Journalism’s essential building blocks

A training curriculum for public service journalism

Journalism training in Jaffna Sri Lanka - image by David BrewerA selection of the 300-plus training articles on Media Helping Media (MHM) are distilled here into a comprehensive curriculum for training in public service journalism.

The curriculum is designed for journalists wishing to learn or improve their skills, and for trainers, media managers and academics.

As with all other content on MHM, the curriculum is completely free to use or adapt to your own needs, under Creative Commons licensing.

In an era defined by information overload and deliberate digital manipulation, the role of the professional journalist is more vital than ever. The curriculum sets out the principles that underpin public service journalism.

For any fledgeling journalist, these lessons provide the essential architectural blueprints to build a career founded on integrity, accuracy, and rigorous accountability.

The content moves logically from mastering the basic craft of writing and reporting to navigating complex ethical minefields and deploying advanced digital and data analysis tools.

By going through the curriculum a journalist gains the authority and credibility necessary to hold power to account, inform democratic discourse, and ultimately, safeguard the public interest.

We have included a test at the bottom of this page for those who want to assess what they have learnt.

Part I: The foundational building blocks

This section establishes the core mindset, essential language skills, newsgathering techniques, and the primary ethical pillars required to enter the profession.

1. The journalist’s mindset and role

Before you write a single word, you must understand your purpose and ethical responsibility. This section focuses on the personal qualities, ethical framework, and community obligations required for the job.

  • The qualities of a journalist: Details the non-negotiable personal characteristics of a successful journalist, such as curiosity, integrity, perseverance, and strong communication skills, arguing that these are just as vital as technical ability.
  • Journalistic roles and responsibilities: Explains the journalist’s functions in a free society, including acting as a watchdog, providing reliable information, and setting the public agenda.
  • Journalism and the public interest: Clarifies the distinction between what the public is interested in and what is genuinely in the public interest, guiding reporters to prioritise stories that inform democratic accountability and affect civic life.
  • Unlock your journalistic potential: A motivational piece encouraging new journalists to identify and leverage their unique skills and passions to find their niche in the industry.

2. Foundational ethical principles
These are the core ethical tenets upon which all journalistic work rests. They must be applied before proceeding to reporting practice.

  • Why editorial ethics are important: Explains that ethics protect credibility, build audience trust, and are vital for the media’s function in a democracy.
  • Accuracy in journalism: The cornerstone of journalism: ensuring every detail, quote, and statistic is correct and verified, preferably from multiple sources, before publication.
  • Fairness in journalism: Requires presenting all relevant viewpoints and ensuring reports are objective and fair in their overall portrayal of events.
  • Impartiality in journalism: This means never taking sides.  Maintaining neutrality and objectivity, particularly when covering political or controversial issues, by keeping the journalist’s personal feelings and biases out of the report.
  • Integrity and journalism: Acting honestly and resisting external pressure or vested interests, ensuring the journalistic process is transparent and trustworthy.

3. Understanding news
This section teaches you how to identify, develop, and contextualise newsworthy events by applying professional judgment.

  • Where does news comes from?: Examines the various sources of news, from official documents and press conferences to citizen tip-offs and social media, stressing the importance of cultivating diverse sources.
  • How news value is assessed: Explains the factors (timeliness, proximity, prominence, impact, and conflict) that editors consider to determine if a story is newsworthy enough to be published or broadcast.
  • Developing and applying news sense: Focuses on the instinctive ability of a journalist to spot a story, including being perpetually curious and understanding what resonates with the audience.
  • How to spot a news story: Offers practical tips on analysing press releases, monitoring public meetings, and engaging in “shoe-leather” reporting to uncover stories before competitors.
  • Why some news stories are rejected: Provides insight into editorial decision-making, covering common reasons for rejection such as lack of concrete evidence, poor writing, or not fitting the news organisation’s agenda or resources.
  • Developing important news angles: Teaches how to identify the most relevant and impactful slant for a story, ensuring the report answers the audience’s “So What?” question immediately.

