Big 8 Conference Tournament

2011 — WI/US

• Invite

Radio Announcing

Event Description:

Purpose of the Category
To develop the skills of selecting, editing, and organizing news items from supplied material in a limitedperiod of time, to deliver a succinct oral newscast.

Definition of the Category
The challenge to the speaker is to present a well-organized, clearly communicated newscast. Source materialprovided by the tournament director of approximately 15-20 minutes in length is to be cut and edited withspecial efforts made to end right at 5 minutes.

Rules
1. One-half hour before the contest, the speaker will receive source material. Identical material will beprovided for each contestant at six-minute intervals. The tournament should provide the judge with acopy of the packet of material given to each speaker.
2. The speaker may delete or edit any parts of items from the provided material. However, no new articlesor items may be added except transition sentences, introductions and conclusions. Different material of15 to 20 minutes in length will be provided for each round of competition. The speaker must supplyhis/her own stopwatch and equipment for cutting, editing, and reading the newscast.
3. The newscast will include one or more commercials advertising some product or service. Commercialswill be supplied with the material, which the student may use as written or make changes to furtherenhance the product or service. Original commercials may not be used. The commercial(s) may beinserted at any point but must be included within the time limits.4. Use of visual aids is not permitted. The speaker is to be seated in profile position to the adjudicator.
5. The time limit shall be five minutes and the speaker is expected to finish "on the nose;” however, if aspeaker concludes the presentation within ten seconds on either side, the speaker will not be penalized.Beyond those limits, the evaluation should reflect a deduction for further deviation. Vocal music, ifused, must be incidental and consist of no more than 30 seconds total. Any entry exceeding this limitmay not be ranked first in the round. If all entries in a round exceed the vocal music time limit, no firstrank shall be given in that round.

Criteria for Evaluation
1. The extent to which the student provided clear and logical organization of the news script, balancing thelevels and types of news including international, national and state news, weather and sports.
2. The extent to which the presentation reflected effective language skills, including use of smoothtransitions with clear, vivid, and appropriate word choices. Individual judges may lower the rank due touse of profanity or vulgarity.
3. The extent to which the delivery was in a clear, pleasant, and confident voice, reflecting goodarticulation, pronunciation, volume, pitch and voice quality. Physical presence of the contestant is not tobe a consideration.
4. The extent to which the commercial(s) was incorporated as an important item in the newscast withoutdominating the news.
5. The extent to which the student delivered the newscast within the time limits without unnatural speedingup or slowing down.