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Basic journalism

Our basics section provides foundational knowledge for journalists starting their careers and for those wanting to refresh their skills. Learn techniques including news writing, interviewing, story structure, and reporting practices that form the bedrock of quality journalism. All our material is free to download, adapt and use. Scroll down our site map for all the content in this and other sections.

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What is news?

What is news? Beyond facts, it’s the stories that truly matter to people. Explore why human interest and personal relevance are at the heart of every headline.
Image of a journalist researching created using Imagen 3 - created by David Brewer of MHM

Lateral reading

When it comes to fact-checking and adding context to news articles, journalists need to apply ‘lateral reading’ in order to broaden their knowledge.
Interview training for radio journalism students in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, image by David Brewer of Media Helping Media

Introduction to interviewing

The interview is one of the basic tools of journalism. You cannot be a good journalist without being a good interviewer and a careful listener.
Image of a newsroom - created using Perplexity AI by David Brewer of MHM

Editorialising is not for news

The free training materials on Media Helping Media are all aimed at encouraging one particular kind of journalism: accurate, fact-based, impartial news reporting.
Image by David Brewer released under Creative Commons

Writing a radio news script

Radio journalists must write clear scripts that weave together compelling audio clips, ensuring listeners understand a news story's significance.
Graphic for a Media Helping Media Training Tool

Tool: News story checklist

The follow is a structured checklist tool for journalists to consider in order to ensure they produce strong news stories.

Developing news sense

How do we know what is news? There are millions of things going on in the world all the time and only some of them become news stories.
Image by pixy.org released via Creative Commons

The questions every journalist should ask

There are six questions that journalists should consider asking. They are What? Why? When? How? Where? and Who?
Image by Paul Brennan released under Creative Commons

Letting the pictures tell the story

Here we explore the importance of visual storytelling in TV and video journalism, showing you how to let the pictures tell the story.
Graphic of a construction kit and instructions created using Google Gemini AI

Creating a structured news report

Writing news without a plan is like building a kit without instructions. Use a structured story plan to order facts logically and engage your readers.
Graphic for email interviewing created with Gemini AI

Interviewing remotely

Here we explore the key issues journalists face when interviewing sources via electronic media instead of face-to-face and in real time.
Image by Rafael Anderson Gonzales Mendoza released via Creative Commons CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Journalism and the public interest

All news stories should, by definition, be interesting. They should immediately capture the attention and make the audience want to know more.
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