4. Language, grammar, and style
Your command of English is your primary tool. These resources are crucial for ensuring your copy is clear, accurate, and professional.

  • The basics of writing:
    • Essential elements of a news story: Outlines the basic structure of a news report, focusing on the inverted pyramid style, and ensuring all the “five Ws and H” are answered.
    • News writing for beginners: A practical guide on crafting compelling leads (or ‘intros’) and maintaining a direct, objective tone throughout the article.
    • Language and style – basics: Establishes the rule for a concise, accessible, and active voice preferred in all journalism.
    • Grammar for journalists: A crucial module covering common grammatical pitfalls, such as subject-verb agreement and correct punctuation, to ensure professional polish.
  • Refining your copy:
    • Using the right words: Focuses on precision and avoiding vague or emotive language, emphasising that every word should contribute to clarity and accuracy.
    • Adjectives and adverbs in journalism: Advises on the sparing and responsible use of descriptive words, encouraging reporters to use facts and verbs to tell the story instead.
    • The active and passive voices in news: Explains why the active voice is usually stronger and clearer in news writing, making it easier to identify who did what.
    • Clichés, journalese, and jargon: A warning against using tired phrases, professional slang, and overly complex technical terms that alienate the general audience.

5. Newsgathering and verification
This phase deals with the practical, hands-on skills of extracting information and ensuring it is verifiable before publication, which is the heart of credibility.

  • Gathering information:
    • Introduction to interviews: Covers the planning and preparation for an interview, including setting objectives and securing appropriate logistics.
    • Preparing for an interview: Details the importance of thorough research on the interviewee and the subject matter to ask informed, effective questions.
    • The questions every journalist should ask: Provides a checklist of essential follow-up and probing questions (e.g. “How do you know that?”) necessary to push past simple statements and establish facts.
    • Shoe-leather reporting: Stresses the value of on-the-ground work, meeting people face-to-face, and developing sources through direct, proactive reporting.
  • Verification:
    • Fact-checking and adding context: Explains the crucial process of confirming all data points, quotes, and claims from multiple, independent sources before publication.
    • SIFT for fact-checking: Introduces a memorable, modern verification framework: Stop, Investigate the source, Find better coverage, then Trace claims to original context.
    • Lateral reading: Teaches the technique of verifying a source’s credibility by leaving the original page to check what other, authoritative sources say about the website or person.
    • Attribution and plagiarism: Sets out the strict rules for citing the origin of all information and quotes, making it clear that using another’s work without credit is a serious professional breach.

6. Practical reporting
Once you have gathered and verified your information, you need to structure and deliver it effectively for specific platforms or beats, ensuring clear communication.

  • General reporting:
    • How to cover an event: Provides a workflow for reporting live from an ongoing situation, including pre-planning, securing media access, and choosing what details to prioritise.
    • How to create a structured news report: A blueprint for ensuring articles are logically ordered, with transitions, clear topic sentences, and a strong summary conclusion.
    • Editorialising is not for news: Reinforces the principle of keeping news coverage separate from opinion, ensuring the reporter’s personal feelings do not contaminate the facts.
    • Tool: News story checklist: A utility for self-editing and final checks, ensuring all ethical, legal, and structural requirements have been met before submitting copy.
  • Broadcast skills:
    • How to write a radio news script: Covers the unique requirements of writing for the ear, including simplicity, use of sound, and writing in shorter sentences.
    • Constructing a news package for radio: Details the process of combining a reporter’s voice, actualities (soundbites), and natural sound into a cohesive audio piece.
    • Constructing a tv news package: Focuses on the visual storytelling aspects, including shot sequencing, script synchronisation with video, and letting the pictures do the work.

Part II: The advanced expertise
This curriculum transitions a journalist from proficient reporter to specialised professional, equipped to handle the complexities of modern digital deception, specialised reporting, and nuanced ethical dilemmas.

1. Deepening ethical practice and accountability
This section moves beyond the core ethical tenets, applying them to complex real-world situations, addressing subtle biases, and managing conflicts of interest.

