Pointers Galore

When it comes to journalism, there are always two kinds of professionals. There are those who go through the formal degree program for this subject at any university and learn the technicalities of journalism and the tricks of the trade in the classroom, along with some practical experience in the form of internships.

The second kind is of those who do not study journalism formally, but simply pursue a degree in their subject of choice and then enter in the field, as a journalist. They rely totally on, on-the-job training to learn how to go about in this field.

Whichever category you happen to fall in, there is one website which will make sure that you are well-equipped for journalism, whether you are learning it in a university or training for it in an organisation. And that website is Poynter.

The Poynter Institute is basically an institute for training professional journalists as well as those aspiring to be journalists. It regularly holds seminars and courses as a part of the training process. The details of which are given on the website for the benefit of those of you who have the time and finances to attend. It is however, heartening to note that there is quite a lot of material on the website which can be perused, and the website has not chosen to dedicate itself purely to disseminate information and testimonials about its workshops, conferences and seminars.

To that effect, the best thing about Poynter is that all information is categorised very thoroughly. So if you’re a television journalist, you have your own section to browse and you need not to worry about having to go through the stuff on photo journalism or writing and editing.

The sections are very precise as well as informative. The Career Centre for instance, is one section where you can basically get all information about the aspects of job in journalism. Of course, it is possible that some of the information here may not apply to newspaper and other media organisations in Pakistan, which have their own system. But nonetheless, it wouldn’t hurt to find out how things work in general and what problems can surface in journalism jobs.

The “TV/Radio” section is all about broadcast journalism. Here, you can read up on the experiences of broadcast journalists, who have travelled to war zones to do their reporting and access tip sheets on how effectively to report from an audio visual medium.

The section on ethics should probably be read by every journalist who wishes to be socially responsible while performing his/her duties. Here, you can find out which questions to ask when facing a confusing situation, how to handle personal prejudices when reporting, and how to deal with the line between fact and fiction. There are loads of articles here which make really an enlightening read on media ethics. The issue of online ethics is also discussed in detail.

The high point of Poynter (no pun intended) is that it has made the layout in such a way that one can easily read articles off the webpages. The teal and white colour scheme and the variation of fonts highlight is a fact that a great deal of thought goes into website designing, something which ultimately benefits all those who want to peruse material online, rather than print outs.

So whether you are suffering from a writer’s block, can’t think of how to approach a sensitive topic or aren’t sure whether taking a specific angle of a story is appropriate, Poynter is the place to reach out to for help and solve all the illusions.

Visit http://www.poynter.org to learn more about the tricks and tips of journalism.