example of journalistic essay

Free Journalism Essay Examples & Topics

A journalism essay is a type of paper that combines personal records and reports. Besides news and facts, it should contain a story. An angle that creates a unique narrative of the events you are describing is crucial. However, let’s start with the definition.

No matter how often people hear about journalism, they still might get confused about what it is. It is an act of informative writing about news stories. It can be digital and non-digital, print and non-print. Journalists strive to present information in an interesting way while staying true to the source.

If you have seen journalistic article examples, you know there are two types. News can cover “hard stories”, meaning world events and politics, and “softer stories” about celebrities, science, etc. Journalism as a profession is multidimensional in nature. It can include texts, photography, interviews, and more. Content varies between different categories, such as literary reportage and yellow journalism.

Here, our experts have combined tips about how to write a good journalistic essay. We gathered information that will be useful for starting research and completing it. Moreover, you will find journalism topic ideas. You can use them for inspiration or to practice. Finally, underneath the article you will discover some stellar journalistic essay examples written by other students.

In this section, you’ll find tips that can help you start writing. However, nothing is more vital than choosing an appropriate journalism essay topic beforehand.

Before picking the subject, ask yourself several questions:

• What themes do I want to explore?
• What will my story be about?
• What points do I want to make?
• What is my attitude towards the topic?

Answering these questions can allow you to improve your storytelling. What’s more, look for one that can allow you to write intimately. Personal touches and views will influence your paper immensely. With all that in mind, try our free topic generator to get more ideas.

To write an outstanding journalistic essay, you should try these tips:

• Gather facts and references first.

Collect all the information you may need for your paper. For a story in journalism, you may be required to interview people or visit a location. Most importantly, you’ll have to research online. Also, you can read stories written by other people on the Internet to gain a better perspective.

• Organize your ideas and arguments before writing.

A good story is always organized. The structure of a journalistic should represent an inverted pyramid. The most crucial facts appear on the top, less important details go further, and extra information stays on the bottom. You can reflect in your writing. Organize all your arguments before writing, sticking to a logical structure.

• Rely on storytelling.

The story should become the main focus of your work. The writing should serve it and grab the reader’s attention from the start. Think about storytelling techniques that can keep your reader interested till the very end.

• Work on your style and language.

Another essential technique to keep your work both logical and engaging is to write in short sentences. If you search for any journalistic writing examples, you’ll see that’s how journalists write. The main goal of your paper is to deliver a clear and strong message. So, working on your style is going to help you further this agenda.

There are so many journalism topics you can write about, and it can sometimes be challenging to stick to one. If you are still unsure what to describe and explore in your paper, this section can help you make this choice.

Here are some original journalism topic ideas:

• The way race impacts the news in different states in the US.
• Super Bowl as a phenomenon is more important than the game.
• Why people refuse to believe in climate change.
• How have sports changed international politics?
• Is creative writing in high school an essential subject?
• How vital is transparency in broadcast journalism?
• Is media responsible for the Covid-19 crisis in the US?
• Journalism as a profession can help change the world.
• A privacy issue between British journalism and the royal family.
• Are social media and blogging the future of journalism?
• The role of religion and race in Hollywood.
• Why has the Chinese economy risen so much over the past decade?
• How can media help in battling poverty in developing countries?
• Can music be used as political propaganda?
• Connections between social media and depression.
• Should mobile phones be allowed in educational institutions?
• Has the Internet impacted the way how newspapers and articles are written?
• Should fake news be banned on social media?
• What are the biggest challenges of investigative journalism?
• Can reality television be viewed as a type of journalism?
• How can athletes impact social awareness?

Thank you for reading the article! We hope you will find it helpful. Do not hesitate to share this article or a list of journalism essay examples with others. Good luck with your assignment!

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from training.npr.org: https://training.npr.org/2016/10/12/leads-are-hard-heres-how-to-write-a-good-one/

• Style Guide

A good lead is everything — here's how to write one

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(Deborah Lee/NPR)

I can’t think of a better way to start a post about leads than with this:

“The most important sentence in any article is the first one. If it doesn’t induce the reader to proceed to the second sentence, your article is dead.” — William Zinsser, On Writing Well

No one wants a dead article! A story that goes unread is pointless. The lead is the introduction — the first sentences — that should pique your readers’ interest and curiosity. And it shouldn’t be the same as your radio intro, which t ells listeners what the story is about and why they should care. In a written story, that’s the function of the “nut graph” (which will be the subject of a future post) — not the lead.

The journalism lead’s  main job (I’m personally fond of the  nostalgic spelling , “lede,” that derives from the bygone days of typesetting when newspaper folks needed to differentiate the lead of a story from the  lead  of hot type) is to make the reader want to stay and spend some precious time with whatever you’ve written. It sets the tone and pace and direction for everything that follows. It is the puzzle piece on which the rest of the story depends. To that end, please write your lead first — don’t undermine it by going back and thinking of one to slap on after you’ve finished writing the rest of the story.