  • A journalist must not have an agenda: Explores the importance of retaining an open mind during interviews, warning against pre-judging outcomes or forcing issues.
  • Avoiding manipulation: Provides practical strategies for journalists to identify and resist being used by sources, political actors, or corporations who seek to control the narrative.
  • False equivalence and false balance: Teaches journalists to avoid giving two sides of an argument equal weight when evidence heavily favours one side, such as in the climate change debate.
  • Conflicts of interest: Guidance on identifying and disclosing any financial, personal, or political relationships that could compromise a journalist’s independence and objectivity.
  • Respecting privacy as a journalist: A careful look at balancing the public’s right to know against an individual’s right to privacy, especially concerning victims, children, or private citizens caught up in public events.
  • Offence and journalism: Navigating sensitive topics, considering the potential harm or distress caused by publishing graphic or controversial material, and when to use warnings or restraint.
  • Photojournalism and ethics: Sets out strict rules against manipulating images, staging scenes, and the ethical requirement for respectful depiction of vulnerable people in visual media.
  • Unconscious bias and journalism: Recognising and mitigating ingrained prejudices (based on gender, race, etc.) that can subtly distort story selection, source selection, and overall coverage.
  • Is your journalism ethical?: A self-assessment framework for applying all ethical codes to real-world scenarios and evaluating one’s own professional conduct.

2. Advanced verification and information integrity
The digital age demands expertise in spotting and counteracting misinformation. This phase focuses on advanced fact-checking, understanding the taxonomy of digital deception, and using technology for deep verification.

  • Beyond basic fact-checking: Details an evidence-based, rigorous process that stresses the importance of adopting a “fact-checker’s mindset” and contextual analysis.
  • Creating a strong fact-checking system: A guide for establishing robust internal protocols, including prioritising claims based on potential real-world impact and managing the workflow of verification and correction.
  • Disinformation and misinformation: Provides definitions and clarity, explaining that misinformation is false information spread unintentionally, while disinformation is false information spread with malicious intent.
  • Forms of information disorder: Maps the landscape of digital falsehoods, identifying and explaining various types such as fabricated content (100% false) and imposter content.
  • The glossary of information disorder: A reference list defining the specialised vocabulary, including terms like malinformation (true information used maliciously).
  • How to detect ai-generated images: A crucial modern skill, this resource focuses on observational analysis to spot visual clues—such as distorted hands, unnatural lighting, or smooth surfaces—when automated detection tools fail.
  • Journalism and activism: Defines the sometimes-blurred line between reporting and advocacy, arguing for the necessity of maintaining an independent, non-partisan position.
  • Journalists and politicians: Examines the complex, often symbiotic relationship between the press and political figures, outlining the ethical rules and professional distance necessary to hold power to account.

3. Specialised reporting and data journalism
Specialisation allows journalists to report with authority on complex subjects. Data and computer-assisted reporting (CAR) skills are essential for modern investigative work.

  • Specialisation in journalism: Makes the case for moving beyond general reporting to developing expertise in areas like health, technology, or finance to provide deeper, more authoritative coverage.
  • What is data journalism?: Defines this discipline as the process of using numerical data to find, analyse, and visualise stories, moving beyond traditional interviews and documents.
  • Data journalism – resources and tools: Lists and explains some of the software, databases, and online platforms available for collecting, cleaning, and presenting large datasets effectively.
  • Computer-assisted reporting (car): Explains the use of computers and digital tools (often spreadsheets and databases) to sift through large volumes of public records and extract investigative leads.
  • Covering climate change: A guide to the scientific, political, and economic angles of this complex, long-term story.
  • Climate change – tone and language: Focuses on the specific vocabulary and factual accuracy needed to describe climate science responsibly.

4. Advanced production and digital delivery
This phase covers the production skills for longer-form content and the critical editorial judgment needed to manage news flow across digital platforms.

5. Newsroom mastery and resilience
The final stage involves understanding the institutional structures, legal constraints, and personal pressures within a professional newsroom.

