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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Fachliteratur
- Sprache: Englisch
Learn the skills you need to find sources, fact check, and write trusted articles
Since the advent of the internet and the birth of social media, it has become difficult to wade through the massive amount of information out there. Every day we see—and believe—news articles that are released then debunked the very next day. Journalism For Dummies will provide you with the tools you need to become a savvy interviewer, writer, and fact checker. If you're a journalist, a journalist-to-be, or just someone who wants to be smarter about what you read, this book can help. You'll learn how journalism has evolved into what it is today, how to utilize different media platforms, including social media, and how to produce work that people can trust. This book is a comprehensive and approachable entry point for anyone who wants to produce pieces with journalistic integrity.
- Consider how journalism functions in society, and why trustworthy journalism matters
- Become media literate and identify sensational or misleading stories and articles
- Learn about the reporting process, including newsworthiness, sourcing, fact-checking, and interview best practices
- Discover the ethics and laws associated with being a digital and print journalist
This is a great Dummies guide for students majoring in or taking journalism courses, freelance journalists looking to improve their sourcing abilities, and teachers hoping to increase their students' journalistic skills.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024
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Journalism For Dummies®
To view this book's Cheat Sheet, simply go to www.dummies.com and search for “Journalism For Dummies Cheat Sheet” in the Search box.
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Introduction
About This Book
Foolish Assumptions
Icons Used in This Book
Beyond the Book
Where to Go from Here
Part 1: Getting Started with Journalism
Chapter 1: Becoming a Journalist
Exploring the Many Roads to Journalism
Understanding the Responsibility of a Journalist
Identifying the Essential Skills You Need
Working in a Newsroom versus Working Independently
Working on Different Platforms
Chapter 2: Defining Journalism
What Journalism Is
What Journalism Isn’t: Blogs, Tabloids, and Gossip
Who Sets the Standards for Truth
Becoming a Journalist
What to Expect in a Journalism Job
Chapter 3: Media Literacy: What It Is and Why It Matters
Understanding Media Literacy
Recognizing How Media Affects You
Identifying Fake News
Part 2: Understanding the Reporting Process
Chapter 4: Identifying Different Types of Stories
Looking at the Traditional Story Types
Exploring Emerging Digital Forms
Chapter 5: Determining What’s Newsworthy
Standards for Approving a Story Idea
What Drives Newsroom Decisions
Working through Disagreements
Chapter 6: Finding Sources for a Story
What Is a Source
Types of Sources
People as Sources
The Voices Your Story Needs
Chapter 7: Conducting Interviews
The Interview Process
After the Interview
How to Quote Interviewees
Chapter 8: Doing Your Math
Getting Good Data
Finding the Average
Calculating Change
Chapter 9: Fact-Checking a Story
Getting Everything Right While Working
Finishing Up Correctly
Annotating a Finished Story
Making Corrections
Part 3: Working within the Bounds of Ethics and the Law
Chapter 10: Getting Clear on the Journalism Code of Ethics
Knowing Why Journalists Should Abide by a Code
Identifying Common Principles across Codes of Ethics
Looking at the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics
Chapter 11: Knowing Your Rights as a Journalist
Understanding Your Rights as a Journalist to Cover the Government
Covering Trials and Courts
Accessing Government Documents through the Freedom of Information Act
Chapter 12: Coping with Common Legal Considerations
Identifying the Most Common Legal Issues Journalists Face
Protecting Yourself as an Independent Journalist
Chapter 13: Using Artificial Intelligence Tools
Looking toward the Future with AI
Seeing How Newsrooms Are Currently Using AI
Identifying Potential Issues to Look Out for with AI Tools
Part 4: Using Different Media Platforms
Chapter 14: Print and Digital
Working in Print: The First Form of Journalism
Seeing How Digital Differs from Print
Identifying the Traits of Top Print and Digital Journalists
Writing in Print Style
Looking at the Roles and Responsibilities in Print and Digital Journalism
Chapter 15: Television and Documentary Video
Seeing Where Video Journalists May Work
Identifying the Traits of Strong Video Journalism Storytelling
Exploring Onscreen News and Long-Form Storytelling
Identifying the Traits of Top Video and Documentary Journalists
Making Great Video
Identifying the Roles and Responsibilities of a Video Journalist
