By Hannah McKloskey
What distinguishes a professional journalist from a run-of-the-mill journalist? I should think anyone can be a journalist, but it takes a lot more to be a professional journalist.
Based on my own reading, observation and understanding, there are five qualities that professional journalists have that amateur ones do not. These five qualities are basic writing skills, curiosity, experience, passion and courage. These qualities cannot be bought, but must be learned and acquired. This article is about expanding on those criteria to show the meaning of such qualities.
I believe to be a professional journalist or at least to call oneself a professional journalist, you should have all of these traits.
The first and most important trait is basic writing skills. Every professional journalist needs to be well versed in the art of writing. You cannot further your career unless you have this qualification.
The basic writing skills can be achieved during college or university days. It is important that you have basic writing skills because these would act as the foundation of being a journalist.
If you do not understand grammar, punctuation and spelling, it would be impossible for you to be successful. Knowing how to write an article accurately is mandatory. No one would want to hire you if you cannot even spell a word correctly or be able to know where to put the punctuations.
The next quality is curiosity. According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, curiosity is a strong desire to know or learn something. Being inquisitive has its perks. It helps you to ask things that normal people wouldn’t even have thought of asking.
In order to write an article, questions have to be asked. Questions are an essential part of learning anything new. They help you to better understand the subjects. That is why at an early age, people are taught to ask questions. We are taught to ask about 5W’s and 1H. The “who”, “what”, “when”, “where”, “why”, and “how”.
Using the techniques and knowledge, curiosity can be channelled into ideas for news articles and magazine prints. It can help push you to find out the answers, to complete the puzzle. Curiosity can help you start an article and finish it.
The third quality is experience. This quality really differentiates between a professional journalist and an amateur one. Experience makes you more prone to the ways of journalism. Through trial and error, you learn new things. You learn from your mistakes. This is important for professional journalists because they specialise and earn a living through writing.
In order to successfully continue in the profession, they need to acquire the necessary experience. Wanting to gain experience shows your interest in the profession. It can also build networking. Having experience helps to build contacts and relationships with important people. All in all, experience is crucial in becoming a professional journalist.
The fourth quality is passion, which is our drive. It is what helps us to want to continue and do better, to improve ourselves in any way possible. Passion is the part that keeps us going. You can be interested in something at first, but passion is what keeps us there. It makes us fall in love with the career we are in. It can lead to the desire of moving forward in our career and wanting to do more.
Passion will tie into commitment. An editor would be looking for someone whom he or she can depend on. Commitment will show that the person would be willing and capable of completing an assignment. Passion is not only for professional journalists, but for anyone seeking a specialised profession. Passion is our number one quality that is crucial for one to have. Without it, you won’t have something to strive for, and even your basic writing skills will be meaningless if you do not even have the desire to use them.
The last quality is fearlessness or courage. When you are fearless, you will be able to do all the above qualities. It is difficult for a person to ask questions if he or she is shy in nature. To be fearless is to take away your shyness and be inquisitive. Fearlessness helps you to become more assertive to get to the answers to the questions you are trying to uncover and report.
You cannot be afraid to ask questions. If you stay silent and do not communicate, you will never get the answers that you want. You must also be unafraid to go to new places and learn new things.
If you are sent to another country to cover an assignment, you must be prepared and be able to research for that assignment. Even though you are in a foreign land with a bunch of people that you do not know, you must overcome your fear and be willing to try something new.
In my opinion, these five qualities are most important that a professional journalist should have. Although there are many other qualities or criteria that I have not stated in this article, these five are what I consider most vital. Many newspaper and magazine editors will be looking for these qualities in those intending to specialise in journalism. I feel that if you have these qualities, you stand a good chance of becoming a professional journalist.
The training and exposure with a news portal like IIUMToday would provide the initial platform for those aspiring to go into journalism later.***
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