Words: 820 words
Note: As this is an intended personal reflection, references are not provided
Alea jacta est
Introduction
The full-time London Metropolitan University MA in International Journalism offers a challenging and constructive course. It is in its first running year (2010-11).
The core News Writing module (HUP082N) has the objective to develop further students journalistic skills to international standards.
As the 2010-11 students are the first to take such a module, a reflection on individual methodology by taking the example of interviews, learning curve and future is necessary in individual terms.
Learning curve
Interviews are an essential resource for journalists. For the first portfolio, we had to produce an article about the preparations for the London Olympics.
With previous experience in interviewing top IT executives and bankers, I assumed that a full day of visiting council estates, garages, pubs, local authorities, job centres and wandering around the streets of East London and around the Olympics site trying to talk to people was enough. Assumptions led to deception.
My angle for that story was the costs and waste of money associated.
The answers didn’t come out as I expected: people were not interested in the costs but were more concerned about local violence. So, changing the angle on the spot, I asked people their opinions about crime in their area. I collected interviews from many different people with great quotes and colours. This was a major error on my part.
Not due to the content, but because I hadn’t prepared any questions, researched any facts and statistics to broaden the horizons about crime. Despite great quotes and meeting colourful people, I felt that there was a lack of depth in the interviews I was conducting.
When interviewing in the IT industry, you can change the angle of the questions and adapt back and forth because of the interviewee’s “mode”. This is not the case when doing investigative journalism: you need to plan what will come out (and won’t), do factual research, have different sets of questions, to think on your own feet…
For this specific assignment, I should have returned at the desk, prepared different lines of investigations and associated questions, investigated the criminal figures at local and national levels and then returned to Stratford.
The challenges in journalism and other professions are that you always keep learning new facts, new techniques and more about people, the learning curve.
For methodology, the number of points learned are numerous.
For instance, despite writing numerous articles for specific audiences, I had ignored the importance of the introduction. In most magazines, the intro goes either under the standfirst and/or is (re)written by the sub-editor.
Without being exhaustive, I learned the techniques to work intros to catch the reader’s attention from TV tickers to newspaper headlines. In parallel, whatever the story the inverted pyramid is the reference. I keep telling myself that I am writing for the reader/viewer. I put research time aside (official websites, Nexus, etc.) as it is an essential part of any story. I balance words to avoid libel. When in doubt, David Randall’s “The Universal Journalist”, Harold Evans’ “Essential English for Journalists”, Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language” are of immense help. And in a world where people are increasingly busy, these criteria must be focused on constantly.
Professional practice of journalism
Journalistic values are always at the heart of each course marrying ethics and morals. On a personal basis, the students and even journalists can improve many skills, avoiding the traps and easy journalism by following the course lessons, recommendations from (top) lecturers’ experiences and extensive bibliographies. These form the ideal platform for the professional journalists.
However, as per the books of Andrew Marr, Nick Davies and Stuart Allan’s books, the practice of journalism is not always rosy.
Despite having worked, commissioned and managed journalists in the magazine sector (print and online), it was shocking to discover how unprofessional, unfair and corrupt journalists can be, and not only those working for the “red masts”.
Young “ride”, “surf”, “music” hacks are disorganised, miss deadline, send poor copy but compared to what is going on at major titles, personal opinion may be altered and become more lenient…
Because the course provides professional guidance in different areas of journalism, the student can “see” the several challenges on each platform: TV, press, radio and at a lesser level online. Through the knowledge passed on and learned, the future hack can see where he or she needs to improve in professional practice depending on each medium.
The basis of accuracy, ethics, fairness, objectivity, truthfulness and audiences must always be at the heart of journalism. All these concepts lead to credibility, the success of any future and would-be reporter. To reach such a level of excellence, I can see only one solution: further reading and work!
Conclusion
The HUP082N course offers as much theory and practice as possible in order to make a difference in the job market.
Each of the students enrolled has her or his professional plan: carrying on in journalism or switching into another sector.
Whatever the professional outcome, HUP082N gives the essential skills (and suggestions for further individual development) for its students to work in a broader economic areas.
With nepotism and octogenarian plutocrats dictating the media market, the choice is not obvious to remain in that industry.
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