  • Handling breaking news: Outlines the triage and verification protocols necessary when a major, developing event occurs, stressing the need for speed without sacrificing accuracy.
  • Handling story leaks and tip-offs: Addresses the sensitive and often legally complex process of protecting sources, verifying anonymous information, and using leaked material responsibly.
  • The role of the media lawyer: An introduction to legal concepts like libel, copyright, and contempt of court, teaching the journalist when and how to seek legal counsel.
  • The importance of keeping records: Emphasises the professional need for meticulous documentation of interviews, sources, and evidence, which is vital for defending work against legal challenges or libel suits.
  • Journalism, trauma and stress: An important resource addressing the psychological impact of covering traumatic events and providing advice on managing stress and seeking support.
  • Systems thinking for journalists: Encourages journalists to look beyond individual events and analyse the interconnected forces and structures (political, economic, social) that cause problems.

Conclusion: The essential mandate for public service

The material contained in this order of learning is essential for ensuring that journalism remains a vital public service. The lessons collectively create a journalistic professional who is not merely competent, but ethically fortified and digitally empowered.

By understanding and applying the core principles of accuracy, impartiality and fair dealing, the journalist maintains public trust – the only currency that matters in the news industry. By mastering the advanced modules, they are equipped to challenge complex power structures, debunk sophisticated disinformation, and translate complex data into accessible public knowledge.

Ultimately, the material set out above ensures that the trained journalist will consistently produce work that is rigorously verified, contextually rich, and independent of any external agenda. This is the highest form of public service: providing citizens with the reliable, unbiased information they need to participate fully in a functioning democracy.

Public service journalism quiz

Question 1: Accuracy and public trust

Which journalistic principle is considered paramount for maintaining public trust, requiring systematic verification and prompt, transparent correction of errors?

  • A. Clarity
  • B. Accuracy
  • C. Impartiality
  • D. Fairness

Question 2: Demonstrating impartiality

A journalist covers a city council vote and presents the different arguments, ensuring that the time and space given to each viewpoint are proportional to its significance and support within the community. What ethical concept is the journalist primarily demonstrating?

  • A. Independence
  • B. Fairness
  • C. Integrity
  • D. Impartiality

Question 3: The inverted pyramid

In news writing, what is the primary purpose of the ‘inverted pyramid’ structure?

  • A. To create suspense by delaying the most important details until the end of the story.
  • B. To allow editors to easily cut the story from the bottom without losing essential information.
  • C. To ensure audiences grasp the essential message quickly by placing the most important facts first.
  • D. To encourage reporters to use more descriptive and artistic language throughout the report.

Question 4: Conflict of interest

A journalist owns shares in a property development company and is asked to cover a city council vote on a new housing project that would significantly benefit that company. What ethical issue is the journalist confronting?

  • A. Breach of confidentiality
  • B. Sensationalism
  • C. Conflict of interest
  • D. Defamation

Question 5: Purpose of public service journalism

What is the ultimate, overarching purpose of journalism in the context of public service media?

  • A. To generate profit for the news organisation through increased readership or viewership.
  • B. To serve the public interest by providing essential, trustworthy, and engaging information.
  • C. To advocate for specific political or social change.
  • D. To entertain the audience with compelling narratives and human-interest stories.

Question 6: Correcting errors

If a newspaper publishes a factual error in an online story, what is the most appropriate ethical action a journalist must take?

  • A. Quietly delete the incorrect information and replace it with the accurate details.
  • B. Wait for a reader complaint before issuing a retraction or correction.
  • C. Issue a prompt, transparent correction, clearly stating what was wrong and what has been fixed.
  • D. Publish a follow-up story that covers the correct facts without referencing the previous error.

Question 7: Defining news sense

Which quality best defines a journalist’s ‘news sense’?

  • A. The ability to accurately predict the outcome of a story before it is published.
  • B. The skill of making every event seem dramatic and emotional to attract readers.
  • C. The ability to spot newsworthy developments and assess a story’s significance to its target audience.
  • D. The skill of writing complicated stories in highly formal, academic language.

