Brian Baker is a community reporter form Bloor West’s Town Crier, and great example of what it takes to be a good journalist. I read his article, “Higher income equals higher education”, which is an excellent hard news story. This makes it a good piece of journalism because Baker has an informative and well-written, yet simple, lead and follows the inverted triangle format, where all the important information is written first. I also found no traces of bias in the article and there were many quotes from people, like a Statistics Canada official, Lynn Barr-Tellford, Ontario University Student Association executive director, Adam Spence, OUSA’s president, Jeff La Porte, and the national chairperson of the Canadian Federation of Students, Ian Boyko.
From Brian Baker, I found that in order to be a good journalist, you must be able to create articles without being biased. A journalist should be telling the truth and facts about the story, without taking any sides to the story, to the people. They should also check their facts, two or three times, so their article is showing the truth to the readers.
Journalists should also have a thorough understanding and knowledge of the news and current affairs going on in their community and around the world. This is very important because they will be able to find the stories they want to write about. A journalist should also have excellent research and social skills so they will be able to interview people and gain knowledge on their story. Journalists should also have a strong attitude and go out there to find stories and challenge authorities.
Lastly, in order to be a good journalist, you must love the field of journalism. A person who wants to be a journalist must be interested, enthusiastic, and have a desire to tell their stories to others. Being passionate about something you love, will only bring you success and happiness.
Brian Baker does make some valid points on what makes a good journalist. Remember when we had to watch that documentary towards the start of the year? When the guy pretended to be a representative of the company, only one (out of the many) journalists did a background check, and found out that he was a fake.
ReplyDeleteResearch skills, social skills. to ensure to present only facts (no bias) and to make sure the heart it there are great 'rules' to go by to become a successful journalist! Wow!
Great article!