Chapter 16: Radio and Podcasting
Seeing Where You Can Work as an Audio Journalist
Understanding How Audio Differs from Other Forms of Journalism
Listening on the Dial and Long-Form Audio Storytelling
Identifying the Traits of Top Audio Journalists
Structuring a Story for Audio
Looking at the Roles and Responsibilities of Audio Journalists
Chapter 17: Social Media
Looking at How Newsrooms Use Social Media
Seeing How Journalists Use Social Media
Identifying What Top Journalists Do Well on Social Media
Telling Stories Online
Posting Online for Your Newsroom
Chapter 18: Working on the Margins
Writing Digital Marketing Content
Creating Social Media Content
Working in Public Relations
Part 5: The Part of Tens
Chapter 19: Ten Tips for Covering a Beat
Writing a Beat Report for Yourself
Meeting Other Journalists Who Cover Your Beat
Introducing Yourself to the Spokespeople of Small to Midsize Organizations
Getting on the Press Lists of Large Organizations
Going to Events Before You Need a Story
Getting Familiar with Past Stories
Learning Special Acronyms, Terms, and Other Language
Creating Google Alerts to Keep Up
Signing Up for Newsletters
Picking Up the Phone
Chapter 20: Ten Tips for Writing on Any Platform
Thinking through Your Structure
Writing an Outline Before You Write a Word
Using Words That You Would Use in Everyday Conversation
Giving Yourself More Time Than You Think You’ll Need
Getting More Information to Help with Writer’s Block
Editing Yourself First
Stepping Away and Coming Back Later
Using Style Guides
Reading Examples
Trusting Your Gut
Index
About the Author
Connect with Dummies
End User License Agreement
List of Illustrations
Chapter 14
FIGURE 14-1: The inverted pyramid.
Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Begin Reading
Index
About the Author
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Journalism For Dummies®
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2024951735
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Introduction
Journalism is more than just a form of storytelling. It’s how we hold powerful people accountable, how we engage the public, and how we share information with the masses. Like the famed Ida B. Wells once said, “The people must know before they can act, and there is no educator to compare with the press.”
This idea has been true since the industry’s inception. But even as this premise remains, how to do journalism is something that is ever-changing. Journalism is an extremely wide-ranging industry, with evolution happening quickly in every single part of it.
That’s why this book exists. Whether you’re a college student studying journalism, a recent grad looking for or starting your first journalism job, or a freelance writer wanting to hone your journalism skills, this book is for you.
About This Book
This book is a guide that explores journalistic standards and practices, as well as how journalists are currently expanding these measures. This is not a journalism book of the past, telling you how to think, how to act, and how to work. Instead, it explores how we’ve tackled big journalistic issues in the past and how people handle them today, while also discussing the promise of journalism as being the bedrock of democracy.
That may seem like an exaggeration, but I don’t believe it is. The core of journalism is truth, accuracy, and fairness. And when I became a journalist, it was because I wanted to be committed to these foundational practices while working to grow them.
I wrote this book to equip you with the same knowledge. It’s the book I wish I’d had when I was navigating the industry early on.
Within this book, you may note that some web addresses break across two lines of text. If you’re reading this book in print and want to visit one of these web pages, simply key in the web address exactly as it’s noted in the text, pretending as though the line break doesn’t exist. If you’re reading this as an e-book, you’ve got it easy — just click the web address to be taken directly to the web page.
Foolish Assumptions
When writing this book, I made some assumptions about you:
You may be a college student studying journalism or considering a career in journalism.
There is a lot to remember when it comes to this field. You just need a guide to help you reference what you’re learning.
You may be a recent graduate, either looking for or working in your first journalism job.
The world of journalism is expansive and still growing. You can use this book to stay on top of trends as you build your career.
You may be a freelance writer interested in honing your journalism skills.
I initially started as a freelance writer before going back to school for journalism and, for years, there was a lot I didn’t know. This book can help you keep up with what’s going on in newsrooms and help you seek out opportunities.
