SD Press Club

News reporting can be a challenging and rewarding career. This is especially true with the Internet, which has created both opportunity and potential hurdles for old-school reporting. Whether you are interested in reporting for a newspaper, television, radio or the Web, there are steps to get started in your new career.

1. Consider college. Most reporters today have a college degree, majoring in something specific such as journalism, magazine writing, broadcast journalism or multimedia, or something more general such as political science or public affairs. A journalism-related degree will give you the basic skills you’ll need on the job. A general degree will give you a broader foundation in the world about which you will write.

2. Secure an internship. This has been a routine step for journalists for generations and is still a good idea given today’s slow economy. Contact your local newspaper or television station or other media outlet and find out about internships for college credit or for work experience. Offer to do general assignment reporting and be ready to work nights and weekends. Save your clips, online postings or broadcast tapes for future job interviews.

3. Consider a nontraditional approach. The Internet has brought something new: the citizen journalist. Now everyone can start a blog or post things online. Seize the opportunity by either creating your own blog and covering a specific geographic area or interest beat or by contacting a media outlet and asking whether you can contribute pieces as a freelance community writer. Start reading news blogs of your local newspaper or television station and post thoughtful comments under stories. These steps will boost your reputation as an involved and community-minded writer and could lead to a paying job.

4. Network to find out about salaried news reporting positions. See if your local press club has auxiliary memberships for freelancers. Join business organizations and find out about media contacts. Contact local colleges and ask about media recruiters. Call the newspaper or television station and sign up for a tour, ask about shadowing a reporter and see whether you can meet with the hiring manager.

Although old-school journalism is evolving into a new multimedia environment, there will always be a need for careful, well-balanced, well-researched and nicely crafted reporting. What’s more, the Internet provides many tools to make the work of journalism easier. Consider your options and get to work pursuing your news reporting career.

News is very important in today’s society. Companies use it to advertise their products and specials. Sports teams use the new to advertise their organization and gain fans who will purchase their products. Politicians use the news to send out political messages in order to gain popularity. Regular citizens will use it to know what is going on in their society. In the past, news was delivered predominantly through newspapers and on the television. In the future, this will change greatly.

Printing newspapers is very costly. Papers, ink jets, and trucks need to be purchased. The vehicles need lots of gar and sometimes need costly repairs. Employees need to be paid to deliver them to various locations. News on the television means millions of dollars need to spend on cameras, employees and buildings. Reporters need to rehearse themselves and spend lots of time to produce a small story. If the rating are down, they could easily lose their work positions. Also, certain types of stories are censored and would not be acceptable to put on the air.

The future of news will be far less costly and complex. Companies will have reporters and workers who put news onto the internet. They will simply type stories and take pictures that will be uploaded onto their website. The news will be transmitted onto the internet and cell phones in various locations. Any internet enabled device will be attached to the news. If citizens want paper copies of the articles, they can easily print it out onto paper that they have purchased with a printer that is their’s. If it is graphic, a link can be added that asks for someone to click a button to say that they are 18 years old or more. Video segments can easily be uploaded by using regular digital cameras. This will allow news to be delivered faster and be more current. There will be no delay between important events and when society is able to know about them.