When considering which professional path to embark upon after graduating from university or college, one of the most exciting, tempting and altogether sensory stimulating decisions you could possibly make is to pursue a career as a professional journalist.
With the worldwide coronavirus pandemic still determined to wreak havoc on both the personal and professional lives of every single person not only across the entirety of the United States but throughout the world, people that previously weren’t interested in reading or watching the news are now glued to the latest information.
If you are someone who feels like a career in journalism is one that you would be able to succeed at and thrive in, then continue reading to discover fourteen incredibly useful and beneficial tips to both ensure you are right for the career path and guarantee a long and fruitful career.
1. Develop your Research Skills
Every good journalist worth their proverbial salt has natural skills related to research, but a great deal more importantly, has also spent considerable amounts of time, energy and even some of their hard-earned savings on developing these skills. Frankly, the more adept and skilled you are at researching, the better journalist you will become.
Thankfully, there is a myriad of simple tools and techniques to help hone your skills at sorting information and researching various sources, including the following:
- Teach yourself the difference between quality sources and those too steeped in bias, by asking such questions as: is this person a verified expert in the field? Does the author of this source have the same view as other reputable sources?
- As researching is such a ‘mammoth’ task, it is worth starting small and familiarizing yourself with the basic information before exploring deeper.
- Staying as organized as possible throughout the entirety of the research process
2. Overhaul Your Social Media Platforms
As an aspiring or newly qualified journalist, you should be prepared to present a professional front not only in real life, but in any and all of your social media profiles.
Additionally, you should never post anything that is controversial even on a subject that seems unimportant, such as (for example) your opinion on the finale episode of your latest television series, it is much better to remain as neutral as possible, even if all of your accounts are set to private.
3. Enhance Your Proficiency Of The Written Word
One would hope that if you are pursuing a career as a professional journalist, you will already have an excellent command of both the written and spoken English language.
However, it is important to continue to expand your vocabulary as much as possible and at every opportunity, the most effective way being to read as many different types of texts as you can from classic literature to comedic autobiographies.
The wider your vocabulary, the easier it will be to write and the more interesting and engaging your writing will be.
4. Acquire A Master’s Degree
It is certainly not true to say that amongst the thousands of professional journalists making an excellent living and travelling all around the world, every single one of them has a postgraduate degree in journalism.
However, if you are truly serious that journalism is your one, true proverbial calling, by far the most effective way to ensure you rise above your competitors is to successfully acquire an online master’s in journalism, from a reputable and renowned university.
There is a wide amount of incredible benefits to being educated at postgraduate level for journalists, including but categorically in no way limited to:
- A significant boost in your salary prospects and future earning potential
- Increasing the likelihood of job offers from more well-known employers
- The broadening of your intellectual and extracurricular interests
- The ability to specialize in a particular area of journalism
- Unrivalled personal development
- Exclusive and exceedingly valuable networking opportunities
5. Be Prepared To Re-Locate
When deciding whether a lifelong career in journalism is the right career choice for you, another exceedingly pertinent thing to consider is that (especially in the early stages of your career) you are likely to be sent all over the country in pursuit of a particular story.
If you are somewhat of a self-described homebody and feel insecure and worried when spending nights in strange hotels a long way from home, then journalism probably isn’t quite the right career choice for you.
6. Develop Your Observation Skills
Observation is one of the fundamental pre-requisites of journalism and whether or not you consider your observation skills to be advanced or not, learning how to further improve how speedily and accurately you can both see and quickly note down the minutiae of the human condition can only enhance how good of a journalist you will become.
The fundamental ways to practically and effectively advance and develop your skills of observation consist of:
- Tackling Unconscious Biases & Attempting To Overcome Them
- Practicing Active Listening
- Enhancing Your Levels Of Emotional Intelligence
7. Learn How To Find Your Angle
Unlike fiction and even non-fiction writers, a journalist is not required to write with their own style or use particular wording that is recognizable from one piece of work to the next.
Conversely, however, within each individual article or news report, it is crucially important to quickly ascertain the angle needed to correctly and accurately convey the story you are witnessing firsthand (or compiling from various reliable sources) to others.
Your journalistic angle will of course be guided by your editor or senior reporter, but it will still be entirely up to you how you structure your article or news story and the tone in which you deliver it.
8. Practice Your Interview Technique
Interviewing is another absolutely integral part of a journalist’s working life and therefore it is important to practice your interview technique. Fortunately, there are many ways to do this and perhaps the easiest way is to ask a close friend or family member to pose as a member of the public and conduct a thorough fake interview.