Icons Used in This Book
This book includes icons in the margins that help to highlight information that is especially important — information I don’t want you to miss.
Anything marked by the Tip icon helps you do these something better. Many of these tips are ones that I personally use and have been given by my own teachers, mentors, and editors.
There’s a lot to remember when it comes to how journalists do this work. The Remember icon indicates something you’ll want to commit to memory.
The Warning icons identifies anything that could be potentially problematic or make your work more difficult.
When I delve into technical topics, I mark them with the Technical Stuff icon. If you’re short on time, you can safely skip anything marked with this icon without missing the essentials.
Beyond the Book
In addition to the information in this book, you get access to even more help and information online at Dummies.com. Check out this book’s Cheat Sheet for a checklist of items to keep in your reporting bag, info on what to expect at a press conference, tips on how to decipher (and write) a press release, and tips for how to use your smartphone while reporting. Just go to www.dummies.com and type Journalism For Dummies Cheat Sheet in the Search box.
You can also find a story-planning template that you can download and use to assemble the information you need to write any story. Go to www.dummies.com/go/journalismfd to download it.
Where to Go from Here
This book has a ton of information, but it isn’t linear. You can start anywhere. If you want an understanding of how the public takes in the information journalists produce, head to Chapter 3. For a great primer on story formats, turn to Chapter 4. To look at how ethics comes into play in journalists’ work, check out Chapter 10. For suggestions on using your journalism skills in other related fields, head to Chapter 18.
For even more journalism information, recent lectures and presentations, and other helpful resources, you can also visit me online at http://professorarionne.com.
Onward!
Part 1
Getting Started with Journalism
IN THIS PART …
Find out what is and isn’t journalism while thinking through the ethical responsibility of the role of reporter.
Take a look at media literacy, what it is, and why it’s an important part of journalism and democracy.
Chapter 1
Becoming a Journalist
IN THIS CHAPTER
Getting into the field
Understanding your responsibility as a journalist
Knowing what you need to be successful
Journalism is better when it’s filled with people of all backgrounds, living in all locations, and thinking in all kinds of ways. That’s why it’s so exciting that yours will be one of the industry’s next voices.
But it’s important to recognize that part of becoming a journalist does involve understanding all of the career pathways and tools to help you get your foot in the door.
In this chapter, I discuss how to start a career in journalism — including the common roadblocks many people encounter and the newer ways people are tackling them.
Exploring the Many Roads to Journalism
As a field, journalism was once seen as a trade anyone could enter. Not only could aspiring writers and broadcasters study at the university level, but they also had more opportunities to learn as apprentices on the job and in training programs created by media organizations.
In recent decades, this barrier to entry has become way higher, with many competitive roles at mainstream newsrooms going to graduates of elite journalism university programs and media entities no longer willing to train new journalists.
But now, today, we are seeing an emergence of opportunities for new journalists to join the industry — in nonprofit newsrooms, through independent work on social media, and from becoming media entrepreneurs themselves. For example, it’s extremely common today to see journalists solely post coverage of events and subject matter on social media instead of on a news website. The prevalence of online and digital tools means that, with the right training, the door is open for you.
The traditional road
Generally, getting a journalism job in a mainstream U.S. media organization (a TV news station, newspaper, major magazine, or radio station) means proving to its hiring managers that you already know enough about the field to be a good addition to its newsroom. For most new journalists, that can be tough. How do you prove you can do a job you haven’t yet been given the chance to do?
In the following sections, I cover ways new journalists often get noticed for these positions.
Attending journalism school
School is still one of the most traditional ways of learning journalism, building a portfolio, and making connections with those in the industry. It’s not the only way, but attaining an undergraduate or graduate degree is still popular. However, the cost of this route is high and it isn’t always financially viable.
Participating in campus media
Many journalists get their first real experience working on stories for their campus newspapers, magazines, radio stations, and TV stations. Here, they have the benefit of covering events and happenings at a place extremely familiar to them, guided by student editors who remember what it’s like to be brand-new at reporting stories. Journalists working at these media organizations must be students, but they don’t necessarily have to be part of the institution’s journalism program because the organization’s student editors generally train reporters themselves.
