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.

Man writing on notepad. Image by NegativeSpace released via Creative Commons

Adjectives and adverbs in journalism

When it comes to writing - not just news writing but any kind of writing - adjectives and adverbs have a bad reputation.
Image by Tessa Kavanagh from Pixabay

Translation in journalism

If you are a journalist working in a multilingual society, you may have to work in more than one language.
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.
Radio production training Jaffna - image by Media Helping Media

Constructing a news package for radio

This is a short training module setting out the basics for creating a news package for radio. It's been created for those starting out in radio journalism.
Image by Hans and Carolyn released under Creative Commons CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

News writing for beginners

A journalist writing a news story is the author, organiser and decision maker. Without them the story may never be told.
Image by WP Paarz released via Creative Commons CC BY-SA 2.0

Court reporting for beginners

Reporting on court hearings requires an understanding of local laws and knowing what can be reported and what can‘t.
Mobile journalism training Harare, Zimbabwe. Image shared via Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0

Citizen reporting to citizen journalism

This article was written for a group of young citizen reporters from remote rural communities in Zimbabwe who were learning how to become journalists.
Image courtesy of Freedom House and released under Creative Commons CC BY 2.0

Reporting from conflict zones

When reporting from a conflict zone a journalist needs to be sensitive, understand history and cultural issues, and put people first
Journalism training in Africa. Image by David Brewer shared via Creative Commons

What is takes to be a journalist

Journalists should be accurate, first with news, trusted, easy to understand, straight, aware, disciplined and realistic.
The reference books used to create this page - image by David Brewer of MHM

Words that are frequently misused

It's essential for journalists to maintain precision in their use of language, especially when dealing with words that sound or look similar but which carry different meanings.
Image by melfoody released via Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 2.00

Parliamentary reporting for beginners

To cover parliament, a journalist must master local laws, procedure, and political parties, backed by a solid grasp of history.
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.
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