CNN.com: “In thirty seconds you can have something from ‘Oh my God’ to on the air because you can give the anchor a piece of wire copy and have them read it.” He says, “It takes a lot longer on the Internet for that to get out. There are occasional computer problems, but it just takes longer to open a new story, put in the new information, save it, publish it and then put it on the page so people can see it. The senior producer can put up a breaking news banner at the top of the Web page that has a sentence on the event and then says, ‘Details soon.’”

When Headline News started taping each story individually, the job became less exciting. He explains, “You would stack them [the stories] up in the server to do the show, so you could have your ten o’clock show done at nine-thirty. Then, once the ten o’clock show goes, you look up to make sure it does what it’s supposed to, but you’re working on the eleven and just switching stuff around. It’s more like accounting.” David decided to leave Headline News to write for CNN.com.

Writing for the Web

David wrote what he calls “news haikus,” 130 character news headlines for text phones and pagers, for a year. Since that service was very profitable, they had three people writing news haikus and only one editorial person running the Web site during the overnight shift, which David says, “is always very thinly staffed because nothing usually happens.” David recalled one night where he needed to stop working at the pager desk in order to help with the main site at CNN.com: “I was on the overnight shift, and there was a plane crash in China where they think the pilot nose-dived it into the ocean. We had two people working on the Web site: a Web master who would do all of the coding and one editorial person. So, I ended up jumping off of working on news haikus and started writing and helping them get everything in.” CNN has since restructured to allocate more writers for the Web site. Now, script writers create their own news haikus by copying the lead into a box at the bottom of the page and shortening it to fit. When they publish their story, the news haiku is sent to the computer automatically.

Writing news stories for CNN.com is similar to writing for a newspaper. With a newspaper, the State of the Union coverage was a huge article. At CNN.com, the President’s speech was the main story, about 400 words, but instead of having all of the information in one lengthy article, it was broken into more manageable chunks by linking to other stories. For instance, the main article had a line about the Democratic response, and then linked to the full story. David can also add videos of the speech, news conferences, and packages. In addition, David uses easy-to-reference graphics and fact boxes to provide definitions and additional explanations instead of having that information in the story where it adds bulk.

At CNN.com, the writers limit most news articles to 400-to-600 words because anything longer is too much to read online. They structure most news articles using what David describes as an “inverted pyramid: First, you write the big news event, then you put the secondary things and other developments and do a bunch of bullets. As the story gets longer, you hack stuff off the bottom.”

In order to avoid overcrowding the Web site, David often combines several similar news stories into one article. For instance, David says, “there may be a thing about weapons inspectors in Iraq, a diplomatic thing, and leaflets dropped that might come in as three separate stories; so, you merge those three stories into one.” In addition, David takes the news stories off of Wires.CNN and gives them a first edit: “I go through and make changes if there are questions, check facts, do a little bit of extra research, format it, and put images and links on it; then it goes to a copy editor.”

Copy editors act as a safety net for CNN.com. Since they are one of the last stops before publishing the news story online, their job is to ensure that the article is clearly written and both grammatically and factually correct. David believes that “copy editors think differently.” For instance, “One copy editor was all over me about the difference between ‘several’ and ‘a few’ since I used both in an article, and I’m thinking, ‘Aren’t they the same thing?’”

In addition to copy editors, CNN.com has several other editors critical to the Web site production process: the assignment editor distributes the work load so that everyone is kept busy; a content producer decides which elements should be in or cut from a story and reviews the article one last time before publishing it; the associate producer deals with the graphics and pictures, particularly images that come off of television or feeds; an interactivity person designs the pop-ups and moving graphics; the web editor does the html coding; and a graphics person creates the specific designs. Teamwork is essential in order to get the news online as quickly as possible.

David says the newsroom is fairly quiet, but “when it’s really going, it can get loud.” For instance, he may be listening to one television newscast while someone else is listening to another dueling newscast. Although David may occasionally need to tell someone to be quiet or turn down the television, he is generally able to block out the noise simply because he does not have a choice. David says, “If you’ve really got to get something done and there’s stuff going on around you, you get tunnel vision and can block it out.”

Since David is a natural procrastinator, the immediacy of his work motivates him to get it done quickly. He finds it easy to push back long-term projects; however, when late-breaking news occurs, he has to get a solid story out as quickly as possible. According to David, at CNN.com the assignment’s deadline is now: “With a newspaper, you have to have everything done in time to be edited so that the presses can run on time. With us, since it’s immediate you don’t have that pressure; but, since it’s immediate, it happened and you want it out as quickly as possible. If it’s a development that’s not big you can put it off, but putting it off means going to the bathroom.”

While writing for CNN.com, David gradually updates the news stories throughout the day. David is not frustrated by revising because his job is to write about the news; updating stories is just part of the job. He says, “I probably did eight or ten rewrites of the shuttle story Saturday; but, by the end of the day I think, ‘yeah, I accomplished something, did a good job, and worked.’”

However, writing solid news stories does not mean that the work will be attributed to the author. Writing for CNN is more about the process as opposed to the person. By the time a story goes through all of the levels of editing, whether it’s a brand new writer on their first day or a veteran reporter, it is quality reporting. CNN.com does not often attach the author’s by-line to the news article because it does not affect the integrity of the piece. As David explains, “it’s assumed that whether it’s me sitting at my desk or Christiane Amanpour, we’re CNN, and it’s right.”

Sometimes David works as a freelance writer for Wires.CNN, which started out as a queue in the computer system where reporters put raw information, almost like a tip service. Then, CNN hired more writers, and it has now become a 24 hour news operation, essentially an internal wire service. When a reporter calls in a story or a news tip, David is able to confirm the news event or chase down a story. Then, he writes an article about the information. David says he enjoys the process because “It’s fun. It’s like doing real reporting.”

David never knows what each work day will be like. There may be no major news occurring, and on those days, David says, “It’s not as much of an adrenaline thing; it’s just a working-through thing.” But when a late-breaking news story develops, he enjoys being part of the fast-paced, deadline-driven workforce. David believes “that’s what people get into the business for – exciting stuff happens.”

Posted with the permission of Jennifer Maciejewski and David Williams. © 2005, 2008 Jennifer Maciejewski.