“Journalism largely consists in saying “Lord Jones is dead” to people who never knew Lord Jones was alive.”
― G.K. Chesterton
According to Webster Dictionary, Journalism means gathering, recording, verifying, and reporting on the information of public importance. Producing Information that interests the masses on a great scale is the key feature of Journalism. Owning to the advent of technology and globalization the horizon of Journalistic writing has expanded to a greater diameter. Modern-day journalism doesn’t only consist of traditional newsagents.
Introduction to Journalistic writing
Types of writing:
- Academic Writing- Academic writing is found in the textbook, class modules, research paper, etc. It is a formal style of writing wherein one explains a specific issue to the readers in a clear and concise language. It is generally assumed that the reader already has a certain degree of knowledge or understanding of the issue. Further information and argument are built on that foundation. Example: Bengal United and After (click to open link)
- Journalistic Writing- Journalistic writing is a style of writing centred on facts. It is used to report fact, observation and opinions to a broad audience. Unlike academic writing, journalistic writing is not based on the assumption of foundational knowledge. In general, the writer puts in everything from the very basics, since the reader might not have even basic knowledge of the issue. Example: Kerala expands medical infrastructure to fight COVID; religious, social institutions offer facilities (click to open link)
- Creative writing – Creative writing includes stories, poems, novels, etc. Basically, everything apart from academic writing and journalistic writing is a part of creative writing. In other words, Creative writing is any writing that goes beyond the limits of usual formal, journalistic, scholarly, or technological literature types, usually characterized by a focus on narrative craftsmanship, character development, and the use of literary conventions or with specific poetry and poetics tradition. Example: The Night Train at Deoli (1988) By Ruskin Bond (click to open)
In journalistic writing, we have three levels of journalistic pieces.
- Journalistic Report, which deals with Facts and (Figures)
- Feature Article, which in addition to the above can also include observation based on facts and figure
- Opinionated Article, which has opinions, backed by (strong) fact and figures
Conclusion
A journalistic piece dealing with only facts is a report. Report writing is the most fundamental (but boring) stuff in journalistic writing. Typically any course on print journalism begins with report writing. The report is basically presenting facts in an extremely dry manner. Reports are also the shortest of the three basic forms of journalistic writing.
Then comes feature articles, in which we can include our observations. The language used in feature articles is more flowery. They are supposed to be lengthier than reports.
Finally, we have opinionated articles. Here the author presents her/his opinion based on strong facts and figures.