reflective essay
REFLECTIVE ESSAY
I have been a student at Anglia Ruskin University for one semester, and over the duration of my stay I have grown and learned more than I thought possible. I came to this course already knowing that I wanted to be a journalist, I had taken media in college and through that I knew exactly what I was heading for. Going through this course has taught me so much more about journalism; moreover it has taught me how to write and express myself, how to think like a journalist and how to find the answers to the things that I don’t know.
Once I started at Anglia Ruskin, I thought I was going to spend all my time in a white van full of equipment that these journalist uses and every day I will be running from one press conference to the next. But I was wrong! However this course has taught me the understanding of the practice of newswriting, not only that but the major theoretical text used and the ethical issues involved. A question I asked myself was why I need to understand these important things; moreover these things will not apply to me anyway. Then again, I quickly found out that as a journalist you need to be able to recognize a good story when you see one. As Pamela shoemaker said: “if you ask a journalist to define news, the journalist may reply: I know news when I see it. If pressed, the journalist will probably list a set of conditions that makes people more newsworthy…impact, interest”. (2005:7) this fascinated me totally because I had no idea that in newswriting you must make sure: when writing a story, the opening should be brief, sharp and straight to the point. As a journalist you need to be able to capture the reader’s attention with just the intro. Another important rule I came to grips with, was that an interesting intro should be no longer than 25 words and it should sum up the whole story.
The five W’S and one H is a technique I thought was pointless but after carefully understanding: WHAT,
I have been a student at Anglia Ruskin University for one semester, and over the duration of my stay I have grown and learned more than I thought possible. I came to this course already knowing that I wanted to be a journalist, I had taken media in college and through that I knew exactly what I was heading for. Going through this course has taught me so much more about journalism; moreover it has taught me how to write and express myself, how to think like a journalist and how to find the answers to the things that I don’t know.
Once I started at Anglia Ruskin, I thought I was going to spend all my time in a white van full of equipment that these journalist uses and every day I will be running from one press conference to the next. But I was wrong! However this course has taught me the understanding of the practice of newswriting, not only that but the major theoretical text used and the ethical issues involved. A question I asked myself was why I need to understand these important things; moreover these things will not apply to me anyway. Then again, I quickly found out that as a journalist you need to be able to recognize a good story when you see one. As Pamela shoemaker said: “if you ask a journalist to define news, the journalist may reply: I know news when I see it. If pressed, the journalist will probably list a set of conditions that makes people more newsworthy…impact, interest”. (2005:7) this fascinated me totally because I had no idea that in newswriting you must make sure: when writing a story, the opening should be brief, sharp and straight to the point. As a journalist you need to be able to capture the reader’s attention with just the intro. Another important rule I came to grips with, was that an interesting intro should be no longer than 25 words and it should sum up the whole story.
The five W’S and one H is a technique I thought was pointless but after carefully understanding: WHAT,