The art of text producing
This mad and unique TV news role is one of the best (and scariest) ways into broadcast journalism…
I challenge you to find me a crazier job than being a text producer on a television news channel.
In some cases you’re usually the lowest-paid journalist in the newsroom, sitting in a dark room being shouted at for the words you type and put on screen.
Many times what you bash out (usually in a mad rush) from a thin piece of news copy can be seen by millions across the world. You have the power to trash an entire organisation’s reputation with a single typo. No pressure.
Text producers are the people who write the words that appear at the bottom of the screen (mostly known as straps) on TV news channels. A madder job you will not find.
I know this because I remember how clammy my hands would get when I heard the editor shout, ‘have you seen that breaking news!’ Oh god, here we go. Don’t fuck it up mate.
I arrived in London from South Africa in early 2003, green and unsure. I didn’t have a clue what I wanted to do although travel was one of them. But travelling costs money so I needed a job.
In South Africa I’d worked in radio so thought I’d stay the course. In those days if you wanted a job in the media, The Guardian every Monday was the only place to look.
It’s where I spotted an advert from Sky News. They were recruiting a pile of roles to power-up their output in case of a major breaking news story. Like a war in the Middle East, for example. Perchance in Iraq?
The job interview felt like just three questions.
Can you type? Yes. Can you type fast? Yes. Do you know the difference between a B2 and a B52? Yes. One of them is a big, fuck-off military bomber and the other isn’t.
(I wasn’t entirely sure of which but I’d seen Dr Strangelove so I knew at least one and I obviously sounded competent enough.)
So I was hired as a text producer to work in Unit 7 of a warehouse next to the Harrod’s distribution centre on an industrial estate in Osterley, very west London. Sky’s newsroom at the time.
The moment Bush and Blair announced war, Sky would turn on their news ticker to scroll across the bottom of the screen, giving constant updates on the Iraq conflict. I would help write it.
There were four of us in a 12-hour shift pattern. Midday to midnight and midnight to midday. Four days on, four days off for as long as the war continued.
WMDs. Hans Blix. George Galloway. Shock and awe. Operation Telic. That statue in Firdos Square. I wrote about them all in as few words as possible, accurately and at high speed for millions to read, all in real time.
The war ticker always had to be perfect but mostly between six and eight on weekday mornings. That was when our boss would have time to read it, during his morning walk on the treadmill in the staff gym with the telly on.
He would ring up if there was a error. ‘Wobbit, there’s a split infinitive, fix it.’ He’d hang up.
The race was on to find the typo he’d spotted and nuke it before it tickered around again and onto the TV.
I can still feel the cold, sinking feeling of dread at spotting Sadddam Hussein amble along the bottom of the screen one morning.
Then, an anxious wait for the phone to ring. It didn’t. Did he see it? Did anyone? Did I get away with it? Phew… It’s three strikes and you’re out at Sky.
Social media is a text producer’s main nemesis nowadays.
I must have done an OK job, without too many Bagdads or Rumsfields, because Sky kept me on after the war and not just writing the ticker, which they retained on screen.
The tickers you see on rolling news channels are a legacy of the Iraq war in 2003.
I’m told CNN and Sky first used them during the September 11 attacks because there was such an avalanche of tragic news but within a year, as the story abated, they turned them off. The events in Iraq brought the ticker back to stay.
Typing words accurately and at high speed under pressure to distil one line of breaking news copy into a few words on a TV screen doesn’t really make you a better writer but makes you think quickly about the words you use and it’s great journalism training.
Breaking News! Reuters copy flashes up in the newsroom. The Metropolitan Police say four people, aged 17 to 23, have been killed in a high speed crash involving a Range Rover on the M4.
Shit. Four youths killed in crash? Does M4 fit? Can you add 4x4 instead of Range Rover? Do you need to source it from the police? The Met Police? Maybe that’s too long. The screen is only so big. No unlimited words.
And while you’re thinking about this, guaranteed you will be being shouted at by the editor to get something up on the screen now, now, now!
Breaking news! A top government minister with a bloody long name has resigned after some row about something. Urgh.
Quits or resigns? Quit is shorter. Is it a political row or a crisis? Is it even a row? Does row on screen look too much like row? Government is always way too long. The abbreviation is govt. Gov is weird, Gvt even worse. Min quits? Er, no.
‘Come on, come on! Where’s the breaking news strap!’
Think about the danger of putting the word murdered on screen instead of killed. It could land you in court. Assassinated bad, killed OK but shot is great, if it’s accurate.
Short words are always a treat and names a danger.
In 2003, when the California gubernatorial election was making headlines, Schwarzenegger was printed large on an A3 piece of paper and stuck up in the control room. Sir Keir Starmer is the current text production hurdle that separates the good from the useless.
Long job titles are also a pain.
Who wants be the Ass Comm of the Metropolitan Police? Try Met Police boss. London police boss for an international audience. Met Police say? No, Met Police colon…
Of course more than just words, what text producing gives you is what every journalist ultimately wants — an audience.
Nobody knew who ex-Fox News producer Alexander McCaskill was until he typed some words that appeared on the channel calling Joe Biden a dictator. It made news around the world.
I only made the Evening Standard and a few online blogs when I was later freelancing at the BBC as a text producer during one of Donald Trump’s early press conferences.
Apparently I ‘owned’ America’s new president. I’ll take that.
I used the coverage at the time to introduce myself as a budding photographer to the then photo editor at the paper who commissioned me for some work.
And all because I could accurately type some words at high speed from news copy into a machine that puts them on the telly. Not television, TV better.
A final word about the terminology.
The blocks of horizontal static text on rolling news channels are called many things; straps, lower thirds and also in the UK, Astons (after the company that makes broadcast software).
They can also be called supers, presumably because they’re superimposed on top by the vision mixer who is the person in the control room who mixes the video to be broadcast.
In America they call straps Chyrons, again after the company that makes the technology.
A ticker is the scrolling text along the bottom of a screen. At the BBC theirs doesn’t scroll but flips which is why it’s called erm, a flipper.
