Before starting this course, I thought that a
journalist was someone that wrote about the news and gathered information for
articles in newspapers. I now know that
a journalist can be anyone that helps bring news to the community and to the
world. This could be a news anchor on
T.V., a radio broadcaster, a newspaper journalist, a magazine writer, or even a
photojournalist. Before starting this
course, I thought that the purpose of journalism was getting information for
the news. It is not just about gathering
news and writing articles, it is also about bringing this news to the community
and explaining how it affects their lives.
The news is important to everyday and up-to-date information is what
journalists provide. I didn’t know much
about ethics before taking this course.
I knew that it can be an academic course that you can take, but I didn’t
know how it applied to real life. Being
ethical means to remain impartial and reasonable throughout writing and is a
good quality to have for any career.
The difference between impartial writing and
opinion writing was pretty clear to me before I started this course, but
learning about it in this course was very helpful. Before, I knew that impartial writing is when
you write without opinion and opinion writing is when you add your personal
feelings and beliefs on the topic. I was
interested in journalism as a career before I started this course because I
enjoy writing and gathering information about local events. I knew that this was something that I wanted
to try to pursue as a career and I think that this course has helped me learn
more about the field so I will be prepared for a possible career ahead.
My definition of a
journalist has changed because I now know that a journalist not only writes
articles in the newspaper and gather information for articles, but there are
many more forms of journalism that communicate news and information to the
community. I now think that the purpose
of journalism is it provides current news to the public so they can stay in
touch with the rest of the world. I
believe that journalistic ethics are very important to apply to any form of
impartial writing because credible and impartial facts are what the readers are
looking for. This is the same as what I
knew before I took this course. My
understanding of the difference between impartial reporting and opinion writing
has changed somewhat because I didn’t know that within your impartial writing,
you have to provide both sides of the story.
Even though I was interested in a career in journalism before this
course, I feel that this course has sparked my interest for the field even more
than before.
As for the future of
journalism, I feel that soon enough, most news is going to be digital and found
through the internet. Seeing that this
generation is leaning more towards this type of news, I have a feeling it will
be even more popular in the future.