Coming up with a good lead is hard. Even the most experienced and distinguished writers know this. No less a writer than John McPhee has called it “ the hardest part of a story to write.” But in return for all your effort, a good lead will do a lot of work for you — most importantly, it will make your readers eager to stay awhile.

There are many different ways to start a story. Some examples of the most common leads are highlighted below. Sometimes they overlap. (Note: These are not terms of art.)

Straight news lead

Just the facts, please, and even better if interesting details and context are packed in. This kind of lead works well for hard news and breaking news.

Some examples:

“After mass street protests in Poland, legislators with the country’s ruling party have abruptly reversed their positions and voted against a proposal to completely ban abortion.” (By NPR’s Camila Domonoske )

“The European Parliament voted Tuesday to ratify the landmark Paris climate accord, paving the way for the international plan to curb greenhouse gas emissions to become binding as soon as the end of this week.” (By NPR’s Rebecca Hersher )

“The United States announced it is suspending efforts to revive a cease-fire in Syria, blaming Russia’s support for a new round of airstrikes in the city of Aleppo.” (By NPR’s Richard Gonzales )

All three leads sum up the news in a straightforward, clear way — in a single sentence. They also hint at the broader context in which the news occurred.

Anecdotal lead

This type of lead uses an anecdote to illustrate what the story is about.

Here’s a powerful anecdotal lead to a story about Brazil’s murder rate and gun laws by NPR’s Lulu Garcia-Navarro :

“At the dilapidated morgue in the northern Brazilian city of Natal, Director Marcos Brandao walks over the blood-smeared floor to where the corpses are kept. He points out the labels attached to the bright metal doors, counting out loud. It has not been a particularly bad night, yet there are nine shooting victims in cold storage.”

We understand right away that the story will be about a high rate of gun-related murder in Brazil. And this is a much more vivid and gripping way of conveying it than if Lulu had simply stated that the rate of gun violence is high.

Lulu also does a great job setting the scene. Which leads us to …

Scene-setting lead

Byrd Pinkerton, a 2016 NPR intern, didn’t set foot in this obscure scholarly haven , but you’d never guess it from the way she draws readers into her story:

“On the second floor of an old Bavarian palace in Munich, Germany, there’s a library with high ceilings, a distinctly bookish smell and one of the world’s most extensive collections of Latin texts. About 20 researchers from all over the world work in small offices around the room.”

This scene-setting is just one benefit of Byrd’s thorough reporting. We even get a hint of how the place smells.

First-person lead

The first-person lead should be used sparingly. It means you, the writer, are immediately a character in your own story. For purists, this is not a comfortable position. Why should a reader be interested in you? You need to make sure your first-person presence is essential — because you experienced something or have a valuable contribution and perspective that justifies conveying the story explicitly through your own eyes. Just make sure you are bringing your readers along with you.

Here, in the spirit of first-personhood, is an example from one of my own stories :

“For many of us, Sept. 11, 2001, is one of those touchstone dates — we remember exactly where we were when we heard that the planes hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. I was in Afghanistan.”

On a historic date, I was in a place where very few Americans were present, meaning I’m able to serve as a guide to that place and time. Rather than stating I was in Afghanistan in the first sentence, I tried to draw in readers by reminding them that the memory of Sept. 11 is something many of us share in common, regardless of where we were that day.

Observational lead

This kind of lead steps back to make an authoritative observation about the story and its broader context. For it to work, you need to understand not just the immediate piece you’re writing, but also the big picture. These are useful for stories running a day or more after the news breaks.

Here’s one by the Washington Post’s Karen Tumulty , a political reporter with decades of experience:

“At the lowest point of Donald Trump’s quest for the presidency, the Republican nominee might have brought in a political handyman to sand his edges. Instead, he put his campaign in the hands of a true believer who promises to amplify the GOP nominee’s nationalist message and reinforce his populist impulses.”

And here’s another by NPR’s Camila Domonoske , who knows her literary stuff, juxtaposing the mundane (taxes) with the highbrow (literary criticism):

“Tax records and literary criticism are strange bedfellows. But over the weekend, the two combined and brought into the world a literary controversy — call it the Ferrante Furor of 2016.”

Zinger lead

Edna Buchanan, the legendary, Pulitzer Prize-winning crime reporter for the Miami Herald , once said that a good lead should make a reader sitting at breakfast with his wife “spit out his coffee, clutch his chest and say, ‘My god, Martha. Did you read this?’”

That’s as good a definition as any of a “zinger” lead. These are a couple of Buchanan’s:

“His last meal was worth $30,000 and it killed him.” (A man died while trying to smuggle cocaine-filled condoms in his gut.)