Question 8: Active versus passive voice

Which of the following sentences adheres to the principle of using the active voice for clear, engaging news writing?

  • A. The new law was passed by Parliament this afternoon.
  • B. A decision on the funding for the project was reached by the city council.
  • C. A large crowd was seen gathering outside the stadium.
  • D. Parliament passed the new law this afternoon.

Question 9: The right of reply

A journalist is preparing a story that makes serious allegations against a prominent local businessman. Before publication, the journalist contacts the businessman and includes his response in the article. This action is a direct application of the principle of:

  • A. Transparency
  • B. Right of reply
  • C. Sub judice
  • D. Data protection

Question 10: Journalistic integrity

Which of the following actions best demonstrates high journalistic integrity in a challenging situation?

  • A. Using a hidden camera to obtain dramatic footage of a public official, even if a legal alternative exists.
  • B. Withholding a crucial, verified fact because it contradicts the editor’s preferred narrative.
  • C. Resisting pressure from a major advertiser to change the angle of a negative news story about their product.
  • D. Publishing unverified information from a source on the condition of strict anonymity.

Answers and rationales

Q1: Accuracy and public trust

  • Correct answer: B. Accuracy
  • Rationale: Accuracy is the fundamental building block of credible journalism. It demands thorough verification and the immediate, transparent correction of any mistakes. (Referenced content: Accuracy in journalism)

Q2: Demonstrating impartiality

  • Correct answer: D. Impartiality
  • Rationale: Impartiality is the core concept of presenting information without demonstrating favouritism towards any specific viewpoint. This is achieved by balancing perspectives based on their relevance and proportional representation, avoiding the pitfall of false equivalence. (Referenced content: Impartiality in journalism

Q3: The inverted pyramid

  • Correct answer: C. To ensure audiences grasp the essential message quickly by placing the most important facts first.
  • Rationale: The inverted pyramid structure prioritises the most important facts first, followed by supporting context, ensuring the audience is informed immediately, even if they don’t read the entire article. (Referenced content: Essential elements of a news story

Q4: Conflict of interest

  • Correct answer: C. Conflict of interest
  • Rationale: A conflict of interest occurs when a journalist’s personal or financial interests could be perceived as compromising their professional impartiality and independence in their reporting. (Referenced content: Conflicts of Interest)

Q5: Purpose of public service journalism

  • Correct answer: B. To serve the public interest by providing essential, trustworthy, and engaging information.
  • Rationale: The commitment to serving the public interest is the foundational purpose that guides all ethical and professional standards in public service journalism. (Referenced content: Journalism and the public interest)

Q6: Correcting errors

  • Correct answer: C. Issue a prompt, transparent correction, clearly stating what was wrong and what has been fixed.
  • Rationale: Ethical practice requires a prompt and transparent correction that clearly acknowledges the error, a practice essential for maintaining public trust. (Referenced content: Clarity is as important as accuracy)

Q7: Defining news sense

  • Correct answer: C. The ability to spot newsworthy developments and assess a story’s significance to its target audience.
  • Rationale: News sense is the professional ability to quickly differentiate routine events from those that hold significant public interest and relevance to the audience. Referenced content: Developing and applying news sense)

Q8: Active versus passive voice

  • Correct answer: D. Parliament passed the new law this afternoon.
  • Rationale: The active voice places the actor (‘Parliament’) before the action (‘passed’) and is considered clearer and more dynamic for news reporting. (Referenced content: Active and Passive Voices in News)

Q9: The right of reply

  • Correct answer: B. Right of reply
  • Rationale: The right of reply is the key technique used to implement the broader ethical principle of fairness in journalism, ensuring the subject of an allegation has a chance to respond. (Referenced content: Right of reply – scenario)

Q10: Journalistic integrity

  • Correct answer: C. Resisting pressure from a major advertiser to change the angle of a negative news story about their product.
  • Rationale: Integrity means choosing independence and the public interest over commercial or political influence, which is demonstrated by resisting pressure from advertisers. (Referenced Content: Integrity and Journalism)