Broadcast news textbooks should draw on linguistic research to offer more principled instruction in conversational delivery. News directors consider a "conversational" delivery desirable. To avoid singsong or monotone delivery, news readers must emphasize words that would be emphasized in natural speech. Research suggests that listeners understand text read aloud better if the reader puts emphasis where it would fall in natural speech. Popular textbooks offer little guidance on which words to emphasize when reading aloud. Textbooks should explain the systematic relationship between parts of speech and emphasis to offer students a system for marking scripts and delivering news more effectively.