TV News Vocabulary and Jargon If you visit any television news room, you will immediately notice that TV news people speak their own language. More confusing still, the jargon varies from company to company and from country to country. American, British, Australian or other English speaking TV journalists sometimes use different words and expressions to refer to the same things. Here is some of the terminology and jargon you should know: SLUG – the title of a story, which should be used consistently by all team members to refer to that specific story. Anchor, Presenter, Talent, News reader – the person speaking to camera (usually) in the studio. There are slight differences implied by some of these terms. An anchor is seen as a qualified journalist who literally “anchors” the broadcast – conducting live interviews, ad-libbing breaking news as it comes in and other duties that require quick thinking and good news judgment. A presenter can be an anchor, but can also sim