Career in Journalism

A great many people who want to be writers say that they want to have a career in journalism.  They may envision themselves going to exotic locales to cover stories.  While these things do happen to journalists, it takes a long time to make your bones before you are sent on any interesting assignments.   

A journalist is someone who reports on timely events.  Timing is everything to a journalist.  Whether you write for a periodical or a newspaper, you need to make sure that your articles are timely.  Your purpose is to keep the public as up to date as possible when it comes to news and events that may affect them.  This is the basic concept of being a journalist. 

As a journalist, it is your job to reveal information to the public.  This should be impartial, timely and truthful.  To get into the computer system of the first journalism job that I had, the password was “truth.”  You have to write the truth of what you see and hear and let the public form an opinion.  You need to always quote sources when you are writing a journalism piece as you should not attribute anything to your own knowledge.  Your articles should be written from a third person point of view and from the outside looking in.