The structure of a regular interview, although obviously dependent on natural variations in topics of conversations and the behavior and attitude of the interviewee, should follow this basic, chronological, framework:
- Always open on a positive and complimentary note (unless you are interviewing someone who has committed a crime, for example)
- Ease the subject into the interview process by introducing yourself and telling them who you work for and also what you would like to get out of the interview
- Never have your mobile’s volume turned on, or for that matter any other outside distractions during the interview; your focus should be on the interviewee and the conversation between you
- Ask if they have any questions for you or any special requests for the publication or broadcast of the interview; do your best to accommodate them
- Never feel as if you are rushing your interviewee by always allowing plenty of extra time before your next appointment in case the interview runs over time
9. Take A Video Production Course
Part and parcel of the modern world of journalism is mobile journalism, whereby sections of the report (or even the entirety of the report) are filmed and edited on small, handheld devices such as mobile phones and tablets.
However, just because you may sometimes be required to edit your report on your smartphone, this by no means results in less attention paid to the edited result and therefore enrolling yourself on a professional video production course would be an excellent way to familiarize yourself with the nuances of editing.
10. Confidence Is Crucial
The importance of confidence as a journalist can simply never be overstated and if you would conversely describe yourself as more of a shy, introverted person, you will certainly be faced with a plethora of different challenges if you still decide to pursue a career in the industry.
Experts and members of the public alike often say confidence is the undeniable and underpinning prerequisite for success and whereas this may be somewhat of a proverbial blanket statement, it is true to say that whether you are interested in writing or television reporting, both require a certain level of confidence.
11. The Ability To Work Under Pressure Is Of Optimum Importance
As with any other professional, vocational career working as a professional journalist requires the individual to be proficient in working to deadlines and working under a considerable amount of pressure, the latter often coming from a variety of different angles.
There are several tried and tested methods of improving your attitude and ways of coping under professional and personal pressure, which include:
- CBT therapy can help you discover new ways to handle stress and feelings of anxiety
- Staying calm and collected including deep breathing methods
- Taking yourself out of the situation and employing a more objective approach
- Using the STAR method: Situation, Task, Action & Result
12. Familiarize Yourself With New Media
Digital journalism and mobile journalism are perhaps at the forefront of modern journalism and, as a result, you must not only familiarize yourself with the different aspects of new media but be incredibly adept at using your smartphone and portable tablet to create professional articles and news reports.
There is a myriad of advantages to the relatively recent boom of both digital and mobile journalism, including but certainly not limited to:
- Specifically designed applications for professional journalists
- Discreet and easy to transport devices
- Exceedingly high quality and photographs achievable on such small devices
- An affordable option for journalists
- Significantly less intimidating for interviewees
13. You Must Be Prepared To Network (& Then Network Some More)
One of the fundamental ways in which successful and prolific journalists in the United States (as well as across the world) are seemingly able to be in exactly the right place at the right time is by no means down to luck (although, in fairness, sometimes it is), but rather their strength and commitment to professional networking.
Professional networking in journalism is not only essentially the building and continual development of relationships with other journalists and peers, but also the creation of reliable contacts in a wide variety of different industries. For example, some of the most infamous newspaper interviews with celebrities were made possible down to the tenacity and friendship between the journalist and the interviewee.
Networking can occur virtually anywhere, including online through social media sites and websites, via e-mail, specifically designed networking events, your place of work and other journalistic expos and conferences.
There is a myriad of advantages to engaging in regular and productive networking, including:
- The provision of a professional channel whereby you are afforded the opportunity to expand your knowledge and journalistic skillsets
- The expansion of your notoriety
- Allowing you to constructively compare yourself to other journalists in your field
- The opening of doors to new employment opportunities
- The building of professional self-confidence
- Help and advice from peers and competitors in a structured yet informal environment
- The improvement of your interpersonal and communication skills
- Providing you with the opportunity to connect with new mentors
14. Retain Your Moral Fiber
Throughout an illustrious career as a professional journalist, no matter where you are located or who you work for, it is absolutely crucial to retain your own sense of morals.
Journalism, certainly in the minds of many people, has somewhat of a bad reputation, especially after the tragic death of Princess Diana in 1997, when her and her entourage were fleeing paparazzi and crashed into a tunnel. As a result, a large proportion of the public, especially in England, blame the press and this had a wide-reaching impact on people’s opinions of journalists which still exists to this day.
Always write from the heart and even if the subject isn’t something that particularly interests or excites you, always try to inject some of your own personality into whatever it is you are reporting on or writing about.