Doing internships and fellowships
These types of roles are often journalists’ first professional newsroom experiences. Internships are often three to six months in length and are for current students and those who have graduated within the past year. Fellowships are generally for journalists with little to no experience and can be about a year long. There are also special fellowships that seek to help journalists from underrepresented groups, as well as fellowships that train journalists in a certain area in order to increase the number of journalists working in that area. Examples include fellowships for students from historically Black colleges and other minority-serving institutions and fellowships for science reporting.
Many fellowships are for recent graduates, but that’s not always the case. Some fellowships are created for other people in need of experience, such as career-changers. So, even if you’re not sure you’re an ideal fit, apply anyway!
Joining journalism organizations
If you ask many people in journalism what has been their best medium for meeting and staying in touch with other journalists over the years, they’ll likely mention one of several professional affinity organizations. Many will also mention how an organization helped them land their first role and how they’re committed to helping new journalists do the same. The networking that these groups can provide is second to none, and it’s common for people to attend at least one annual conference per year.
Some journalism organizations were specifically created to support underrepresented groups, including the following:
Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA):
www.aaja.org
Association of LGBTQ+ Journalists (NLGJA):
www.nlgja.org
National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ):
https://nabjonline.org
National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ):
https://nahj.org
Other organizations are focused on certain areas of journalism:
Association of Health Care Journalists (AHCJ):
https://healthjournalism.org
Investigative Reporters & Editors (IRE):
www.ire.org
Online News Association (ONA):
https://journalists.org
Public Media Journalists Association (PMJA):
www.pmja.org
Be sure to check with each organization to see if there are local chapters near you. The national organizations provide the opportunity to connect with people across the United States and often beyond, but local chapters can give you a much more personal welcome, with resources tailored to journalists in your area.
Forging new paths
The traditional routes into journalism may still remain, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t new ways to get in. With every new digital trend, another journalism opening emerges.
In the following sections, I offer suggestions on how to work toward getting noticed, even if you’re creating your own path.
Attending a training or certificate program
There may not be as many training programs for journalists outside the traditional degree programs at universities, but there are different programs to train people for specific kinds of work. For example, broadcast institutes can teach people how to engineer and produce radio or TV shows. There are also writing certificate programs — and with the expansion and wide acceptance of online learning, this area is quickly growing.
Be sure to vet any journalism training program, especially any that requires payment or tuition. Ask for information about people who have completed the program before and see what information you can find about the organization offering the program in the news. Are its founders seen as industry leaders? Is it a new and innovative approach to teaching or something that’s tried-and-true? Make sure the investment is worth it.
Doing freelance work
The best practice you can get as a new journalist is real-world work as a freelancer. Freelance work especially helps when you don’t get the opportunity to have internships or work for a student newspaper. Freelance work builds your portfolio, and you can continue to replace your work with better work as you get bigger and better opportunities — opportunities that align closer with what you want to do. It’s most likely that this work will be digital or online compared to print, TV, or radio.
When I was first transitioning into journalism from working in another field, I quickly realized I needed a portfolio of work. I started taking very low-paying work just to get experience (because I had none at all) and then started to raise the caliber of assignments I would take as I got better and better, swapping out the older work in my portfolio for new and better work to share.
Connecting with other journalists
Staying connected with other journalists is the best way to find freelance work, stay up-to-date with the industry, and get career advice. Facebook, Slack, Google Groups — anywhere people gather online you’re likely to find journalism groups. Many of these groups exist specifically to help journalists with certain focuses, like those who are freelance magazine writers, or journalists with certain life experiences, like those who are parents.
Because people spend hours running them, some of these groups may have small subscription fees, but most are generally free. Even the paid groups often have scholarships or sliding-scale options to help them be even more affordable because the goal is often to help journalists get work.
I’ve found that spending a couple of dollars a month for a subscription is usually a financial benefit for me as a freelancer in the long run. It’s extremely difficult to scour the internet and social media sites and then pull together opportunities to share with other journalists, so I greatly appreciate the work that goes into it. But also, even if I tried, I usually wouldn’t be able to find all the opportunities that are best for me. If I get at least one good assignment from one of those groups, then the investment more than paid for itself.
