Reading Response 4

The first chapter of News Reporting discussed history, and how journalists are the shapers of history. I also recently learned that journalists are also considered to be America’s first historians in a way because the stories they wrote are what people look back at to remember important time in history.

I was reminded how tedious the job is. Every fact in their reporting has to be accurate and cited to show how it’s factual. The more information a journalist can gather for a story, the better the story is, but I was so surprised by some of the scandals journalists can uncover just by doing some reporting.  

The layered editing was something that we’d brought up during class, and it is something that can makes a news story great. When writing a story, I need to keep in mind that it helps to take a break and come back to it. Good editing can make a story 10 times better. Something that surprised me during this chapter was how many sources are needed for the reporting of a good story. Journalists have to talk to many different people and do a lot of research to make sure that the story is accurate and interesting to read.

Research is a big factor in reporting because it’s what makes a story credible. Something that can bring your audience in because it relates to them is numbers. I never realized how heavily a journalist’s job relies on numbers, but as Chapter 8 explains, being bale to interpret and understand numbers can make a different in a story. When a journalist factors in numbers for their story people are able to see the impact that whatever the story is reporting has.
It was really interesting hearing about how investigative reporting got started and how essential it can be in investigating a crime. I enjoyed hearing how the court has supported the need for journalists to report news stories on what they’ve investigated, and I feel like because of journalists, a lot of crime could have gone unnoticed in the past.