1. WHAT MAKES A GOOD JOURNALIST?
What makes a good journalist? Many things. But first of all, a deep and genuine interest in people. A person who has no interest in other people will never make a good journalist. So if you are not very interested in other people and think that most people are a bit of nuisance and you prefer not to have anything more to do with them than is necessary, journalism is not for you.
Hand in hand with this interest in people, should go qualities of sympathy, open-mindedness and an inquiring mind. Sympathy: so that you can see the other side of an issue even you disagree with the person who holds it. Open-mindedness: so that you do not make hasty ill-informed judgements. Inquiring-mind: so that you can really get to the bottom of the thing you are asking about.
So these are the basic qualities for a journalist, but the officially required qualifications are very different. Obviously a journalist must be well enough educated to be able to write fairly clearly in whatever language it is he hopes to work in.
What about the rest of the educational qualifications for a journalist? Often it is the pupil who was fairly good at five or six subjects, and not brilliant at just one, who makes the best journalist. These sort of people are rather balanced for the sort of life a journalist leads.
But of course, nobody can say exactly what the best qualifications for a career in journalism are. They will vary enormously according to the individual.
2. JOURNALISM IS A HARD BUT EXCITING LIFE.
Journalism is a hard life. It can be exciting, but it can be sometimes boring. It can be frustrating, too. It can be demanding and so make it difficult or impossible for one to do a lot of things that other people do in their spare time. It can separate one from their family for a great amount of their time; some journalists see their school-going children only at weekends. It can cut one off from a good deal of social life with their friends, and it can make it almost impossible for one to know when one will be free and what time one will have to call one’s own.
Most sub-editors, particularly night sub-editors, lead a hard life, shut off from personal contact with the outside world; but many of them have been reporters and have known the thrill of meeting important people and of writing a good story – the excitement of being a journalist.
A reporter is responsible to his chief of staff. But the chief of staff is not with him when he is reporting the proceedings of Parliament or some meeting; not with him when he is interviewing an important person; not with him when he is reporting an event involving loss of life, a bushfire or a flood. There the reporter is on his own, with nobody turn to for advice. There he has to make his own decisions and shoulder responsibility. He must have a good deal of self-reliance and push and energy and initiative.