Types Of Journalism
Journalism is an activity that involves the production of a certain material, which will become public either through some sort of print medium or through an audiovisual medium. The various types of journalism can be classified either by their message or by the medium used to convey this message.
If you choose the medium classification, you come across six different types of journalism. The first is that of political journalism, which is concerned with everything that evolves around the sphere of politics, whether that is governmental issues, public policy issues, elections, foreign politics, etc. Business journalism is another type of journalism; it is concerned with today’s economy, the market’s tendencies, economical growth rates, as well as other business related stuff. Some times the first two types of journalism may deal with overlapping subjects, but each side sheds light on the subject from a slightly different angle. Sports journalism, on the other hand, shows a complete disregard for everything that is not sports related. Live scores, results, trades rumors, statistics and records, and broadcasting: people with different skills can be employed to do a different job in the world of sports journalism. The rest three fields that give rise to three more types of journalism are: arts and culture, education and crime.
An even better way to classify the various types of journalism, however, is by medium. In this classification the resulting four types of journalism are print journalism, photojournalism, broadcast journalism, and multimedia journalism. In other words, whether you are writing articles for a political or sports newspaper, a magazine that deals exclusively with art, or a gossip magazine, you would still be considered a print journalist. Due to the fact that this medium demands from you both to write articles and to pair them with photos, you will probably find yourself working with a photojournalist. Photojournalists are basically photographers, the only difference being that instead of just taking photos for their aesthetic value, they are assigned the task of taking photos that will tell a certain story that will match your article. Becoming a photojournalist is not easy: one needs to be trained both as a photographer and as a journalist, and he needs persistence, instinct, and talent in order to become successful. The third type of journalism deals with everything that has to do with broadcasting; both in and outside a studio; both for television and for the radio; both in the front line delivering news or behind the scenes making news happen. The last of the four types of journalism in this classification is multimedia journalism. It involves writing articles, taking photos, making videos, and pretty much everything described for the above mentioned types of journalism. In other words, the world of multimedia is all-encompassing and you need to have a variety of skills (including technical skills) in order to survive as a journalist.
Besides practical skills and training, though, you need to have some important character traits if you really wish to become a journalist: that is curiosity (just hope that it doesn’t kill you), an adventurous spirit, people skills, and most importantly to be able to work under pressure and strict deadlines.
