Breaking into Journalism – A Personal Tale
Are you an aspiring journalist who is confused about how to break into the industry? Or a media professional who is wondering what else, apart from good writing skills, you need to make it big in the industry?
Whatever is the case with you, you could be forgiven for feeling confused and direction-less about your career. Journalism is a field that seems glamorous as well as fiercely competitive. And most people can’t decide whether they really want to go ahead with it or opt for some other course to get started with or move up in their careers.
There is no doubt that journalism is challenging, and the job market is fiercely competitive. But at the same time, it’s a glamorous job that allows you to travel the world, meet and interview celebrities and biggies of the business world and live-cover the events.
But what’s untrue is that journalism is dying. It’s very much alive and kicking and exciting. There may be a shortage of jobs in print journalism but the internet has opened up a huge wealth of opportunities for journalism aspirants like you.
So, what you can do to start with or move up in your journalism career is enroll in a postgraduate journalism fast-track course. This is exactly what Alex, an online writing professional, did. His editor warned him not to waste his time, effort and money on learning an art that’s dying. A career advisor told him to try PR instead of studying journalism. But he chose to go ahead to study what he loved the most.
He enrolled in Centennial College’s fast-track course in journalism. And when his sessions began, he was surprised to learn that journalism was not just about news reporting. It’s a vast field, covering everything from interviewing, publishing, broadcasting, live-streaming, blogging, news writing, anchoring and storytelling.
The teachers at the school of communication media and design taught him how to capture the stories and put them in front of people in the most convincing manner. He got plenty of hands-on opportunity to go out into the field with the real newsmakers. The college not only helped him build strong fundamentals but also learn to use publishing, broadcasting and interactive facilities for creative communications.
According to Alex, Centennial gave him the opportunities to connect with the people in the industry, which played a critical role upon graduation, in getting him a job. What he finds best about this course is that it lays a strong focus on online publishing and internet journalism while also covering print journalism, radio broadcasting and TV newscasts.
Alex also believes that studying journalism is not only what passing the exams and obtaining a certificate. You need to get out of your comfort zone and actually indulge in some real-time action while studying and analyzing the stories, essays and articles of other journalists. This is because the employers are more interested in learning that you possess excellent storytelling skills and can actually apply broadcasting and interactive facilities to produce creative communications than knowing that you have passed a certain examination. Focusing more on hands-on learning, extra efforts and networking skills proved beneficial to Alex in getting him a job at his favourite TV channel.
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