From article to 90-second video - the news-briefing playbook

The news-briefing video is the daily output of a creator who has to translate a 2,000-word article into a 220-word script and then voice it. The work isn't summarization - it's editorial triage. Which three facts do you keep, which two do you cut, and which one do you put first?

Here's the playbook I use for daily briefings, sized for the 90-second format that most platforms reward.

The 90-second envelope

A 90-second News Briefing is roughly 220 words of script. That's about 13% of a 2,000-word article. You're going to cut 87% of the source material. The discipline is choosing which 13% earns the place.

The shape is consistent across topics:

• 0:00–0:05 - Hook. The single most striking fact.
• 0:05–0:25 - Context. What you need to know before the story makes sense.
• 0:25–1:10 - The three to four key beats. One per ~15 seconds.
• 1:10–1:25 - Why this matters. The viewer-stakes line.
• 1:25–1:30 - Out. Either a question or a one-line tease for tomorrow.

If you can't get the story into 90 seconds, the story has two stories in it. Pick one.

The editorial filter - the three questions

For every fact in the source article, ask:

1. Is it surprising? A fact the viewer already knows is decoration.
2. Is it decision-relevant? Does knowing this fact change what the viewer would do, vote for, buy, or think?
3. Is it the most concrete version of itself? "Many users" gets cut. "347 users" stays.

A fact that fails any of those three is out of the script. A fact that passes all three is on the keeper list. Most articles have 6–10 keeper facts; you can only fit 4. So the second pass is ranking the keepers and dropping the bottom two.

Two source-handling moves

You're not just transcribing the article - you're synthesizing it. Two tactics:

Verify before you write. A news briefing built on a single article is one error away from being wrong. For every claim that's load-bearing in your script, find a second independent source before you commit it. The YouTube Transcript can pull a transcript from a related news segment; cross-checking against a transcript is a fast way to confirm a quote or a number.

Quote with restraint. A quote inside a 220-word script eats 15–25 words of your budget. Use one quote per briefing, maximum, and only when the speaker's wording itself is the news. "He said the policy was 'a mistake'" is worth the budget. "He explained that he thought the policy didn't work" is not - paraphrase.

The Hook line for a news brief

The hook for a news briefing is different from the hook for an explainer. An explainer hook makes a promise. A news hook delivers the most striking fact upfront, before the context.

A useful pattern: fact, then context.

"A trillion dollars in market cap evaporated this morning. Here's what triggered it."

Eleven words. The fact is the trillion dollars; the context is everything that's about to follow. The viewer now has a reason to stay for the next 80 seconds.

A pattern that fails: context, then fact.

"This morning, after months of regulatory pressure and shifting market conditions, something significant happened."

Fifteen words and we still don't know what the news is. The viewer swipes.

Visual coverage on a 90-second budget

You probably don't have original footage. The viable visuals for a news briefing, in order:

• Graphics on text - a chart, a quote card, a stat callout. These read as editorial rather than as stock.
• Stock footage - generic but reliable; pick clips that are 70+ degrees off-axis from the obvious "person in suit at desk" shot.
• Archival - a previous clip of the person or event mentioned. Reads as authoritative if labeled correctly.
• B-roll of the location - if the story has a place, show the place. A 3-second clip of the city's skyline often earns its keep.

What rarely works: stock footage of computer keyboards being typed on, lab beakers being held up to lights, or "diverse team in modern office" stock. The viewer's pattern-matched all of those to bad explainers and will downgrade your credibility on contact.

Tone control

A news briefing has to thread a tone needle: authoritative enough to be trusted, conversational enough to be watched. Three calibrations:

• Don't moralize in the hook. Save editorial judgment for the why-this-matters line.
• Use one sentence of opinion per briefing, marked clearly. "My read on this:" gives the viewer a clear signal that you're shifting register.
• End on a question, not a conclusion. A briefing that closes with a question keeps the viewer thinking after the swipe; a briefing that closes with a conclusion forces the viewer to agree or disagree on the spot.

A 90-second template

Here's the structural template I use. Each line maps to roughly 15 seconds of voiceover.

HOOK (1 line, 15-22 words)
  → The most striking fact, no context.

CONTEXT (1-2 lines, 30-40 words)
  → The minimum the viewer needs to know.

BEAT 1 (1 line, 25-35 words)
  → The first piece of news within the story.

BEAT 2 (1 line, 25-35 words)
  → The second piece. Contrast or build on beat 1.

BEAT 3 (1 line, 25-35 words)
  → The third piece. Often the most editorial.

WHY-IT-MATTERS (1 line, 30-40 words)
  → The viewer-stakes line. What changes for them.

OUT (1 line, 10-15 words)
  → A question or a tease.

That's 8 lines, 220 words, 90 seconds. If your draft has 12 lines, you're trying to do two briefings in one. Split it.

The follow-up problem

A daily news brief lives in a series. Today's brief is going to be followed by tomorrow's brief on the same story. Two implications:

• Don't summarize yesterday. The viewer who watched yesterday's brief is annoyed; the viewer who didn't is interested in new information, not catch-up.
• End on tomorrow's stake. The out-line should preview what's coming, not close what was covered. "Senate hearings begin Thursday - we'll cover the questions."

That creates a series shape: today's brief depends on yesterday's, tomorrow's depends on today's, and the viewer feels they're in a serialized story rather than a sequence of standalone uploads.

Bring it to VideoCue

The YouTube Transcript pulls clean transcripts from any YouTube video - useful for cross-referencing claims against archival footage. The News Briefing entry walks through the format's conventions in more depth, including the differences between business briefings (numbers-led), political briefings (quote-led), and culture briefings (reaction-led).