Understanding the Responsibility of a Journalist
Being a journalist is a huge deal — not just for those of us who get to do the work we want to do, but for the communities and individuals whose stories we have the honor of telling.
This line of work is an enormous responsibility. When a journalist publishes a story, it becomes part of recorded history. Think about how you would research an event that happened decades ago. You’d likely look through news coverage and try to see if you could get as many details as possible. In that case, you’re trusting that the information you’re seeing is factual. That’s because the journalists who were there are your eyes and ears. What they reported gets you as close as possible to being there. So, you’re hoping — and trusting — they did everything they could to get it right.
Similarly, we are the chroniclers of our time. That’s why we try so hard to be truthful, accurate, and fair in our reporting. People are trusting us and relying on our work.
Regardless of what kind of journalism we practice or what medium we work in, we all have the same charge.
Being truthful
Being truthful in journalism means more than just not lying. It means ensuring that we aren’t intentionally — or unintentionally — misleading our audience.
Here are some basic ways to start thinking about how truth can show itself in your work.
Ensure the headlines you’re using are not misleading or missing content.
With so much happening in our world, many people only read the headlines of stories. They take in the headline and assume that it’s a true summary of what the rest of the story is about. That’s why clickbait headlines — those that are written cleverly just to get people to click on them — are untruthful. When you write a headline that is misleading, you are
not
being truthful.
Lay out information in a way that doesn’t change the story’s meaning.
Structuring stories is both a skill and an art. There are some rules around what works for different types of stories, but it really does take practice to ensure that we aren’t accidentally misconstruing the truth in the order and word choice we use.
Choose images that best reflect the story’s content.
Photos video stills, and other illustrations tell a lot about what a story will be about. Although you can be unintentionally misleading in a variety of ways, making an error is most likely when you’re using stock images. For example, in a story that examines a new health-care procedure, think about the issues of truthfulness with the following photos:
A photo of people smiling tells audiences that the procedure is a good one. But what if the procedure is new and hasn’t yet been proven?
A photo of people looking upset says to audiences that the procedure is bad or dangerous. This photo could cause people to fear the procedure before examining the facts.
A close-up photo of someone preparing to get a vaccine shows no faces and doesn’t make a strong editorial statement.
Being accurate
Accuracy is one of the most important tenets of journalism for a reason. People are counting on journalists to get it right. We’re often cited in other people’s work, too, so a mistake in a news article could lead to a mistake in a book, a research paper, or another kind of scholarship that people consume.
And today, in a digital world where breaking news is expected to be shared as soon as possible, the opportunity for mistakes in accuracy has been widened. The checks and balances that used to be in place to catch such errors are no longer present in many newsrooms, and it can feel as if everyone is in a race to get information out the fastest.
But, when it comes to accuracy, you can prevent many mistakes by slowing down and taking some extra steps:
Double-check the spelling of names, places, and proper nouns. Checking your spelling isn’t just something to do as you’re starting your story. It should also be a major step to complete at the end of your process, and it should be separate from any other checks such as reading for typos, for example. Going through and looking up each proper noun should be a final step all by itself to ensure no name is missed.
We often talk about checking the accuracy of names in written work such as print and digital stories, but remember that it’s equally as important in video and audio. You can’t go back and redo some mistakes that are made in these mediums, especially, and corrections are difficult to make in a way that audiences notice them. It’s also extremely embarrassing when you make these errors because the people mentioned in your story can feel as if you didn’t put time and effort into a story that’s about them.
Do your math twice.
Even if you consider yourself a whiz at numbers, always do any math in your story at least twice. This includes calculations such as percentages, percentage point changes, and averages. Using a spreadsheet helps keep these calculations in a single place and makes it easier to go back and check that the formulas and numbers are correct.
Make sure that social media posts are just as accurate as the stories themselves. Some people are highly accurate in a story and then fail to give that same care to social media posts. Similar to headlines, people often share social media posts without clicking through to the full story, so it’s really important that any information used in a social media post is correct.
