When I first heard about student journalism, I wasn’t too sure about it, nor did I know everything it was. Being a part of News Journalism helps to create many skills that you can use all throughout your life– some of which you wouldn’t expect to be coming from journalism.
Starting with the basics of journalism, I learned how to brainstorm, create, and post stories for our publication. These ideas are very big and don’t show the tiny things a person learns along the way. The first thing I learned from creating stories was how to prepare and execute a very good interview. Interviews should include aspects like prior research that can help you find unknown information, questions that tell a person’s opinions, and overall something that will create an intriguing story. Another thing I learned from creating stories was LQTQ form. If you would have asked me a year ago what LQTQ form was, I would tell you I have no idea. Writing in this form helps develop the stories to have a deeper meaning and vast amount of information that the audience will want to read.
Some might think news stories have to be about what you see on the news, but they can be fun topics that bring entertainment and a little bit of spice to the news sites. Some fun stories could include opinion topics like sharing reviews of food, books, concerts, festivals, etc. They could also include video stories which could be 57 Questions, baking videos, and so much more. Journalism allows you to have so much flexibility and freedom with your creations, the ideas are almost endless.
Photo stories are another great way you can connect with your audience and it has really helped me expand my knowledge and gain new skills. I learned how to use a professional camera, with different settings and lenses. While shooting photos for these stories, we would have to be up close to the athletes and sports games, so it helped me gain confidence and put myself out there and not worry about others. Interviews also helped me with self confidence and opening up to people, which is something I was hoping for when signing up for journalism. Crafting personal questions and finding classmates or other students in school for interviews pushed me outside of my comfort zone to talk to new people.
Lastly, being a part of the News team, I learned how to work with others in a publication and professional setting. From Mrs. Basinger greeting us with handshakes, to sharing good news, to working together as a team, creating something great, it opens up to a real life workplace, essentially preparing me for a future job. Social skills and working with others is one of the most valuable skills someone can have, so learning that throughout News Journalism will be something that I take with me for the rest of my life.
