What does a journalist do?
You find out what happened and publish it, and the whole job is the gap between what you have been told and what you can actually stand behind.
Also called: reporter, news reporter, correspondent.
A day looks like
- 1You make calls to people who do not want to speak to you, and you keep being polite.
- 2You get a document, and then you try to find a second source for what it says.
- 3You put the allegation to the person it is about, before you publish, every time.
- 4You hold a story you badly want to run, because it is not ready.
Hardest part
Being first is rewarded and being right is only noticed when you are not. The pressure runs entirely one way, and the only thing pushing back is your own standard for what counts as knowing something.
Best part
Publishing something that was being hidden, sourced well enough that nobody can make it go away.
How you actually become a journalist
- At schoolWriting, curiosity and a thick skin; a journalism degree or an NCTJ-style qualification helps.
- TrainingJournalism qualification covering law, public affairs and reporting; then years of practice.
- How longOne to three years of training, then a long apprenticeship in the job itself.
- Your first jobTrainee reporter on local news — courts, councils and calls.
Frequently asked questions
- Why do journalists need two sources?
- Because one source can be mistaken, lying, or have a motive you cannot see. Independent corroboration is what turns something you have been told into something you know, and it is the difference between reporting and repeating.
- What is right of reply?
- Putting an allegation to the person it concerns before publication and including their response. It is both fair and practically useful — it is frequently where a story turns out to be wrong.
- Will AI replace journalists?
- It can already write up results and summarise documents. What it cannot do is cultivate a source who is frightened, be in a courtroom, or take personal and legal responsibility for whether something is true — and verification work has grown rather than shrunk.
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