When I worked at a wire service, accuracy was a top priority because not only were our stories being read by audiences, but they were being sent to other media organizations to use. When it came to social media, we had the same standards we had for any story. And before posting on social media, it was our process to have at least one other person read what you were planning to post. We did this for every single post on every single social media platform. Don’t be afraid to ask for help or get a second opinion, too.
Being fair
Fairness is not always as cut-and-dried as truthfulness and accuracy because it can mean different things to different people. But what matters is checking your own moral compass and ensuring that you’re being fair to multiple sides of an issue by considering their perspectives. Be sure to do the following:
Check your biases.
Although some people believe in the old-school belief that journalists can be completely objective, many of us understand that we all have our own experiences and opinions, which can create biases. It’s impossible to separate who we are from the work we can do. But what we can do is recognize those biases, and then, being aware of them, think through ways to ensure we aren’t letting them cloud our judgment and impede our work.
Consider multiple sides of each issue in proportion. When you’re doing a story, especially a very newsy story, it’s important to not report only on a single side. Thinking about more than one side doesn’t mean that you have to give it equal weight in your final story. In the past, the journalistic standard used to be to always report “both sides” of an issue. But this “both-sidesism” can be harmful by creating a false equivalence in controversial issues, so journalists have been pushing back on this thinking and, instead, striving to put things into perspective and in proportion.
Don’t let “both-sidesism” confuse your audience and leave people unsure of what the facts are. For example, if you’re reporting on climate change, some people don’t believe climate change exists, but the vast majority of scientists do. Giving both of these sides equal weight in a story isn’t helpful — it’s just confusing. You, as the journalist, can investigate these claims yourself and lay out what you’ve found in your story.
Talk to more people than you think you need to.
It’s easy to talk only to the people you need for a story. But that often means that your view of what’s happening is limited. It’s how you can easily be unfair to a group of people because you’re only representing one particular group of people. For example, if you’re doing a story on a teachers union’s negotiations with the school district and you want to include what the average teacher thinks, it’s important to talk to multiple teachers with different perspectives to see what their overall feelings are. Oftentimes, you may need to include the points of view of teachers who support the union’s actions and those who don’t.
Identifying the Essential Skills You Need
Being a journalist requires constant growth in your skillset. It’s an industry of change, and it takes work to keep up. But even in this fast-changing world, some basic skills are essential to the work and are the foundation for everything we do.
Researching
Researching is what most people are familiar with from their school days. For journalists, it’s often the very first step that we do when we’re either looking for a story idea or trying to refine one. Research is all the work that’s involved before we officially start reporting the story, and it’s important because it helps us home in on where to start and how to use our time most efficiently.
Here are some tips for doing research specific to journalism:
Read, watch, and listen to what’s been reported already.
Some journalists argue that there are no new stories. That’s because, quite often, the stories we work on are built off of what we already know about an issue, and generally, past journalism helped us learn that. Think about how a library is a great source of information. Every story we create adds to that library of knowledge, so it’s good to know what’s already there and where ours fits in.
Lean into original documents.
There is a lot to be learned from original documents, even at this exploratory stage. Documents such as licenses, copies of forms, and so on can give you all kinds of information, and some of the best and most impactful work has come from them. For example, looking at parking ticket records can show that poor neighborhoods are being over-ticketed, or diving into public records can reveal that a city’s funds are being misappropriated.
Do pre-reporting.Pre-reporting means talking to people and sort of interviewing them but just to learn more about a topic. It’s not an official interview because you may not use anything you learn. For example, you may ask someone who just published a new academic paper to explain its concepts. Just be transparent about what the interview is about.
The connections you make during the pre-reporting process can still be extremely beneficial in the future. The key is to be open with the person you’re interviewing and let them know that you’re in an exploratory phase to be respectful of their time.
Reporting
The word reporting is often used as a catchall for everything that journalists do for a story, especially because, when we’re working on a story, we are reporters. But when talking about skills, reporting means gathering information specifically for the purpose of a story.
