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Unit 2 Qualities of A News Reporter: MAC225 News Writing and Reporting

This document outlines the qualities of a good news reporter. It identifies several important qualities, including having strong writing and communication skills, being curious and having a nose for news, keeping current on events, and being fair, accurate and objective. Other qualities discussed are being creative, dressing appropriately, having perseverance, being able to interact with many types of people, self-control, courage to report on difficult stories, good observation skills, listening skills, idealism, being multi-skilled, enterprise, and strength of character. Good reporters are highly valued assets for media organizations.

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1K views3 pages

Unit 2 Qualities of A News Reporter: MAC225 News Writing and Reporting

This document outlines the qualities of a good news reporter. It identifies several important qualities, including having strong writing and communication skills, being curious and having a nose for news, keeping current on events, and being fair, accurate and objective. Other qualities discussed are being creative, dressing appropriately, having perseverance, being able to interact with many types of people, self-control, courage to report on difficult stories, good observation skills, listening skills, idealism, being multi-skilled, enterprise, and strength of character. Good reporters are highly valued assets for media organizations.

Uploaded by

JerryMumbai
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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MAC225 NEWS WRITING AND REPORTING

UNIT 2 QUALITIES OF A NEWS REPORTER

CONTENTS

1.0 Introduction
2.0 Objectives
3.0 Main Content
3.1 Qualities of the News Reporter
4.0 Conclusion
5.0 Summary
6.0 Tutor-Marked Assignment
7.0 References/Further Reading

1.0 INTRODUCTION

Reporters write stories, report events and happenings in and around the
society. They provide the core of news stories that are published daily in
our commercial newspapers or broadcast in the electronic media. As
there is no substitute for good reporting, so also there is no substitute for
good reporters. A good reporter is a great assert for his/her media
organisation. He/she is the ear and the eye of his/her medium.

It is what he/she reports that the audience will know about. The reporter
touches lives with his report.

2.0 OBJECTIVES

At the end this unit, you should be able to:

identify who a reporter is and what differentiates him/her from


other media practitioner
identify qualities a good reporters
differentiate between a good reporter and a bad one.

3.0 MAIN CONTENT

3.1 Qualities of the News Reporter

Some of the major qualities that make a good reporter are discussed
below.

S/he must have a mastery of the written or spoken language of the


medium of expression: This will enable him/her to interact easily with
news sources, eyewitnesses or even the victims of events.

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MAC225 NEWS WRITING AND REPORTING

S/he must have a nose for news: This means the reporter or journalist
must be curious about getting news from newsy or stale situations. A
good reporter must have a natural instinct for news and should be able to
identify news from seemingly events that may not be considered
newsworthy by everyone else.

S/he must be current and keep abreast of events and happenings: In


the media industry, yesterdays news is stale and no more needed. To
remain relevant in the industry, therefore, the reporter must keep abreast
of happenings in and around him/her.

A good reporter must be fair, accurate and objective in his news


writing and reporting job. Fairness, accuracy and objectivity are news
virtues, which the profession thrives on. Any attempt to compromise any
of these values makes a mess of the reputation and credibility of the
industry. These qualities of a reporter must be jealously guarded.

A good reporter must be creative: Creativity makes the reporter see


another unique story from an already published report. Without
creativity, the reporter will remain dry, uninspiring and boring to his
readers and even his sources.

S/he must also have the ability to dress well: A common idiom says
how you dress is how you are addressed and I add that it also betrays
your address. A good reporter must know how to dress for the occasion
otherwise he/she will be lost in the crowd or misrepresented. Dressing
well is not necessarily dressing expensively. It only means having the
right kind of dress for each occasion or situation.

A good reporter must have perseverance: Perseverance is having the


staying power and refusing to give up even when the situation calls for
giving up. A good reporter must have the ability to stay longer and
under stress or pressure.

A good reporter must be a good mixer: There is no room for the


reserved kind of reporter who cannot easily get into a discussion with a
potential news source. A good reporter should be able to blend easily
with all kinds of persons especially when such persons are primary to
getting the news he/she is pursuing at that moment. The good reporter
should be able to make contacts, grow and maintain them.

S/he must have a high level of comportment: The good reporter must
have self-control and high level of comportment no matter the situation
or circumstances. He/she is not expected to be carried away easily by
any surrounded situation.

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MAC225 NEWS WRITING AND REPORTING

A good reporter must have the ability to embark on creative risk and
courage especially in reporting coups, wars, conflicts, crime, disaster
etc.

S/he must have the ability to ferret out news through the process of
monitoring people and events.

S/he must also possess good observatory skills and have an eye for
details: Poorly trained reporters look without seeing. The good reporter
is able to see leads and news worthy situations by merely observing
people and situations. Whenever the good reporter looks, he/she sees.
He/she is also able to taken in a lot of details by mere observation.

S/he must be a good listener and must have an unusual patience:


The poorly trained reporters are only interested in hearing their voices in
an interview situation. However, a good reporter is only interested in
hearing the news source talk. Therefore, listening becomes a vital
quality a reporter must possess in order to succeed.

S/he should also possess enough idealism to inspire indignant prose


but not too much as to obstruct detached professionalism (Ragged Right
cited in Agbese, 2008).

A good and modern reporter must be multi-skilled: S/he should be


equipped with an array of skills to meet the demands of diverse media
users (Mencher, 2010).

A good and modern reporter must also have the unique quality
called enterprise: He/she should be able to work through tougher
assignments or situation by instantaneously assessing the situation and
taking decisions and steps that will give him/her what the media
organisation wants.

A good reporter must also have the strength of character to lead a


disrupted personal life without going absolutely haywire (Ragged Right
cited in Agbese, 2008).

4.0 CONCLUSION

Good reporters are great assets to their media organisations. Not


everyone who went to a journalism school usually turns out to become a
good reporter. This is the primary reason they are always sought after
anywhere they could be found. According to Sid Bedingfield, President,
Fault Line Productions (cited in Mencher, 2010), Reporting is the
essential ingredient in good journalism. Everything else is

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