In association with Fojo Media Institute, Linnaeus University, Sweden

Basics

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.

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.
Read more
Image by PDPics from Pixabay

Grammar for journalists

Journalists need to observe important grammatical rules when writing news stories and avoid common mistakes that could confuse the audience.
Read more
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.
Read more
Image of a journalist researching created using Imagen 3 - created by David Brewer of MHM

SIFT for fact-checking

Journalists who are committed to fact-checking, as we should all be, have several methods available to help them deal with fake news.
Read more
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.
Read more
Image by Upwardly Global released via Creative Commons CC BY-SA 3.0

Preparing for a job interview

Some suggestions for journalists preparing for a job interview.
Read more
Image by David Brewer released via Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0

Clarity is as important as accuracy

Journalists must write clearly as well as accurately using accessible language that the audience can understand.
Read more
Radio training workshop in Jaffna, Sri Lanka. Image by David Brewer

Where does news come from?

The job of the journalist is to uncover the stories that shape our understanding of the world.
Read more
Load more

You might also like

Management

The role of the news producer

The news producer has an essential role to play in any news organisation. Their job is to ensure that the material that is published is of the highest quality.
Lessons

Lesson: Creating a converged news operation

This lesson plan is designed to help senior media managers understand and implement a converge newsroom strategy. 
Tools

Tool: News Meeting Manager

This tool is designed to help editors prepare for and run an effective news meeting that results in the production of original and informative journalism.
© Content on Media Helping Media is released under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 unless otherwise stated.