“Bad things happen to the husbands of Widow Elkin.” (Ms. Elkin, as you might surmise, was suspected of bumping off her spouses.)

After Ryan Lochte’s post-Olympic Games, out-of-the-water escapades in Rio, Sally Jenkins, writing in the Washington Post , unleashed this zinger:

“Ryan Lochte is the dumbest bell that ever rang.”

Roy Peter Clark, of the Poynter Institute,  deconstructs Jenkins’ column here , praising her “short laser blast of a lead that captures the tone and message of the piece.”

Here are a few notes on things to avoid when writing leads:

• Clichés and terrible puns. This goes for any part of your story, and never more so than in the lead. Terrible puns aren’t just the ones that make a reader groan — they’re in bad taste, inappropriate in tone or both. Here’s one example .
• Long, rambling sentences. Don’t try to cram way too much information into one sentence or digress and meander or become repetitive. Clarity and simplicity rule.
• Straining to be clever. Don’t write a lead that sounds better than it means or promises more than it can deliver. You want your reader to keep reading, not to stop and figure out something that sounds smart but is actually not very meaningful. Here’s John McPhee again: “A lead should not be cheap, flashy, meretricious, blaring: After a tremendous fanfare of verbal trumpets, a mouse comes out of a hole, blinking.”
• Saying someone “could never have predicted.” It’s not an informative observation to say someone “could never have imagined” the twists and turns his or her life would take. Of course they couldn’t! It’s better to give the reader something concrete and interesting about that person instead.
• The weather . Unless your story is about the weather, the weather plays a direct role in it or it’s essential for setting the scene, it doesn’t belong in the lead. Here’s a story about Donald Trump’s financial dealings that would have lost nothing if the first, weather-referenced sentence had been omitted.

One secret to a good lead

Finally, good reporting will lead to good leads. If your reporting is incomplete, that will often show up in a weak lead. If you find yourself struggling to come up with a decent lead or your lead just doesn’t seem strong, make sure your reporting is thorough and there aren’t unanswered questions or missing details and points. If you’ve reported your story well, your lead will reflect this.

Further reading:

• A Poynter roundup of bad leads
• A classic New Yorker story by Calvin Trillin with a great lead about one of Buchanan’s best-known leads.
• A long read by John McPhee , discussing, among other things, “fighting fear and panic, because I had no idea where or how to begin a piece of writing for The New Yorker .” It happens to everyone!

Hannah Bloch is a digital editor for international news at NPR.

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Journalism - List of Free Essay Examples And Topic Ideas

Journalism is the activity or profession of reporting about, photographing, or editing news stories for newspapers, magazines, radio, television, or online platforms. Essays on journalism could explore its history, ethical standards, and the evolving landscape in the digital age. Discussions might delve into the roles and responsibilities of journalists, the challenges posed by political biases, censorship, and the rapid spread of misinformation. Moreover, analyzing the impact of social media on journalism, the future of investigative journalism, and the interaction between journalism and democracy can provide a nuanced understanding of the vital role journalism plays in a functioning society. A vast selection of complimentary essay illustrations pertaining to Journalism you can find at Papersowl. You can use our samples for inspiration to write your own essay, research paper, or just to explore a new topic for yourself.

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Yellow Journalism Today

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What Is Journalistic Writing: Purpose, Features, Types, and 10 News Values

• by Anastasiya Yakubovska
• 26.04.2022 23.06.2024

Further in the article, you will learn about what journalistic writing is, its main purpose, what are the features and characteristics of journalistic style, get acquainted with three types of journalism, and at the end of the article, you will find information about how the media select news.

Not so long ago, people could get news only from local newspapers, radio, and television. Nowdays we have access to any information in any format 24/7 (thank you, Internet!).

The ways of obtaining information have changed, but the principles and features of journalism have remained the same.

Table of Contents

What is journalistic writing, and its main purpose.

• Features of Journalistic Writing 

How to Write a Journalistic Text: 3 Key Elements

Information genre and its types, analytical genre.

• Artistic-journalistic Types of Journalistic Writing 
• 10 News Values 

Journalistic writing is a style of writing that is used by the media to transmit news messages to a mass addressee (newspapers, television, radio, Internet).

Journalistic writing has two main purposes, which to some extent contradict each other:

• Informing . The main aim of journalistic writing is to inform the public about the event that has occurred or will occur in the future, while the journalist must be as objective as possible.
• Impact on the audience . In some cases, news reports may be overly emotional with a pronounced position of the author and his personal opinion. Such messages have a social assessment and appeal, influence the people and form public opinion.

