Want to be a journalist? If so, consider this piece —
… journalists write stories for their readers to tell them what is going on, to inform them, engage them, entertain them, shock them, amuse them, disturb them, uplift them. The subject matter will vary according to the nature of the publication and the intended audience. The good newspaper editor will have a clear idea of the sort of people who are reading it, and cater to their interests and preoccupations, sometimes their prejudices. And the paper will include that vital ingredient serendipity – the story you didn't expect, the “just fancy that”, the absurdities as well as the travails of the human condition.
Journalism is basically a simple game. It is about finding things out and telling other people about them. The finding out requires a variety of skills because those in power often prefer that we know only so much. Journalism is about holding such people to account, exposing their humbug and hypocrisy, the abuse of their power. This includes the control it gives them over the flow of information, the ability to bury the bad news, to spin and obfuscate. Good journalists must ask the awkward questions and question the answers, must dig to unearth and then explain, making comprehensible that which authority, by intent or verbal inadequacy, has left confused, incomplete or plain mendacious. Incomprehensible journalism is quite simply bad journalism, and therefore pointless . . .
.. journalistic writing is different from creative writing. Many young people think they would like to be journalists because they have “always loved writing” or started writing poems when they were eight. It is certainly not enough and may well be a barrier to success in journalism. The late Nicholas Tomalin famously wrote that “the only qualities essential for real success in journalism are rat-like cunning, a plausible manner, and a little literary ability.” He included writing, but he placed it third and prefaced it with a diminutive. The writing matters; but don't think of it as art. Think of it as working writing, writing doing a job, writing that puts across information in a way that makes readers want to absorb it.
Or try this piece:
The qualities essential to journalism . . . are those of curiosity, an uninhibited mind, native cunning and an eagerness to communicate, summed up in the gift to narrate. Such is the raw material on which the story depends and without which there is nothing to say. There can be a story without journalism, but no journalism without a story.
Or better yet, check out the whole remarkable series put together by The Guardian.
Tags: journalism, writing