Remember Joe Piscopo as The Sports Guy on Saturday Night Live? He’d sit there, quaking with pent-up energy, waiting for his introduction, then blurt out in super loud, super staccato delivery, a super-abbreviated story: “HELLO AGAIN EVERYBODY JOE PISCOPO LI-I-I-I-I-VE, SATURDAY NIGHT SPORTS! THE BIG STORY!! BASEBALL!! STRIKE!! OVER!! SPLIT SEASON!! EXTRA PLAYOFFS!! WHO WINS? WHO KNOWS? WHO CARES!! BACK TO YOU!” The audience howled.

One station in Los Angeles (by now there’s probably one in every market) does a newscast described by its producer as “Rock ‘n’ Roll News”. Half an hour. Dozens of stories. Heavy on the animations. Extreme camera moves. Headbanger music beds. Segments like “Hot Shots”, “Weird News”, “Street Beat” . Average script length: 14 seconds.

Newswriters struggle to find the “essentials” of each story, the key elements that create an effective, informative and memorable script in a short space. Knowing what to leave out can be just as important as knowing what to include.

But 14 seconds??!!

You sneeze and you miss Afghanistan.

Can viewers really absorb so many ultra-short stories at such a rapid pace? More likely, the newscast washes over them like some numbing wave of sameness, with very little information retained.

The speeding clock would be tough enough. But by its very nature, the teeny-weeny story style forces well-meaning producers away from conventional news into the realm of razzle dazzle. It makes them think differently. Stories no longer get selected based on importance, because it’s assumed you can’t explain importance in 14 seconds, anyway. So now the deciding factor is the strength of the video. If the pictures “grab”, and “grab” quickly, the story goes in. An entire day’s coverage of Iraq, for example, may be reduced to one fast shot of an angry protest or a burning car, because that’s the best picture and there’s no time for anything else. It’s a nearly complete reversal of what news was meant to be. Pictures were supposed to support the story. Now they’ve become the story, and real information gets squeezed out.

So what’s a writer to do?

Take the Joe Piscopo approach, that’s what.

Look again at what The Sports Guy did. Obviously his copy style is all wrong for a newscast, exaggerated beyond anything real. But the essential information is there! The baseball strike is over. There’s going to be a split season with a different playoff structure, and it’s uncertain how it will shake out. He just found an unusual, and memorable way to say it. In 8 seconds.

A former boss of mine would make us stop what we were doing to watch the CBS Evening News. Not the long reporter packages. The 15 second readers. “Damn,” he’d gush, “They do it better than anybody else, cramming the essential information into such a small space!”. And they did. Those scripts were some of the most carefully constructed paragraphs on any newscast, anywhere. Joe Piscopo with an English degree. Short can be good.

Sooner or later the 14 second rule will reach many more newsrooms. Writers must be ready to adapt to the format without sacrificing content, accuracy and style. Here are some suggestions:

Best stuff first. An ultra-short story has no room at the top for a leisurely setup. Those first frames of video must show the actual rocket launch or Vegas hotel implosion, not T-minus :10. As for the copy, the old “three stages” rule (tell them what you’re about to tell them, then tell them, then tell them what you told them) needs to be compressed. Keep Stage One brief and powerful: “Liftoff!” “Six seconds from resort to rubble!”

Pictures talk. Why interrupt? If the video is strong enough to tell the story by itself, let it! Why tell folks what they can already see? Why lead with, “Torrential rain has caused heavy flooding in Pittsburgh,” when we’re looking right at it! Why fritter away up to a third of your allotted 14 seconds by stating the obvious? Let the video do its job. Use those precious seconds to give MORE information (“Two Inches An Hour!” or, “Pittsburgh’s worst flooding, ever!” or, “All that rain killed ten people in Pittsburgh.”)

Why Is this chicken smiling? Better yet, why did the producer add a story about a smiling chicken? In this age of Rock ‘n’ Roll News, when stories make the rundown almost solely on the strength or oddity of the pictures, writers need to do more. We need to dig, time permitting, so we can include some real facts in otherwise meaningless stories. OK, maybe there’s not much you can do with a smiling chicken. But if the producer wants :14 of U.S. troops taking a bath in a Presidential Palace, just because it looks cool, and that’s her entire Iraq coverage, and she has no idea that the same unit lost two soldiers in a firefight earlier in the day, make sure your viewers do know.

It’s still a conversation. It’s tempting to throw out the rules of grammar when time is short. Resist the temptation. The language should be correct, and the writing should sound like a normal conversation. It’s especially true in 14-second land. Remember, viewers are already having trouble keeping up. Imagine how much tougher it’ll be for them, if the English isn’t totally clear.

Sometimes you gotta fight. Some subjects just need more time than 14 seconds, and your gut will tell you which ones they are, so don’t hesitate to bring your concerns to the producer. The smart ones listen and adjust.

Remember, they laughed at The Sports Guy. Yes, take the Joe Piscopo approach (extreme brevity while preserving the facts) but not all the way to the point of silliness. The Sports Guy sketch is funny because it’s so over the top, yet recognizable by folks who think, “Yeah, I’ve seen that on TV, only not as bad...” As newscasts creep closer and closer toward entertainment, let’s remember that some of our excesses are already being held up to ridicule. Let’s also try to remember why we’re doing this in the first place. News need not always be dour and depressing... but it is serious. We’re not here to make ‘em laugh. We want them to listen.

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