Features of Journalistic Writing

Journalistic writing has some specific features by which it is easy to identify:

• Informative heading. The news headlines are quite long. From the title, it is clear what will be discussed in the news article. 
• The first sentence (paragraph or lead) summarizes the essence of the news. 
• The inverted pyramid principle . The priority, value, and usefulness of information decrease from the beginning of the text to its end.
• Sentences and paragraphs are mostly short.
• Lots of specifics and details.
• Readability, simplicity, competent presentation of information.
• Emotionality and evaluation.
• Frequent use of socio-political vocabulary (names of political parties, departments, economic and legal terms, etc.). 
• Focus on a mass audience.
• Rhetorical questions, exclamations, and repetitions.
• In addition to the main colloquial (informal) style used in journalism, there are slang and jargon words.
• post “What Is Scientific Writing Style: Characteristics, Types, and Examples”.
• “What Is Business Writing Style: Characteristics, Types, and Examples”.

There are three key components on which any journalistic text is built:

• Lead (or lede). This is the first sentence or main and opening paragraph of the news article. The lead is the “header” of the article, which outlines the main idea of the text. Often the lead is highlighted in a different font or color, usually, its length is from 3 to 5 lines of text.

Lead cannot be ignored. It can be sensational or dramatic, it can reveal the details of an event or briefly describe the news, it can amuse the reader or challenge him.

A news article lead looks like this:

“ Rescue operations are continuing in South Africa in an effort to save the lives of dozens of people who are missing following the floods in KwaZulu-Natal province. With more rain on its way, emergency teams face further peril as they search for survivors. “   bbc.com

2. Citation . 90% of all journalistic investigations are based on interviews or other primary sources. Therefore, it is not surprising that quotes have a special place in news reports.

Read also post “How to Write a Persuasive Article or Essay: Examples of Persuasive Argument”.

3. Brevity and readability. Sentences and paragraphs are short and simple. It does not mean that you will not find long compound sentences in the text. But in most cases – “brevity is the soul of wit.”

In addition, it is important not to overdo with terms. Still, the news articles should be understandable to the mass audience: if you used the term “legal nihilism”, be kind, and explain what it means (p.s.: legal nihilism is the denial of laws and rules/norms of behavior ). 

Journalism Genres and Types of Journalistic Writing

There are three genres of journalistic writing:

• Informational : reportage, interview, information note, informational report. The main function is to communicate information: what, where, when, and under what circumstances it happened or will happen.
• Analytical : conversation, review , article, survey, correspondence. The primary function is to influence the public. There are the author’s reasoning, argumentation, analysis of the event, personal conclusions, and assessment of what is happening.
• Artistic-journalistic : essay , feuilleton, pamphlet, profile essay. These genres used to get a figurative, emotional idea of an event or fact.

Let’s take a closer look at each genre.

Note as a Type of Journalistic Writing

A note is a short message about a new event or fact. The main features are the reliability of the fact, novelty, and brevity.

“The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were accompanied by two of their children as they joined other royals for the Easter Sunday service at Windsor Castle. Prince George was dressed in a dark blue suit like his father while Princess Charlotte’s dress matched her mother Catherine’s light blue outfit . Several of their second cousins, such as Mia Tindall and Savannah and Isla Phillips, also attended. The Queen was not at the service – one of the staples of the family’s year. The 95-year-old monarch, who has been suffering mobility issues recently. was also absent from the traditional Maundy Service last Thursday where special coins were given to 96 men and 96 women .”   bbc.com

Read also “How to Write a News Story”.

Reportage is a message from the scene. Features: efficiency, objective coverage of events, the reporter is an eyewitness or participant in what is happening.

Example: television report (live broadcast from the scene), report in the print media after collecting and processing information.

An interview is the receipt of information during a conversation between an interviewer (journalist) and an interviewee. 

Examples: informational interviews to collect up-to-date data on an air crash that has occurred (for example, an interview with eyewitnesses); interview investigation; personal interview or interview-portrait.

Informational Report

A report is a chronologically sequential, detailed report of an event.

Example: a report on hostilities, a report on the results of a meeting, a conference, a government or court session.

Conversation or Dialogue

A conversation (dialogue) is a type of interview when a journalist acts not just as an intermediary between the hero and the viewer, but communicates with the interlocutor on an equal footing thanks to his achievements, experience, and professionalism.

Example: TV show with artists. 

A review is a critical judgment or discussion that contains an assessment and a brief analysis of a literary work, scientific publication, analysis of a work of art, journalism, etc. 

Examples: book review , play review, movie review , TV show review, game review.

An article is a genre of journalism that expresses the author’s reasoned point of view on social processes, on various current events or phenomena.

After reading an analytical article, the reader receives the information he needs and then independently reflects on the issues of interest to him.

The subject of the article is not the event itself, processes, or phenomena, but the consequences they cause.

Examples: an article on the political development of the country, a practical and analytical article on the rise in food prices, a polemical article (dispute) on teaching the basics of Orthodox culture.

