So you wanna be a journalism star?
Those who have recently sorrowed over the question of who a real journalist is (as opposed to one of these upstart bloggers), can now rest easy.
We have compiled a failsafe test.
Okay, it is clearly difficult to reach a definitive answer of exactly what constitutes a journalist – but many factors could be taken into account. On their own each factor wouldn’t necessarily be a test or journo or non-journo, but together perhaps they make a journalist.
Take our 5-minute test, scoring one point for every Yes response:
1) Are you paid for your writing?
2) Have you got a formal qualification in journalism (not counting high school media studies)?
3) Is your work subbed by trained sub-editors?
4) Do you work in an environment in which you regularly get advice from more experienced journalists?
5) Do you know the difference between (just for example) “practice” and “practise”?
6) Do you conduct interviews with the people quoted or mentioned in your articles?
7) Do you make requests to government agencies or public figures for information under the Official Information Act?
8) Do you make use of information which you find through looking at official records (eg Companies Office, National Archives etc)?
9) Is your work published/broadcast regularly – ie weekly or more frequently (or at least monthly for major feature-length articles)?
10) Do you have deadlines you have to meet?
11) Is your work regularly read by more than 10,000 people?
12) Is your work ever cited by other journalists or academic writers?
13) Do you write under your real name?
14) If we walked down a street in the area in which you live and asked the first 20 people we met if they had heard of you, is there much chance that at least one would say yes?
15) Do you know how to use a semi-colon correctly?
16) Do you have a good working knowledge of media and defamation law?
17) Do you read/watch/listen to a wide variety of local, national and international news media?
18) Do you often attend press conferences?
19) Can you use shorthand?
20) Have you ever broken a major news story which was followed by other news media?
If you answered Yes:
0-5 times – Get back into your pyjamas. Sorry, you ain’t enough of a journalist to be entrusted with sharpening the newsroom pencils.
6-10 times – You may be a legend among the 10 people who frequent your blog, but you’re not exactly major league.
11-15 times – Hmm, maybe you could be considered a mid-grade hack.
15-plus – Wow, you’re a pro!
Sorted.
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Comments and questions19
13 isn't bad. Those semi-colons will be the death of me!
I got 13! That makes me as cool as David Farrar!
Not bad for an ex-Cleo employee who used to subedit articles about hair straighteners.
We scored 18.
21) Do you ensure that abbreviations for multiple words (such as i.e. for id est and e.g. for exempli gratia) contain full stops?
" Do you ensure that abbreviations for multiple words (such as i.e. for id est and e.g. for exempli gratia) contain full stops?"
Well, that would surely depend on whether you follow American style rules or the more relaxed Brit ones. But that's nothing to do with whether somebody's a journalist.
Ah, no, Anonymous, not so. That would make you a grammarian and a pedant, not a journalist. If there were a question 21 it would be: Do you follow publication style for grammar and spelling, no matter what your particular preferences.
there are 13 of those questions that you can't answer yes to unless you are a journalist in current paid employment.
However, the stated purpose of this test is to determine if someone is a "real journalist". I guess any journalist on maternity leave or currently unemployed is no longer a real journalist.
Need some questions like
a) can you think logically and critically
b) do you disregard your personal political beliefs when covering political stories
c) are you unafraid to ask tough questions of people when required
But I guess it's not important to consider the real attributes that makes someone a decent journalist.
It could have been 19, but when I started out in journalism (30 years ago), this wasn't an option:
2) Have you got a formal qualification in journalism (not counting high school media studies)?
Enough, God damn you!
Hipkis, J
- Do you enjoy assisting Pinko politicians?
- Do you whinge about your pay at regular intervals?
- Do you look forward to union meetings?
- Would you prefer to drink at The Shakespeare than Soul Bar?
- Is Helen Clark on speed dial?
- Do you actually do anything on a Friday?
- Do you secretly wish to be in PR?
- Do you dream about sleeping with your co-worker because s/he wrote something that was strong and principled?
- Do you lack any commercial sense at all?
- Have you ever worked billing time or for profit?
- Do you think Barry Soper is sexy?
- Do you loathe your foreign employer?
- Are you too lazy sometimes to even find google?
- Do you talk about "the good old days"?
- Is your wardrobe absent of any item of clothing costing over $300?
- Could you earn more $ elsewhere with your qualification?
- Do you believe at all times you are writing in the public interest, not just what is interesting to the public?
- Do you work for a Sunday paper yet publicly loathe tabloid press?