As you’re focusing on these reporting skills, here are some tips to keep in mind:
Get outside and go to places.
A big difference between researching and reporting is that reporting requires you to get out from behind a screen. It pushes you to physically be in the places you’re going to be covering in your story so that you can experience them.
Talk to people and ask them questions.
Going to places also helps you meet people you would otherwise never know to seek out. When you meet them, you have the opportunity to have authentic conversations with them. You can also learn so much more about what your audience thinks that can guide even more stories. See what they care about, what they want to see in their news, what they feel isn’t being reported.
Stay diligent. Reporting is tough. For many of us, it can honestly be the hardest part of the process. Sometimes people don’t want to talk to you. Sometimes people agree to interviews and then don’t show up or stop answering your calls. There is so much that can feel beyond your control that it’s easy to get frustrated. That’s why it’s important to know that it’s all a part of the process and it’s totally normal for plans to fall through.
Reporting can be extremely repetitive. You often have to make similar calls, send similar emails, and ask similar questions over and over again. It also means you often have to contact the same person over and over again and continue to persuade and nudge people multiple times. That’s part of the job, so don’t feel bad for doing it. As long as you lean into your instincts on when to keep pushing and when to pivot, you’ll make the right decision.
Interviewing
Interviewing is the part of journalism in which you really get to experience the beauty of human-to-human connection. It’s often where you get to have the type of conversations you’ve seen people like Anderson Cooper and Robin Roberts have on TV.
But good interviews are a mix of talent, learned skill, and preparation. Here is how to have them:
Ask the right questions.
Write interview questions that are thoughtful, and then arrange them in an order that makes sense. This prep gives you a loose plan to work from, but you should still stay in the moment, truly listening to what your interviewee is saying. That way you can confidently pivot as necessary and add follow-up questions based on what your interviewee says.
Keep it feeling like a conversation. The main reason why you shouldn’t be stuck on your planned questions in most cases is that your conversation should feel natural. You should be open to the interview moving in new directions sometimes. And if you feel the conversation has gone too far off, gently guide it back.
Sometimes it’s important to ask certain questions of an interviewee because I may need information or responses from them about specific topics. I often use time as a way to respectfully help my interviews get back on track. Saying “I know your time is precious, and I really want to make sure we have enough time to talk about X” helps me redirect us back to my planned questions when I really need to hit certain areas.
Be open to having multiple interviews with the same person.
Sometimes one interview just isn’t enough. This fact can be especially true when there’s a lot of ground to cover or when new information and angles emerge during an interview. It’s okay to thank your interviewee for this conversation and simply ask if you can schedule an additional time to speak.
Fact-checking
Fact-checking ties back to our commitment to accuracy. But it’s not as easy as it sounds. You can easily make mistakes that can start small and become huge. I’ve had my fair share of embarrassing factual errors, so I know how it feels to think to yourself: I can’t believe I didn’t catch that.
None of us is perfect, though, and some mistakes are inevitable. But there are some steps you can take to significantly reduce the risk of making mistakes that can make you seem careless:
Check everything and then check it twice.
It seems simple but checking your facts multiple times is just smart to do. It’s so easy to miss errors the first time you go through a story. Make it a habit to do it over and over.
Don’t be afraid to ask for help.
You don’t have to be the only fact-checker for your work. You can ask a friend for help or hire someone if you’re working independently.
Try not to fact-check the same day you write. You can easily miss mistakes when you’re tired. You can also miss them because your eyes are glossing over, reading mistakes as what you meant them to be and not what you actually wrote.
Sometimes you’re finishing a story the same day it needs to be published, and you don’t have an extra day for fact-checking. In that case, even a small break can help you reset from writer to fact-checker. Get up, stretch, get a snack, go for a walk — whatever takes you away from the computer for a moment and gives you the opportunity to refresh your eyes a little.
Working in a Newsroom versus Working Independently
Working in a newsroom has many benefits and is how most people envision being a journalist. It’s what you see on TV shows about journalism: a big office space with people sitting around at open desks, talking on phones, gathering around screens to work on stories.