Analytical Correspondence

Analytical correspondence is a message that gives information about an event or phenomenon (usually this is one significant fact).

Analytical correspondence may include fragments of a “live” report or a retelling of what is happening. But necessarily in such a message, there is a clarification of the causes of the event or phenomenon, the determination of its value and significance for society, and the prediction of its further development.

The primary source of this genre of journalistic writing is always the author of the publication (correspondent).

Artistic-journalistic Types of Journalistic Writing

Essay : a journalist not only describes a problem, an event, or a portrait of a person, based on factual data but also uses artistic methods of expressiveness. 

Examples: a portrait essay about the life of a famous person; historical essays , description of incidents, meetings with people during the author’s travel (essay by A. S. Pushkin “Journey to Arzrum”, 1829).

Feuilleton is a short note, essay, or article of a satirical nature, the main task of which is to ridicule “evil”.

Examples: satirical writers such as M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, I.A. Ilf, and E.P. Petrov.

A pamphlet is a satirical work or article, the purpose of which is to ridicule certain human vices, to denounce and humiliate a hero who appears to the author as a carrier of a dangerous social evil.

In a pamphlet, the author uses grotesque, hyperbole, irony, and sarcasm.

Examples: “Lettres provinciales” by the French scientist and philosopher Blaise Pascal, “The Grumbled Hive” by the English writer Bernard Mandeville, pamphleteers D.I. Pisarev with the pamphlet “Bees”, A.M. Gorky “The City of the Yellow Devil”, L.M. Leonov “The Shadow of Barbarossa”.

10 News Values

First of all, journalistic writing is associated with the media. A special place in the mass media is occupied by news articles : they are in demand and attract more readers.

Therefore, I propose to pay attention to one very interesting point: how is a news article written, and by what criteria are news “selected”?

So, 10 news values are:

• Relevance . The news must meet the needs and interests of the audience.
• Timeliness . Event information must be up to date and appear on time. No one will read the election results two weeks after the election.
• Clarity and unambiguity. Simple, understandable news is more accessible to the public, read more often, and is more interesting. 
• Predictability . Significant events usually have specific dates (for example, election day, the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games, the football championship). Therefore, with the approach of such an event, public interest increases, and the news becomes more valuable.
• Unpredictability . On the other hand, unpredictable events and phenomena (natural disasters or crimes) also arouse public interest.
• Importance and scale of the event. War, elections, protests, sports games, and other important events require long and detailed press coverage.
• Composition . Sometimes, to dilute, for example, the negativity of the information flow, the editor selects news reports of the opposite nature: funny cases, love, romance, salvation, animals, adventure, risk, etc.
• Celebrities . News with the participation of politicians, artists, and sportsmen, due to their status and recognition, is more often published in the media and arouses increased interest.
• Leading countries in the world economy and politics. A strike, a natural disaster, or a plane crash in a developed country will immediately hit the media. But about the lack of drinking water in Ethiopia, you can write later.
• Negativity . The “bad” news is more popular.

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Journalism Essays

The crisis of trust in journalism, writing for international affairs, the principles and theories of journalism, ethically responsible and irresponsible news reporting, meaning of the editorial, history, public information, manipulation, propaganda, liberal media bias, is it true that ‘we are all journalists now’, global media interconnection and its impact on journalism, journalism and mass communication, do public concerns over misinformation affect or restore the credibility of the official media the case of 9/11 terror attack, the adequacy of modern/legacy journalism practices for reporting on the current democracy crisis, popular essay topics.

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• To Kill a Mockingbird
• Violent Video Games
• What Makes You Unique
• Why I Want to Be a Nurse
• Send us an e-mail

Introductory essay

Written by the educators who created Covering World News, a brief look at the key facts, tough questions and big ideas in their field. Begin this TED Study with a fascinating read that gives context and clarity to the material.

At the newsstand, on our smartphones and while watching the evening news, we learn about faraway people and places from the journalists, stringers and correspondents who work for news agencies and other media outlets around the globe. Global news is everywhere — from the front page news read by a New Yorker on Madison Avenue to the government radio station broadcasting in Pyongyang.

However, it would be a mistake to consider this a completely new phenomenon or to overstate its pervasiveness. Many people tend to think that global news is both a recent phenomenon and one that we can credit to advances in technology. If we think of 'news' in terms of newspaper articles or television reporting, then news is only as old as the technologies of press and video, and dates back to the first newsletters that circulated in Europe in the 17th century.

But in reality, humans have shared information about current affairs within and across borders for thousands of years, starting with the news networks of the ancient Phoenicians. The historical record also describes merchants sharing political news along ancient trade routes, minstrels and other traveling artists whose fictional performances also carried information about social change, and criers in medieval town squares.

