For a reporter or journalist that aims to stand out among the rest, the question needs be asked – what are the different types of journalistic writing?
This is so because a writer who must stand out dynamically among the rest should not be subject to easy predictions. It is the same thing for a journalist or reporter with goals to reach heights.
Since the field of journalism is very wide and diverse, the professionally acclaimed journalist too deserves to understand the dynamics and then learn how to blend with the current of the time and flow with its different rhythms as situations ask needs.
Professionally, a person who gathers information in the form of text, audio or pictures, processes it into a newsworthy form and disseminates it to the public is called a JOURNALIST.
For journalist to be particularly identified, he or she will have to practice one of broadcast, print, advertising, or public relations journalism.
However, these types of journalism have similar roles which are available to be played in their different categories, depending on individual skills and strengths. These are:
- Reporters
- Correspondents
- Citizen Journalist
- Editors
- Editorial Writers
- Columnists
- Photojournalists
It is recorded in research that nearly all journalists have attended university, but only about half majored in journalism. Journalists who work in television or for newspapers are more likely to have studied journalism in college than journalists working for the wire services, in radio, or for news magazines.
Journalistic Writing
Journalistic Writing is the style of writing used to report news stories in the print media (newspapers and magazines), broadcast media (TV and radio) and on the Internet. It is about telling people what they didn’t know.
Journalistic writers and journalists write stories for their readers to tell them what is going on, to inform them, engage them, entertain, amuse, shock, or uplift them.
The subject matter will vary according to the nature of the publication and the intended audience. Journalism is basically a relatively simple game: Finding things out and telling other people about them.
Ultimately there is only one purpose: to make the reader read the story.
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How Journalistic Writing Looks
Some types of journalistic writing might not be too deep when it comes to research and data collection, but a vast part of journalism involves gathering data on a certain topic and relaying findings and conclusions to a larger audience via print, digital, or broadcast media.
Journalists report information through news, features, columns, investigative reports, and reviews.
Longer formats with greater detail and story development are investigative reports and feature articles. Shorter article formats including news, columns, and reviews are meant to cover a certain subject in greater detail but still in a concise manner.
Short sentences are often encouraged in journalism because they are much easier to read and understand than longer ones. Journalists therefore tend to keep their sentences to a line of print or less.
Investigating and reporting on events that have a variety of effects on people’s lives and society is the goal of journalism. Diverse forms of journalism cover a range of societally relevant topics, cater to different audiences, and have differing standards for fact-finding objectivity.
Different Types of Journalistic Writing
There are different journalistic writing which you may not know, but are vary well available and which many professional journalists are already capitalising their success and efficiency in journalism on.
Below is a lineout of the various forms of journalistic writing which as a reporter or media person you can explore to get to your career summit:
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Investigative Journalism
Investigative journalism involves thoroughly researching a topic to expose evidence and deliver findings of figures or organizations to a wider audience. Investigative journalists conduct in-depth research and use various tactics to collect information. This type of journalism often requires more time to plan, prepare and research, and is typically a longer form to fully report details of research, findings and conclusions.
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Political journalism
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Opinion Journalism
Steps to Consider in Journalistic Writing
In journalism, the writing style is certainly different and technical. This is why it becomes necessary for professionals in this field to plan out their time to learn the steps involved in the process of doing journalistic writing.
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Dig Out Appropriate Facts and Figures
The first step is to gather all the information that you need to write the story. You want to know all the facts, from as many angles as possible. Journalists often spend time ‘on site’ as part of this process, interviewing people to find out what has happened, and how events have affected them.
Ideally, you want to use primary sources: people who were actually there, and witnessed the events. Secondary sources (those who were told by others what happened) are very much second-best in journalism.
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Authenticate Sources
It is crucial to establish the value of your information, that is, whether it is true or not. It has become common in internet writing to talk about ‘your truth’, or ‘his truth’.
There is a place for this in journalism. It recognises that the same events may be experienced and interpreted in different ways by different people.
However, journalists also need to recognise that there are always some objective facts associated with any story. They must take time to separate these objective facts from opinions or perceptions and interpretations of events.
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Give News Angle to Your Writing
You then need to establish your story ‘angle’ or focus: the aspect that makes it newsworthy.
This will vary with different types of journalism, and for different news outlets. It may also need some thought to establish why people should care about your story.
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Great and Punchy Headline!
Journalists are not necessarily expected to come up with their own headlines. However, it helps to consider how a piece might be headlined.
Being able to summarise the piece in a few words is a very good way to ensure that you are clear about your story and angle.
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Quality Introductory Paragraph
Your opening paragraph tells readers why they should bother to read on. It needs to summarise the five Ws of the story: who, what, why, when, and where.
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Inverted Pyramid
Journalists use a very clear structure for their stories. They start with the most important information, then expand on that with more detail. The last section of the article provides more information for anyone who is interested.
