Tamsil Shahezad Khan

National Correspondence

Yes

Social media brings new characteristics like interactive dialogue and social interactions. Journalists can now have real conversations with their audience. ... It enhances the likability of some journalists and plays a key role in how they interact with their audience

Arundhti Roy, Suhasini Haider

Beyond fact-checking, interviews, proof-reads and contacts book, a journalist is expected to be on the edge of their culture. They’ll have in-depth conversations with an editor about what stories are current and unusual, suggesting a perspective on the world that should be brought to light. This could involve staying on top of political, financial and social developments, or researching celebrity and human interest stories. No two days for a journalist are ever the same. Finding the best material for a story could mean attending a press conference, holding an interview over the phone, trawling through professional contacts, or hammering out paragraphs. The story comes first, and journalists do whatever it takes to make it accurate and thought-provoking. Some typical tasks journalists may include include: Researching articles Interviewing sources Writing articles Proofreading articles Verifying stories Liaising with other creative members of their team e.g. photographers or videographers Attending events or news conferences Speaking to people outside of their organisation Staying up to date on current events

Comedian Patton Oswalt started a hilariously vulgar new hashtag trend called #CareerEndingTwitterTypos. Each rude typo changed the tweet's meaning so drastically and so heinously that it could cost someone a job if the boss saw it.

Writers

Pen Trusty Mobile. Place to keep your notes. Evernote. Notes by Apple. Google Keep. ... Your favorite word processor. Google Docs. Grammarly. Hemingway Editor. Audio editing software. Adobe Audition. Audacity.

LinkedIn

Writers, Authors, Journalist

I’ve always been a description/language/visual oriented person (as opposed to being mathematically or scientifically minded). I did very well in English, and loved learning and speaking French. Oddly, I quite enjoyed physics even though I hated and wasn’t particularly gifted with maths. And I think that’s because I like to know how and why things are the way they are. Physics is a tool for understanding the actual world around us, physical and natural forces etc. Maths is just meaningless numbers and boredom on paper. Physics “means” something. It describes something. So a career where I learn and grow to understand and interact and work out what things/events/people/situations mean, the how’s and the what’s and the whys and the who’s - were always far more appealing to me than wanting to have a career in banking, or medicine, or finance. Those things sounded like a sort of intellectual prison for me if I were to have to do that as a job. It’s a cliche, but I like meeting new people and hearing their opinions/thoughts/knowledge/expertise/history and all sorts of things. Even if the individual person in question is not particularly friendly or likeable, they might still have some sort of knowledge, or a viewpoint or an opinion that I would have never thought of it realised independently. By working in the media as a journalist, you get to meet and be exposed to a wide variety of people and cross sections of people and humanity as a whole. I imagine if I were a doctor, the majority of my friends would be medical professionals, I’d go to medical conferences, I’d be kind of compelled to keep learning about medical things. And the same thing can be said of almost any job or career or vocation or profession. You get “tunnel vision” and your life might feel like it’s running along pre-set train tracks. With journalism, I have no need to worry about those limitations. I could be dealing with law enforcement one day, an entrepreneur the following day, a showbiz event the next day, a political event or even the Prime Minister at the end of the week, followed by the opening of a new airport or train station, meeting a sports star, reporting on a terrorism event, and then be chatting to an Olympian, or talking to a single mother who has just won the lottery, followed by interviewing a convicted serial killer. (Okay, so my above lists are speaking hyperbolically, I haven’t done half those things, but that’s because I’m still young and have only been working for a few years). But I’ve done some of the things above, and it’s actually a pretty realistic list of a standard career in journalism for an older journalist over a longer timeframe. And you get my point. A standard day in journalism is, almost by definition, never a standard day. That’s exciting. That’s interesting. I think I would be driven to impulsive distraction if I worked in an office as a banker or whatever else these days. Furthermore, while I consider myself ambitions, I’ve never felt any compulsion to seek fame or power. I don’t feel any need to dominate situations or people, or lord myself over others, but neither do I have any inclination to subjugate myself to others either. I can happily work under a manager who requires me to do things, and I could completely imagine myself being a fairly good manager of other people. But I can also work independently and I have no backstabby corporate ambition to climb over people nor throw others under any proverbial bus. That may, in part, be due to the fact that my own career as a journalist, simply doing what I’m doing is interesting enough that I don’t feel I’m lacking in workplace authority. If anything, I might like a bit more independence to choose my own stories, have a bit more money, or be higher up or more senior so I can have the option of choosing what I do sooner, and maybe delegating the less interesting stories to more junior people. But beyond that, what I do is too interesting in and of itself that I’ve never felt any real need to play office politics or get into workplace power plays. Another thing is, I quite like being a bit of a know it all - but ONLY if I’m actually pretty confident that I am right based on evidence, proof and expert witness/opinion. In other words, I like telling people factual truths, rather than blindly give my opinions on things I know nothing about. A pretty crucial aspect of journalism. Finally, although I’m not a scene-stealing extrovert, if anything I’m more a confident introvert, I used to enjoy amateur theatre acting when I was in school. I was very comfortable giving class presentations when I was sure I knew my material, and I quite enjoy giving speeches as long as I know what I’m saying and what I’m talking about. I don’t enjoy being the centre of attention all the time. I’m not always the life of the party. But when there is a “reason” for me to be doing what I’m doing, whether that be on stage because I’m giving a presentation, or a speech in class, or whatever, I’m very happy to do it and I don’t get “stage fright” in those situations. I understand stage fright on an intellectual level. I’m not immune to it either, I would definitely feel stage fright if I attempted to do stand up comedy - because it’s not “my thing”. But give a talk in front of dozens/hundreds or act on stage in an amateur or semi-professional theatre performance, as long as I know what I’m doing, I’m comfortable with that, to the point where I actively enjoy it. This might be why I gravitated to television/broadcast journalism. Your face is on camera, you are in front of people, and you must be presentable, engaging and personable. Things that I’m comfortable being and doing as long as there’s a reason. And that reason is that it’s my job.

Editing And Design

Forget the glamorous. Journalism is hard work. The hours are long and the pay is low, especially for beginners. Can you live on coffee and Ramen Noodles as most of us have had to in the beginning? Educated as you may be, there are things you don’t know. Your job is to find enough out about those things to write or speak about them clearly. Are you so curious about the world around you that you feel compelled to learn about the story you’re covering such you can’t stop yourself? Can you separate your feelings and beliefs from the subject you are covering? Do you realize that editors and producers think of themselves as absolute monarchs and treat you as if you were a baby? Many do. Don’t take it personally. Are you intimidated by authority? If so, learn not to be. Can you meet deadlines? The hourly newscast starts at 0:00:00, not 0:00:03. The presses roll at X o’clock not “around X o’clock.” The internet has deadlines, too. They are called “yesterday or earlier” even if the event took place only ten minutes ago. And in your own case, why does a PhD candidate in bioengineering at one of the most prestigious universities and an undergrad at another want to jump into this cesspool? (I’m glad you’re not a journalism major. Many of them should go to trade schools and the library. Many are thinking “TV Star,” not truth teller.)

2014

USA Times, News Street, Global's Times, REPORTLINE, BBC

Communal Riots Cover

Milkshake

Writing, Thinking

The Fine Balance

Over Thinks