If news is not a product of modern technologies, it's nevertheless true that technological change has had a dramatic impact on how news is made and consumed: where once we had printed newsletters distributed twice a day, now we have Twitter feeds refreshed twice a minute, and carrying information from an ever-widening array of sources. We live, as media critics like Marshall McLuhan have argued, in a global village.

The trouble with this vision of 'global news' is that it's not nearly as complete as we imagine it to be. According to the World Bank, of the world's seven billion people, only 80% have access to electricity (or the gadgets like computer and televisions that depend on it), 75% have access to mobile phones, and a meager 35% to the Internet. Most people on the planet aren't connected to what we think of as the 'global media' at all. As Global Voices founder Ethan Zuckerman points out in his TED Talk, "There are parts of the world that are very, very well connected, [but] the world isn't even close to flat. It's extremely lumpy."

Just as critically, the content that makes up the 'global media' is still heavily focused on a few key centers of power. In her TED Talk, Public Radio International's Alisa Miller shares a powerful map of the news consumed by American audiences in 2008: most of it focused on the U.S., and to a lesser extent, on countries with which the U.S. has military ties. Ethan Zuckerman points out that this lack of global coverage is pervasive, whether it's at elite news outlets like The New York Times or on crowdsourced digital information platforms like Wikipedia.

Moreover, Zuckerman argues, it's not just about the stories that get made — it's about what stories we choose to listen to. Thirty years ago, Benedict Anderson made waves when he argued that political structures (like states) depend upon a set of shared values, the 'imagined community,' and that the media plays a key role in creating those values. Zuckerman, however, argues that in today's world the disconnect between what we imagine to be our community, and the community we actually live in, is a major source of global media inequality. We connect to the Internet, with its technological capacity to link up the whole world, and imagine that we live in a global village. But in practice, we spend most of our time reading news shared by our Facebook friends, whose lives and interests are close to our own. Zuckerman calls this 'imagined cosmopolitanism.'

Compounding the problem, the stories we do attend to can be heavily distorted, reducing whole countries or societies to a single stereotype or image. As author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie explains in her TED Talk about the 'single story,' when all the tales we hear about a country follow the same pattern, we begin to imagine that this pattern is all there is know. The 'single story' can affect all of us, rich and poor: Adichie talks of her own misconceptions about Nigeria's rural poor, of her surprise at encountering the diversity of life in Mexico, and of her college roommate's reductive vision of Africa as poor and underdeveloped. The difference, she argues, is that there are simply more stories out there about powerful countries than about less powerful ones, and that makes it harder for us to reduce those societies to 'single stories' in our minds.

What can we do?

First, we can tell different stories about the places that are prone to reduction. In her TED Talk, Yemeni newspaper editor Nadia Al-Sakkaf takes us to the Yemen she lives in — where terrorism and political upheaval are real problems, but far from the whole picture. Moreover, in her account, each image can tell many stories. A woman with a veiled face can represent the role of fundamentalist Islam in Yemeni society, but she argues that a look behind the veil shows us that many of these women are holding down jobs and earning income, and in so doing, changing their role within their own families and in Yemeni society more broadly.

Second, we can find ways to invest in journalism. As Alisa Miller argues, a major obstacle to a truly global news media is the cost of production, of keeping bureaus in every country and paying for journalists to produce deep, investigative stories. The great paradox of media economics in the digital age is that the Internet makes it possible for us to consume more content, but falling advertising revenues means that each piece of content must cost a little less to produce. That pushes news outlets, even wealthy ones, in the direction of gossip and regurgitated press releases that can be produced by a reporter who hasn't left her desk.

One way to break this cycle, Ethan Zuckerman argues, is to make small and targeted investments in local journalists in the developing world. He describes a blogger training program in Madagascar that became a newsroom overnight when world media outlets needed verified content from a country undergoing revolution. He highlights the critical work of professional curators like Amira Al Hussaini at Global Voices or Andy Carvin at the Associated Press.

At the heart of these recommendations is a shift in the way we understand the mission of journalists — or rather, a return to an old way of thinking about news.

Right up until the early 20th century, all journalists were assumed to be opinion writers. Reporters went places to report, made up their own minds about a topic, and wrote an account that included not only facts, but an argument for what position readers at home should take and what political actions might follow. George Orwell's colorful and opinionated essays from South East Asia, for example, were published as reportage.

Then the Cold War started, and in the democratic West, journalists began to strive for objective impartiality, to distinguish their work from the obvious, state-sponsored propaganda of the Soviet bloc. Many critics at the time questioned whether 'true' objectivity was possible, but no major western news organization disputed that it was the ideal.

