Journalism Means

Journalism is the activity of gathering, assessing, creating, and presenting news and information. . The news and information can be presented in many different ways including articles, reports, broadcasts, or even tweets.  Journalism is a form of writing that tells people about things that really happened.

(Indian journalist Sandhya Ravishankar)

Journalism is a form of  communication

 It is unique because it's a one-way message, or story, from the journalist to the audience. It's most unique because the message is not typically the journalist's personal story or subjective thoughts. Instead, the journalist acts as a channel, narrating an objective story about something that happened or is happening, based on his or her observations and discoveries.

This type of storytelling comes in many different forms, including:

• Breaking news, Feature stories, Investigative reports, Editorials Reviews,Blogs

Journalism's comes in the form of reporting. To 'report' simply means to convey the facts of the story. The story can be analytical or interpretive and still be journalism. In general, reporting comes from interviewing, studying, examining, documenting, assessing, and researching.

5. Most pieces of journalism includes the five Ws  some or all of these:

• Who was it
• What did happen
• Where were they
• When did it happen
• Why did it happen

JOURNALISTS :  People who write journalism are called "journalists." Journalists work in many areas of life, finding and presenting information. we define journalists principally as men and women who present that information as news to the audiences of newspapers, magazines, radio or television stations or the Internet.

In large organisations, the journalists may specialise in only one task. In small organisations, each journalist may have to do many different tasks. Here are some of the jobs journalists do:

Reporters gather information and present it in a written or spoken form in news stories, feature articles or documentaries. Reporters may work on the staff of news organisations, but may also work freelance, writing stories for whoever pays them. General reporters cover all sorts of news stories, but some journalists specialise in certain areas such as reporting sport, politics or agriculture.

Sub-editors take the stories written by reporters and put them into a form, which suits the special needs of their particular newspaper, magazine, bulletin, or web page. Sub-editors do not usually gather information themselves. Their job is to concentrate on how the story can best be presented to their audience. They are often called subs. The person in-charge of them is called the chief sub-editor.

Photojournalists use photographs to tell the news. They either cover events with a reporter, taking photographs to illustrate the written story, or attend news events on their own, presenting both the pictures and a story or caption.

The editor is usually the person who makes the final decision about what is included in the newspaper, magazine or news bulletins. He or she is responsible for all the content and all the journalists. Editors may have  assistants to help them.

The news editor is the person in charge of the news journalists. In small organisations, the news editor may make all the decisions about what stories to cover and who will do the work and, whose special job is to assign reporters to the stories selected.

Feature writers work for newspapers and magazines, writing longer stories which usually give background to the news. In small organisations the reporters themselves will write feature articles. The person in charge of features is usually called the features editor.

Producer : The person in charge of producing a particular current affairs program is usually called the producer and the person in charge of all the programs in that series is called the executive producer 

Specialist writers may be employed to produce personal commentary columns or reviews of things such as books, films, art or performances. They are usually selected for their knowledge about certain subjects or their ability to write well. Again, small organisations may use general reporters for some or all of these tasks.

 case Study

Meet Sandhya Ravishankar: the journalist hell-bent on exposing illegal sand mining in Tamil Nadu

A freelance journalist has exposed the illegal mining racket in Tamil Nadu