- Do you privately wish your older colleagues would sod off and die?
- Do you spend more than 2 hours a day at your work computer reading blogs?
A few of my pet peeves. Not directed at you, David, but I do get worked up about some of this stuff:
Do you ever write stories where more than half the content comes from one press release?
Do you ever write a story about a report solely from the press release accompanying the report, without having read the report itself?
Do you ever read past the executive summary?
Do you ever quote factual claims made by politicians without checking the veracity of the claim?
Do you ever repeat factual claims made by politicians, stating it as fact, without checking the veracity of the claim?
Do you know what valid conclusions can be drawn from a given survey, and what can't?
Do you know what a confidence interval is?
Do you know when to use per capita statistics?
Do you know what indicies are?
Did you pass 6th form maths?
Do you care?
Keith, surely the journalist's answer to your questions (certainly nowadays) would be: Do I get paid enough to do any of these? Am I given the time to do any of these?
More often than not, the answer will be no, because those who could have answered yes have been made redundant and replaced with recent grads whose initial degree is in comms, not in anything else ...
And don't get me started on the devaluing of experienced (and therefore not cheap) subs who could at least cut off at the pass a lot of what you complain about.
Keith:
Now you mention it, one of our "pet peeves" is the use of "pet peeves"? Doesn't anybody have any other kind of peeve? What's so pet-like about the word the dictionary defines as a "provocation" or a "source of fury" anyway?
Kate:
We cannot recall ever having chuckled at anything you've written--until now. Great questions about Mr Soper and the reading of blogs. But the comment about hanging out at the Soul Bar, located as it is in the truly vile social cesspool of the Viaduct, suggests you've been trapped in the SAR a little too long for comfort.
I get 10.
Keith is dead right, the banality of so much NZ "journalism" is that it looks like a recast of a government press release with the sort of analysis you might expect from a class of average Third Formers, Cactus is also right about so much of it, the truth is that some bloggers are far more qualified in many fields such as economics, history, science, law and politics than those writing about it.
How about:
- Do you have post-graduate qualifications in any field of the arts or science?
- Do you make your political bias transparent to your readers? Do you declare any political parties you have been a member of or donated to?3
- Could you get a similar level job writing for The Times, Daily Telegraph, Financial Times, The Guardian or The Independent (UK not NZ!)?
- Have you ever been responsible for making the news rather than just writing about it?
- Do you questions assumptions made in government reports and press releases, as well as opposition ones?
- Do you have no envy of politicians, people in business, sport, literature, music or even government officials because they make the news?
- Have you ever asked a politician whether the answer to a problem is for the government to do nothing? Have you ever written an article where you analyse what might happen if the government did less not more in a particular policy area?
- Do you ever make an Official Information Act request knowing exactly what it is you need to know to determine what has gone on?
- Have you ever written about H2's control on the areas of government policy she has the greatest interest in and which the PM trusts her in? Do you even know what she does?
- Do you know what onanism is and have you never had anyone describe you work as such?
David, you're certainly head and shoulders above the majority of journos in NZ, but I'd question how many "real journalists" there are in NZ - when so many appear to be illiterate on economics, science and history. The one that takes the cake for me is TVNZ. When (then) South Korean President Kim Dae-Jung visited North Korea, the TVNZ "journalist" reported how the people of Pyongyang took a day off work so they could welcome the South Korean President with much enthusiasm. Anyone with half an idea of what North Korea is about knows there would have been NO choice about that for people in Pyongyang. Admittedly TVNZ is particularly banal, but the sad truth is that serious journalism in NZ is sadly lacking.
... but I'd not be encouraging her back to NZ Mr Cohen. You also missed a wonderfully funny piece where her age-grade hockey triumphs where used to justify criticising Olympians.
Incidentally, I'm not a journalist, nor much of a blogger for that matter, but in policy. Many of these same tests could be applied, and Keith's too, where "description" and "analysis" were on opposite ends of the continuum.
"located as it is in the truly vile social cesspool of the Viaduct" - so how come every time we've had lunch together it has been, at your suggestion, in the TVSCOT Viaduct?
"so how come every time we've had lunch together it has been, at your suggestion, in the TVSCOT Viaduct?"
For the same reason a devout Christian might elect to become a pianist at the local brothel: in the sincere hope, however faint, that by including the likes of "How Great Thou Art" in his repertoire he might yet edify the patrons.
I cannot believe I matched 9 of these points. A respectable score for a high school student.
I went ahead and ordered pants, socks, underwear, and boots online. ,
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