Today, we're seeing a return to the older understanding of journalism, towards an acceptance that even independent reporting carries a viewpoint, shaped by the people who produce it. Moreover, contemporary journalists are increasingly coming to see this viewpoint as a strength rather than as a weakness, and using social media to be more transparent to readers about the values they bring to stories. New York University's Jay Rosen, for example, has argued powerfully that the 'view from nowhere' advocated by 20th century western reporters is dangerous because it can lead journalists to treat 'both sides' of a story equally even when one side is telling objective falsehoods or committing crimes.

Many of the speakers in Covering World News describe their journalism — whether it is Global Voices or the Yemen Times — as having an explicit moral and political mission to change our perceptions of under-covered regions of the world.

But no speaker is more passionate on this subject than TED speaker and photojournalist James Nachtwey, who credits the activist context of the 1960s for inspiring him to enter journalism, using photography to "channel anger" into a force for social change. Nachtwey's work has brought him, at times, into partnership with non-profit aid organizations, an alliance that is increasingly common in today's media world but would surely not have fit within the 'objective' media of a half-century ago. Nachtwey sees himself as a 'witness' whose place in the story is not to be invisible, but to channel his own humane outrage at war or social deprivation in order to drive social and political change: in one case, a story he produced prompted the creation of a non-profit organization to collect donations from readers.

This kind of work is a form of 'bridge building,' a theme that emerges in many of our talks. For while there may not be one 'global media' that includes all communities equally and reaches all parts of the globe, there are many individuals whose skills and backgrounds enable them to go between the connected and less connected pockets of the world, bridging gaps and contributing to mutual understanding. That, perhaps, is the way forward for international journalism.

Let's begin our study with Public Radio International CEO Alisa Miller, an ardent advocate for a global perspective in news programming. In her TEDTalk "The news about the news," Miller shares some eye-opening statistics about the quantity and quality of recent foreign reporting by American mainstream media organizations.

Alisa Miller

How the news distorts our worldview, relevant talks.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The danger of a single story.

Ethan Zuckerman

Listening to global voices.

James Nachtwey

My wish: let my photographs bear witness.

Nadia Al-Sakkaf

See yemen through my eyes.

Journalism Online

Real Information For Real People

What is Literary Journalism: a Guide with Examples

Literary journalism is a genre created with the help of a reporter’s inner voice and employing a writing style based on literary techniques. The journalists working in the genre of literary journalism must be able to use the whole literary arsenal: epithets, impersonations, comparisons, allegories, etc. Thus, literary journalism is similar to fiction. At the same time, it remains journalism , which is the opposite of fiction as it tells a true story. The journalist’s task here is not only to inform us about specific events but also to affect our feelings (mainly aesthetic ones) and explore the details that ordinary journalism overlooks.

Characteristics of literary journalism

Modern journalism is constantly changing, but not all changes are good for it (take fake news proliferating thanks to social media , for instance). Contemporary literary journalism differs from its historic predecessor in the following:

• Literary journalism almost completely lost its unity with literature
• Journalists have stopped relying on the literary features of the language and style
• There are fewer and fewer articles in the genre of literary journalism in modern editions
• Contemporary media has lost the need in literary journalism
• The habits of media consumers today are not sophisticated enough for a revival of literary journalism

The most prominent works of literary journalism

With all this, it’s no surprise that we need to go back in time to find worthy examples of literary journalism. Fortunately, it wasn’t until the 1970-s that literary journalism came to an end, so here are 4 great works of the genre that are worth every minute of your attention.

Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad (1869)

Mark Twain studied journalism from the age of 12 and until the end of his life. It brought him his first glory and a pseudonym and made him a writer. In 1867, Twain (as a correspondent of the newspaper Daily Alta California , San Francisco) went on a sea voyage to Europe, the Middle East, and Egypt. His reports and travel records turned into the book The Innocents Abroad , which made him famous all over the world.

In some sense, American journalism came out of letters that served as an important source of information about life in the colonies. The newspaper has long been characterized by an epistolary subjectivity, and Twain’s book recalls the times when no one thought that neutrality would one day become one of the hallmarks of the “right” journalism.

Of course, Twain’s travel around the Old World was a journey not only through geography but also through the history that Twain resolutely refused to worship. Sometimes it’s funny, sometimes not too much, but the more valuable are the lyrical and sublime notes that sound when Twain-the-narrator is truly captivated by something.

John Hersey, Hiroshima (1946)

John Hersey was a war correspondent and a winner of the Pulitzer Prize for his debut story A Bell for Adano . As a reporter of The New Yorker , he was one of the first journalists from the USA who came to Hiroshima to describe the consequences of the atomic bombing.

Starting with where two doctors, two priests, a seamstress, and a plant employee were and what they were doing at exactly 08:15 a.m. on August 6, 1945, when the bomb exploded over Hiroshima, Hersey describes the year they lived after that. Hersey’s uniform and detached tone seems to be the only appropriate medium in relation to what one would call indescribable and inexpressible. Without allowing himself sentimentality, admiring horrors, or obvious partiality, he doesn’t miss any of the details that add up to a horrible and magnificent picture.