Even with the explosion of virtual and hybrid journalism work, the idea of collaboration still drives newsrooms. Journalism is driven by the philosophy that nothing is produced in a silo and that teamwork reigns supreme.
But it’s not the only way to do journalism anymore. Many people have chosen to abandon newsroom life to work as independent journalists, and there are pros and cons to both.
Barriers to entry
The biggest difference between working in a newsroom and working independently is that you have to be hired on by a media company. That means that if you don’t have exactly what certain jobs are hiring for at the moment, don’t live in an area with many media organizations, or are newer in the industry, you could have a very tough time finding a role that matches your skills.
Many journalists who work independently now do so because they couldn’t find a role in a traditional organization that was a good fit. They didn’t let the lack of job opportunities stop them from doing the work they wanted to do. This road is possible for many people now that publishing can take various forms online.
Having an editor
One of the benefits of working in a newsroom is knowing you don’t have to do everything alone. Having an editor that you trust is like having both a team leader to help guide your work, as well as a thought partner to help you think through your ideas.
Yet working independently doesn’t mean that you can never work with an editor again. It does mean, though, that to seek the help of an editor, you would need to ask a friend for a favor or hire someone to help you when needed.
Even if you’re working independently, you aren’t forced to work alone. You can build systems of support for yourself. You could also pull together a group of independent journalists, and you all could help edit each other when needed.
Having editorial control
Having an editor means that the editorial control doesn’t lie with you. In a traditional newsroom, when you work on a story, your editor has the final say on everything about that story — from the headline to the story content to the images used. Editors even have control over whether you can report a story at all.
This issue, of course, does not exist when working independently. It’s one of the reasons cited by journalists of color, especially, who want to report on their communities but have found that when they were in traditional newsrooms, their editors didn’t understand the stories they wanted to cover.
Being flexible
Flexibility is another reason that many journalists choose to work independently — setting their own schedules for how many stories they want to produce and when. However, when your goals, your editor’s goals, and the goals of your media organization align, flexibility may not be a problem. The key is striking the correct balance and communicating your needs and abilities while understanding the media organization’s priorities.
Working on Different Platforms
Most journalists have one (or sometimes two) media platforms that they work on. The basics of journalism are the same for everyone, but it’s a good idea to identify the differences between them and what people mean when they mention these terms.
As the oldest form of journalism, print — which includes newspapers and magazines — is one of the first kinds of journalism that is taught in most journalism schools. That’s because even broadcast stories on TV or radio are accompanied by written stories that follow traditional newspaper-style writing.
Digital
Today, with most newspapers having an online presence and with many news organizations no longer having print publications, many people have swapped print for digital. Skill-wise, people who write for digital-only media organizations still follow print-style rules in their work. So, when you hear people say, “Oh, I’m a print reporter,” it means they’re primarily writers — it doesn’t necessarily indicate whether that writing is ever printed or if it exists only online.
Television
TV journalists are those who work at local and national TV stations. They may do a variety of roles. For example, a multimedia journalist (MMJ) is an on-air reporter who shoots, reports, and edits their own TV packages (a type of story in which video is produced and edited together into a cohesive report).
Documentary video
Documentary video journalism is a bit different than the daily TV news we watch. It means journalists are working on big assignments for much longer time periods. They could be working for a major network, or often, they have their own production companies and work to pitch their documentaries to networks to air.
Radio
Broadcast radio is another one of the oldest forms of journalism, which has continued to grow and expand as technology has changed. Many of the news-specific jobs in radio are at public radio stations and networks, but many also are available at commercial radio stations as well.
Podcasting
Journalists who work in podcasting focus on long-form storytelling in audio form. They often work at podcasting-only companies or public radio stations or networks, as well as at many of the new podcast departments popping up at other large media organizations in virtually every area of journalism.
Social media
There are many roles, especially at very large media companies, in which journalists only post stories and other content on social media. For example, the “Washington Post TikTok guy,” Dave Jorgenson, became known in the industry because he was one of the first journalists to visibly have such a high-profile job in which his role was solely to post on one social media platform. Oftentimes, social media storytelling responsibilities entail other digital duties, such as editing a website’s home page.
