No matter whether you work as a freelance writer or a news reporter in a media company, there are a ton of opportunities to become a journalist. In the simple words, you can work as a journalist from anywhere between a news publication to a freelance writer. Journalism is one of those few fields where you actually get paid even for the training. All you have to be ready with an inquiring mind and a habit of getting deep down into matters. Most importantly, you need to have a mindset of getting into new topics whether you like them or not because the true stories matter more than your interests.
Though the word “Journalist” is a general title, yet it describes a broad category of jobs, including the ones where the person has to report about the news for the online media, broadcast or print. A journalist is a person who writes stories for the on-camera television reports, newspapers or websites. A person requires minimum a bachelor’s degree in journalism and mass communication to be a journalist. Though the profession of a journalist involves a moderate pay and the long working hours, yet it offer people a lot of advantages as well.
Image:pixabay.com
Contents
Excitement for the Field-Based Experience
A journalist is a person who often has to travel to places or different fields to go after the news and following up all the leads. This profession is significantly for those people who really don’t like to be tied to one seat all day long and have passion, excitement for traveling around in order to hunt for the news. The journalists often start working from the local news positions, but their career advancement leads to various opportunities t travel around the world for covering the major news stories.
Recommended for you:
Who is a “Journalist” and what they do?
Meeting with Interesting People
Journalists get a good chance of meeting interesting people to interview them in order to prepare the news stories. The web and the newspaper reporters often conduct the background research, including interviewing people for preparing a relevant story, which is a part of the reporting process. The broadcast journalists get an opportunity for performing live on-air interviews with people from higher authorities. In this profession, a person gets a chance to chat and meet interesting people, including the government, business and community leaders. After growing up in this career, a journalist even gets a chance to interview famous celebrities, musicians, athletes, and politicians.
Feeding the Curiosity
The journalists are often paid for learning and reading a lot of things. The primary focus of a journalist must be to learn about the interesting, new events and people followed by converting it into a compelling story. A reporter and a detective have a similar work. In simple words, both investigates the leads properly and forms the theories into a compelling story for the audience. The only difference between the two is that a journalist turns all the leads of the investigation into a news report.
Fast Advancement
The profession of a journalist involves competition and the demands often exceed what actually is available with the job searcher. However, there are numerous skilled reporters and writers who showcase their talents through the local markets and try their best to gain an exposure along with the advanced opportunities. The large media companies require the journalists who are capable of breaking the stories and bringing in more viewers or readers.
Fast Pace
If you are one of those people who can’t able to handle new opportunities and daily work pressure, then journalism is not for you because it brings a lot of new tasks every day. The journalism profession brings new stories, events, news, disasters, conferences, attacks, elections and what not, so you always have to be ready to switch from your desk to the field in no time. You have to be at the news spot before the others and have to catch the front place to get it all. Now if you are a freelancer, then not only you have to be at the front of the news spots, but you also had to be in the centre of news hub. This will help you in selling that news to top publishers which have been skipped by others if you really want to advance your career opportunities.
Follow Your Interests
Being a journalist, you can easily give proper time to your own interests. Even the media companies convey to their employees to focus on their own interests which can help in filling out more space on web portals and newspapers. The news report must be written in such a way that it attracts more audience and in this way, you can simply follow your interest. It is a way to interact more with the audience as they would love reading the stuff with more interest. You can go on and keep an eye on all stuff happening around the field of your interest and if you feel that something is worth reporting then you can report that news and prepare a compelling story out of it. This way you keep your interest alive and the publications get more readers.
Paid Travel
Being a journalist allow the person to travel nationally as well as internationally for covering the news and the best part is that the media companies pay for every visit, including the meals, hotel charges and everything associated with the official work. So, if you love traveling to new places, then this profession is for you. If you are interested in participating in the democratic process, then you must try your hands in volunteering a political campaign and cover the news properly. You just have to pitch out the stories which you think can have an impact on the local communities. You can travel to the places you dreamt of in order to cover the campaigns and events all over the world.
Insider Access
When you finally get placed as a journalist, you get a press pass which you can use as an entry pass to the venues for covering the news. Being a journalist, you will meet different people to interview them and you will be allowed to attend events, like celebrity appearances, product launches, political conferences and even concerts. This profession gives a person both front stage and back stage credibility, including attending the conferences or events and meeting new people. Most of the celebrities, businessmen and politicians expect journalists at their convenience and welcomes to get their interviews for the daily.
Apart from these advantages, the profession of a journalist is no exception is terms of disadvantages associated with it. The journalists have low pay with long and often unsociable working hours, the risk of death or injury and much more.
I certainly think that being a journalist helps a person in becoming a more open-minded, interesting and a driver personality. It helps in motivating because of high-level and tough competition. You might meet dishonest and sneaky people in your profession, but unfortunately, it is the same in every profession. Though being a journalist is a tough profession, yet it is definitely not a boring 9 to 5 job.
