A Responsible Guide To Writing Teases

Back in the black-and-white days, when remotes didn’t exist, and to “channel surf” you had to get off the couch, teases didn’t matter, so there weren’t very many of them. Most of us watched the news, or any other program, straight through. It wasn’t necessary to bombard us with what’s “still ahead” every two minutes. We weren’t going anywhere.

It was also easier for newswriters to dismiss the very idea of writing teases. After all, we were JOURNALISTS! How could anyone suggest we dirty our hands and sully our credibility with something as distasteful as hyping and selling!

Well, I like my big-screen color TV, I like my 897 channels, and I really like zapping from one show to another instantly. I still dislike teases, but these days, with attention spans reduced to seconds because of choice and technology, teases matter more than ever, and I can no longer thumb my purist nose at them.

Trouble is, teases can get out of hand.

Consider the mentality created by the vast amounts of time and money devoted to teases. Many news managers will tell you flat out, they consider teases to be the most important part of the broadcast. I’ve seen good stories dropped from rundowns because they’re not “teaseable”, and marginal stories kept in because, “Well, we’ve teased it.”

With that kind of pressure permeating newsrooms, no wonder some tease and promo writers act irresponsibly. I once walked into an edit room and found a promo person, sitting in my chair, looking at my tapes, and crafting an elaborate tease with a sound bite I had not included in my story.

“You can’t do that,” I told him, “That bite isn’t in the piece.”

“Well,” he answered innocently, “CAN’T YOU PUT IT IN THE PIECE?”

He meant well. But he, and so many well-meaning managers like him, had lost sight of a critically important principle:

The news drives your teases. It’s not the other way around.

Our job is to inform. A powerful story will provide plenty of strong tease possibilities. But an important story should never be dropped or modified simply because its tease potential is limited. Change your teases before you change your stories.

We should also remember what does and does not belong in a tease. The specialized “tease consultants” have a great deal to say about that. But as newswriters, we have other rules to follow:

When doing a tease, THE ETHICS OF NEWSWRITING APPLY.

Teases are, at their core, hype - the only hype allowed in a newscast. Their main job is to get you to watch what’s coming. Nevertheless, teases must be as truthful and accurate as the newscast itself. Just as in the actual stories, you may not lie in a tease. You may not exaggerate. You may not deceive or mislead.

Seems obvious, right? Nevertheless, folks do forget now and then.

Years ago a character actor who had made three appearances on “L.A. Law” committed suicide, coincidentally on a night the show aired. The tease potential was irresistible, and some stations went too far. By 10:30 PM, in the middle of that night’s episode, they were teasing, “An ‘L.A. Law’ cast member takes his own life!” Viewers thought Jimmy Smits was dead, or Susan Dey had jumped off a bridge. Some stations continued that way until the last minutes of the newscast. When they finally told the details, station switchboards lit up. People were furious. How DARE you, they screamed! The felt deceived and manipulated. And they were right.

Did the stations lie? Sure they did. A lie of omission is still a lie, and a news broadcast should bend over backwards to tell the truth. Unambiguously. In teases as well as in stories.

Recently a Los Angeles newscast went into a commercial break showing pictures of horrific flooding, and the words, “We’ll tell you WHERE... when we come back.” Californians have been hit hard by floods, and the producers knew it. After the break, the anchor dropped the other shoe. The flooding was in Sri Lanka. You could almost hear the collective, “Oh, puleeeeze!” rising from homes across L.A. The producers figured if they teased “flooding in Sri Lanka” folks might not come back. So they pushed Angelenos’ flooding hot button, but withheld critical information, and by doing so, implied the disaster was nearby. Irresponsible and misleading.

You can tease a story responsibly, and still grab attention. Think of teases as “newswriting on steroids” with a license to hype thrown in. Let yourself have a little fun, while you follow some fundamentals:

Grab your best pictures. A given in any news script. Critical in a tease, with one difference. Don’t give away the whole story. Show just enough to make the viewer want to stay with you. Not because you’ve misled or exaggerated. Because you’ve offered the first course in what promises to be a delicious meal.

Use your best words. In strong, simple, clear, person-to-person conversational English, tell why this story is not to be missed. Make it personal. Remember, you’re having a conversation with one person, a friend who depends on you for vital information. Tell her why this medical breakthrough could change her life. Point out how this business story may hurt his financial future. Make people care.

Deliver. The story must contain the payoff alluded to in the tease. It’s just wrong, and insulting, to tease a story all during the show, only to give folks a 20-second reader or voiceover as the reward for their wait. It’s equally wrong and counterproductive to imply a story is more important than it is.

Respect the viewer’s intelligence. Anyone who writes, “The World Series is over... We’ll tell you who won!” ought to be sent to the showers.

Respect the viewer’s time. If you tease a fourth block story in the first block, be truthful and clear about it (“And LATER, why is this dog smiling?”) If you make folks sit through more stuff than they expect to, they’ll resent you for it.

Simplicity rules. Tease ten items before a break, and no one will remember anything. Tease one or two, or maybe three things well, and folks stick around.

The same managers who believe teases are the most important part of their broadcast also know, because the lawyers have told them, that stations get sued more often because of teases, than because of actual stories. That’s all the more reason to take extra steps to scrutinize your teases, not just for impact, but for accuracy as well.

No matter how we script them, every tease and promo carries the same urgent plea: “DON’T CLICK THAT REMOTE! Don’t zap us during the break and forget to come back. Stay put, and we’ll make it worth your while.” The hard part is living up to it. Be honest, be clear, make folks care as much as you do, and you’re well on your way.