‘If you had asked me this question before I started this course, my answer would have been “honesty” as it had always been my firm belief that a journalist should be concerned with telling the truth. However, I now feel that perhaps “accuracy” and “concern with the facts” are much more meaningful and useful characteristics for a journalist to possess as the law, and therefore the media, are more concerned with facts than the truth. This isn’t to say, though, that I no longer feel that a journalist should be honest and try to seek the truth, as I think that this still plays an important role in writing interesting and exciting articles and news stories.
I also believe that a good journalist should be able to construct his or her article in a way that includes a variety of language and terms and should be clear yet interesting to read or listen to as it is our job to entertain as well as inform our audience. So, I suppose that my conclusion is that a good journalist is someone who can report the facts of an event in a clear, accurate and engaging manner.’
Like I said above, it’s tragically dull; sorry. What I did find interesting from this exercise, however, was my discovery of how incredibly bad I am at typing quickly. I already knew that I don’t type well as I have to look at the keyboard when I type and tend not to look at the screen but I thought that, generally, I was very good at picking out my mistakes either as I type or when I read back through what I’ve written. Apparently not. Instead of “my” I had accidently written “me” and “who” had managed to become “how” because I’m clever like that. And that’s without mentioning a couple of grammatical errors and faults with my punctuation. Needless to say, I was fairly disappointed in myself especially after feeling I was doing quite well in our intensive course of ‘Precision English’ (which, despite being incredibly tiring, I enjoyed immensely). Never mind, I suppose – I shall just use this to motivate me to become a better writer.
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