In our previous lessons, we have gotten to know what journalism entails and the profession of journalism. In every profession, there are practitioners of the profession. In the teaching profession, there are teachers who are the professionals. In the journalism profession, there are journalists who are the professionals. In this article, we will delve deeper into who a journalist is, their qualities and finally the roles they play as a reporter, news caster/news anchor, editor and photographer.
Journalists are mostly defined by the roles they perform in
their daily works and tasks. Journalists are sometimes known as the
all-news-media personnel who have editorial responsibility for the preparation
or transmission of news stories or other basic information units. In the
previous lesson under journalism, we got to know that journalism entails the
gathering, assessment, creation and presentation of news stories. Based on
this, we can deduce the definition of a journalist as the professional responsible
for gathering, assessing, creating and disseminating news stories and facts to
the public through the various available mass media. A journalist’s solemn aim
is to always alert the public and share new stories with them. There are
various issues happening around us yet we do not have the ‘eyes’ to see them;
it takes the expertise and experience of a journalist to discover such issues and
report them to the public. A journalist does not only write and disseminate
news to the public, but they also photograph as we discussed in the forms of
journalism.
Daily news and updates are always expected to be coming from
journalists. They are therefore relied upon to present news in a concise and
objective manner without any biases or addition of emotions. A journalist goes
beyond wherever it is expected of them just to cover stories and share to the
public. That is why there are investigative and crime journalists who sometimes
risks it all just to cover stories of public interest and benefit. Journalists
sometimes go the extreme of building relationships, banging on people’s door
just to get access to information and present them. That is who a journalist is
and that is what differentiate them from news anchors and news presenters who
are always in the studio to present news covered by the journalists. For
journalists, writing a news story could be done everywhere, whether a hotel, in
the house or even office. Have you ever imagined how journalists are able to
produce news out of interviews? This is the reason why they are journalists,
they are created to fit everywhere and perform their functions.
Journalists have different personalities. Some are artistic
in nature which means they are creative, intuitive, sensitive, articulate and
expressive. These qualities are a must for every professional journalist. There
are journalists who are also enterprising which means they are adventurous,
ambitious, assertive, extroverted, energetic, enthusiastic, confident and
optimistic. Journalists function as the eyes and ears of newspapers or news
channels.
What are the qualities of a good journalist? Can you recall
the ten elements of good journalism in our previous lessons? We are now focused
on the qualities of the professional in the profession.
A good journalist must have the capability to ‘smell news’.
A journalist does not stay in his or her comfort zone for a news story to
travel to them; they rather go out there to look for news stories and that is
the smelling of news. A good journalist must also be extroverted and sociable
in nature. You can be an introvert but on the field of journalism, such
attitude is not applicable as journalists have to be sociable and build
relationship with people in order to have them as their sources in some cases. A
good journalist must be a neutral analyst. You cannot openly support party A in
public; your job is to report on whatever party A is doing and not add your
opinions. A good journalist must be ready to work with a team. Even the
investigative journalists who have trust issues have a team and how much more a
normal journalist? A good journalist must also have the ability to present
thoughts in a clear manner through words. Finally, a good journalist must be
someone who adhere to ethics which makes the role a professional one.
There are certain roles of journalists in the media. This
article will focus on the roles of the news caster/anchor, photojournalist, the
editor and feature writer.
A news caster is a person who reads news in front of a TV
camera in a studio or newsroom on the field. A news reader on the TV is a news
presenter whiles on the radio is a news anchor.
A photojournalist uses photos as a way of reporting news.
They normally go the fields with reporters and take photos in relation with
whatever the reporter covers.
The editor is in charge of deciding what goes into news or
newspapers. He makes final decisions from the news gathered by the journalists.
There is also a sub-editor who take stories written by reporters and puts them
into a form that suits maybe their newspaper.
Finally, a feature writer is a journalist who write longer
stories which ranges from 1000 words and above. These stories give more
background to a news story. Basically, these are the known roles of
journalists.
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