More of this Feature • Chapter 1 • Chapter 2 • Chapter 3 • Chapter 4 • Chapter 5 • Chapter 6 • Chapter 7 • Chapter 8 • Chapter 9 • Chapter 10 • Chapter 11 • Chapter 12 • Chapter 13 • Chapter 14

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Related Resources •  Want To Work On The Radio? •  Back On The Air - And Now It's Personal •  Radio Morning Man Terminology •  So, You Wanna Work In Radio? •  Confessions of a Morning DJ •  The Radio DJ FAQ •  How Do I Break Into Radio? •  You Don't Have To Be On The Air To Be In Radio •  Be A DJ: Radio Jobs Available

Rewrite It

If you consistently rip-and-read content for your show, you're not a Radio personality, you're an announcer. A Radio personality communicates information with a style. One of the best ways to do that is by rewriting material. It's okay to read something, but read something you would say in the WAY you would say it.

If you really have personality, people who listen to you come to know how you speak. Hearing you read something using words you would not normally use is less interesting than hearing you relate something in a way you normally would. Take advantage of the way you speak.

Before reading a news story or other content on-the-air, look through it and delete or change any words or phrases that are not consistent with your personality or you are just not comfortable with. If the story uses the word “Ass” but you would rather refer to someone's posterior as a “butt”, than do it. Be true to yourself. If you are not comfortable using any word, don't. Substitute another for it.

Don't assume the person who wrote whatever you are reading was a good writer! Just because they write for the Associated Press or any other publication, doesn't mean they should be writing for you.

Re-Order It

Let's assume you bring in a copy of “Rolling Stone's Top 100 Albums of All Time”. Are you really going to read them all? I hope not. Depending on the music format of your station, assuming you play music, chances are your listeners care mostly about the artists in that format. Therefore, make note of the albums on the list and zero in on that. You may want to mention the #1 album or the #100 album no matter what, as “bookmarks” to your discussion, but in general, extract the most meaningful content for your own purposes. This is one kind of re-ordering.

Again, let's assume you have brought in a lengthy article about Ebay users which you printed from a website. Remember that the articles generally start with an opening paragraph that defines what the writer is going to tell you. Then, each descending paragraph has more details, IN ORDER OF IMPORTANCE. The last paragraph will usually “stitch” everything (cont.)

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