In radio or television, a news bulletin (also called a newscast) is a series of recorded stories. News bulletins are often a bit shorter than newspaper articles and there are a number of differences between them, particularly in their structure and how they sound.
The order of the stories within a bulletin will depend to some extent on the overall format of the station. For example, a serious national station might have more political stories with a serious tone while a youth-oriented music station might use more stories about popular culture and have a lighter style of delivery. The audience will expect a mix of stories, some heavy and some light, with an emphasis on their impact on people’s lives.
When choosing your lead story, take special care to make sure that it is strong, dramatic and will attract listeners. A dull or slow start is likely to lose them before they hear the rest of the bulletin, so it is worth giving it particular attention.
Once you have all the stories written, read them through and time them before you go live, writing down how long it takes to read each one. The more you do this the quicker you will become at judging how long each story is and even some modern newsroom computer systems can help with this. Taking a little extra copy into the studio is always wise, just in case you misjudged something or you get a piece of actuality which does not play.