Hiroshima became a sensation due to the formidable brevity of the author’s prose, which tried to give the reader the most explicit (and the most complete) idea of what happened for the first time in mankind’s history

Truman Capote, “In Cold Blood” (1965)

Truman Capote turned to journalism as a young writer looking for a new form of self-expression. He read an article about the murder of the family of a farmer Herbert Clutter in Holcomb City (Kansas) in the newspaper and went there to collect the material. His original idea was to write about how a brutal murder influenced the life of the quiet backwoods. The killers were caught, and Capote decided to use their confessions in his book. He finished it only after the killers were hanged. This way, the six-year story got the finale.

In Cold Blood was published in “The New Yorker” in 1965. Next year it was released as a book that became the benchmark of true crime and a super bestseller. “In Cold Blood” includes:

• A stylistic brilliance.
• Inexorable footsteps of doom destroying both innocent and guilty.
• The horror hidden in a person and waiting for a chance to break out.

Tom Wolfe, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968)

Tomas Wolfe is one of the key figures of literary journalism. Mainly due to his creative and, so to speak, production efforts, “the new journalism” became an essential part of American culture and drew close attention (both critical and academic).

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test became one of the hallmarks of this type of journalism with its focus on aesthetic expressiveness (along with documentary authenticity). This is a story about the writer Ken Kesey and his friends and associates’ community, “Merry Pranksters”, who spread the idea of the benefits of expanding consciousness.

Wolfe decided to plunge into the “subjective reality” of the characters and their adventures. To convey them to the reader, he had to “squeeze” the English language: Wolfe changes prose to poetry , dives into the stream of consciousness, and mocks the traditional punctuation. In general, he does just about everything to make a crazy carnival come to life on the pages of his book (without actually participating in it). Compare that with gonzo journalism by Hunter S. Thompson , the author of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas which draws upon some similar themes.

The book’s main part is devoted to the journey of the “pranksters” on a psychedelic propaganda bus and the “acid tests” themselves, which were actually parties where a lot of people took LSD. Wolfe had to use different sources of information to reconstruct these events, and it’s hard to believe that he didn’t experience any of them himself. Yet, no matter how bright his book shines and how much freedom it shows, Wolfe makes it clear that he’s talking about a doomed project and an ending era.

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Journalism Essay Examples

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In the 20th century digital media production has become much more accessible by the introduction of cheap digital cameras, smart phones and easy to use editing software’s. This meant that larger groups obtained the means to create text, audio, images and video to share on...

The Impact of Citizen Journalism on the Traditional Media

Journalism is the profession which involves a person to stay on their toes for quickly and precisely accumulate, produce and broadcast the daily scoop of the world or the country. It is a stream which is very receptive towards technological developments. So, in the recent...

Differences Between Citizen Journalism and Traditional Media

Media has the power of swaying and shaping perceptions of citizens. It can develop these ideas by instilling fear, bias, or distorting information. International reporters have in the past indicated that the Press Freedom Index in many countries is low. The situation can be linked...

The Role of Citizen Journalism in Society

Journalism ethics refers to the symbols of morality that journalists are expected to respect. These include a commitment to revealing the truth objectively rather than subjectively motivated by self-interest; source privacy; and crediting what is said to the appropriate source. The media has the ability...

Violation of Code of Ethics

The Society of Professional Journalist’s Code of Ethics states that journalists should be honest and courageous while they “seek truth and report it”. Just last week, Fox news shared an article with the title “Paris attacks prompt fears France’s Muslim “no-go” zones incubating jihad”, blaming...

The Role of Media Ethics in Journalism

The following essay portrays a message about journalism practicality and trainings, and it highlights some of the very important and effective ideas and thoughts. In addition to that, the following essay will show the correlation between ethics in journalism and the public. The discussion of...

Impact of Citizen Journalism on Traditional Media

Traditional media have dominated the public sphere for the last century. Now, user-generated content has emerged as a competitor to the status quo of legacy media corporations. Des Freedman outlines media power as a relationship between different interests, engaged in struggles for a range of...

Evolution of the Nature of Journalism

From ancient times, journalism has been affected by technological developments throughout the history. The nature of journalism has always been shaped by industrial changes. The nature of journalism has been evolving from the time when Julius Caesar ordered the Acta Diurna by enabling distribution of...

Lester Holt – a Respectful American Journalist and News Anchor

Lester Holt, is the Multiple American award-winning black Journalist. Lester Holt, the newscaster that became an overnight sensation moderating the United States presidential debate and he interviewed Donald Trump on the James Comey Russian investigation controversy, the mastery with which he handled it earned him...

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