By Tulinagwe Malopa.
With the ever changing media industry today, students pursuing journalism studies are supposed to be very creative so as to secure their careers in the market right after finishing their studies.
Unlike before, young journalists need to show their ability to help newsrooms to cope with the digital changes by simply applying new skills, being creative and using different new techniques that will make their organisations afloat.
Since most of them are now in colleges, it is better for them to understand that from the scratch there is a need to have the needed skills in industry. These skills will help you achieve what you want as a young journalist entering the industry.
Develop new skills in the newsroom
If you’re a reporter, try learning how to shoot video and take high quality audio. If you’re a photographer, try your hand at writing. If you have some programming experience, brainstorm news apps you could create. Developing new skills will make you more valuable and a greater asset to a newsroom.
Learn and be active on social media
As most news flow on social media now, activeness on social media is another great behavior any journalist thinking of entering the industry must have. This will help him or her being up to date and informed on different things happening at home and in the world at large. Social networking sites like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram will help you to get news tips for breaking news and further analysis.
Create an online portfolio
Having an online portfolio is one of the most essential ways of putting your works alive. These are works that can be shared to different experts and audiences in the process of developing to be the better journalist in the industry.
Your online portfolio can include links to your articles, photographs, videos and your social media accounts that can make you live and most of all show who you are and the position you have in the industry generally.
Set your smart goals
While applying and grabbing all the necessary skills needed it is important to set your goals as an individual of where you want to reach at a particular period of time. Your goals will give you a road map as well inspire you to learn and work hard to live your dreams. All goals should be measurable and have time limits that will help you stretch to achieve.
Inline with the above skills, creativity, great social skills that makes the passion for communication and networking more advantageous, and adapting the behavior of becoming first and fast are the most prioritized skills any journalist must have in the blood for him/her to survive in the journalism sector.
To be a journalist you need to be very inquisitive and you need to be ready to get the most out of any sort of story, no matter how minor it may seem.
Starting out in journalism requires serious hard work and an acceptance that you won’t be starting out at one of the national newspapers. You need to take some stepping stones first before you can land your dream job reporting at a national newspaper.