What is Journalism?

What is journalism and what are journalists’ functions? Here I would try to answer these two questions in order to understand it and be able give a wide comparison of journalism and public relations, therefore, to discuss about those two communication offshoots convergence in depth.

What is journalism? Usually scholars define journalism as collecting, writing, editing and presenting news or news articles in newspapers, magazines, radio and television broadcasts. Others state that journalism is the practice of investigation and reporting of events, issues, and trends to a broad audience. Although there is much variation within journalism, the ideal is to inform the citizenry. Besides covering organizations and institutions such as government and business, journalism also covers cultural aspects of society such as arts and entertainment. Journalism also is a process of informing and satisfying a large, diverse audience. The media satisfy people needs to gain knowledge and become aware of national and international events most appropriately because of the variety of information they convey.

What are the journalist’s functions? Scholars acknowledge that the central figure in media is journalist. The media use trained journalists to gather and present newsworthly information. A journalist’s or reporter’s (the terms are synonymous) main responsibility is to identify and gather newsworthly information and to present it in a clear and understandable way through media. The journalist’s aim is, therefore, to convey important information to the general public using the mass communication media or channels of communication.

The journalist gathers information in several ways including personal or telephone interviews, news releases, news conferences, etc. Journalist also takes photographs although a media channel employs professional photographers. As a result, journalist has to be especially modern and be familiarized with modern technologies, not only be acquainted with interview techniques and work up into presenting elicited information. Definitely, journalist needs good interviewing skills to ensure that he elicits the correct information for publication or broadcast, also be familiarized with aspects of the language in which he presents the reports.  Summing up the main journalist’s functions, apparently the main function is to inform diverse audience including gathering and presenting information from various sources.