Newsjack Series 21 - September 2019 Page 2

I would have sworn this was September 2019 . In BBC Land it's still last year . What was I thinking of?

So what sketch stories did people go for?

I wrote a sketch on Trump misappropriating military funds by sending flights to the airport near his Scottish golf course and offering military personnel free rounds of golf, and a sketch on restaurants only giving diners food they'll definitely eat as a way of reducing food waste

The strange thing about NewsJack is the rejected jokes posted here are very often funnier than the ones they actually use on the show.

It's a rare situation in the world of comedy when writers need to make their writing less funny in order to get it broadcast. Laughing out loud

Mine were on Amber Rudd resigning (they won't get many on that, right) and a weird one on Sanditon (they won't get many on Sanditon either - methinks they may).
I had decided not to do sketches due to lack of time, poor odds and a nil sketch success rate, etc, for this series but what do you know. It was fun writing them and I limited the time although already I am analysing why they are not right for the show...
Interesting ideas, Death by Monkey.

Wonder how long it's going to take before the junior producer at Newsjack HQ notices there's a shortage of submissions ?

Just seen this on their Twitter re: the submissions bug:

"Thanks so much to everyone who has submitted a sketch to Ep 1 of Newsjack! We're having some problems with our out of office, but don't worry - we've received your emails and will be reading all your submissions!
You have until noon tomorrow to send us your oneliners!"

On holiday so I have no horse in this race (it's a weirdly liberating feeling) but if you were worried about your sketches, it looks like it should be okay!

Good luck everyone!

Thanks Kate . Never thought of checking Twitter.You're a genius !

Quote: BTF @ 9th September 2019, 12:13 PM

Interesting ideas, Death by Monkey.

I have a few rules when writing sketches for Newsjack:
1. No low hanging fruit - anything front page will likely be used by the commissioned writers
2. The story must have depth - the story can't all be in the title
3. The idea has to be germane to the story
4. They have to have at least 3 strong jokes in them (opener, closer and at least one potentially big laugh in the middle)

And that's how I finalised on these two stories.

Quote: DeathbyMonkey @ 9th September 2019, 6:38 PM

I have a few rules when writing sketches for Newsjack:
1. No low hanging fruit - anything front page will likely be used by the commissioned writers
2. The story must have depth - the story can't all be in the title
3. The idea has to be germane to the story
4. They have to have at least 3 strong jokes in them (opener, closer and at least one potentially big laugh in the middle)

And that's how I finalised on these two stories.

Good luck with it

Not managed any sketches this episode ( thanks for your rules, DBM ) but just finalising full complement of oneliner attempts

Quote: kate to the party @ 9th September 2019, 4:08 PM

Just seen this on their Twitter re: the submissions bug:

"Thanks so much to everyone who has submitted a sketch to Ep 1 of Newsjack! We're having some problems with our out of office, but don't worry - we've received your emails and will be reading all your submissions!
You have until noon tomorrow to send us your oneliners!"

On holiday so I have no horse in this race (it's a weirdly liberating feeling) but if you were worried about your sketches, it looks like it should be okay!

Good luck everyone!

Thanks

"We will be accepting submissions for series 21 of Newsjack from Midday on Friday 6th September.

We look forward to hearing from you and reading your submission!"

Yay! Auto-responder fixed!

This will make a lot of difference. I'm in with a chance now. Good.

[quote name="DeathbyMonkey"]

Nice set of rules. Can definitely see the logic and I think they'll serve you well. Good luck!

I spent a bit of time between series capturing my thoughts and advice on writing for Newsjack and have put it all here - https://thecomedyloser.wordpress.com/newsjack-bbc/

Hopefully it'll be of some help to others.

My main advice is to get yourself to a recording if you can.

I've also started tweeting as @thisisdouch so probably should update my username here.

Quote: Rood Eye @ 9th September 2019, 11:51 AM

The strange thing about NewsJack is the rejected jokes posted here are very often funnier than the ones they actually use on the show.

It's a rare situation in the world of comedy when writers need to make their writing less funny in order to get it broadcast. Laughing out loud

So very true!

I've submitted my 'dumbed down' gags today, hopefully one of them will be unfunny enough to make the script :D