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This module was written for trainee journalists in Zimbabwe who were keen to learn how to produce in-depth video reports about life in their remote rural communities.

A journalist needs to have a broad interested in the world around them and want to find things out and share their discoveries with their readers or listeners. They must have a love of language, written or spoken, understand the meaning and flow of words and take delight in using them. 

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.

If you turn up for the daily news meeting without a story idea, you're in the wrong job. A journalist should be living and breathing stories 24 hours a day, seven days a week and 365 days a year.

English is one of the most expressive and flexible languages in the world. Its immense vocabulary provides for the persuasive and precise communication of ideas.

Sometimes crime reporting reflects important issues in society: corruption, drugs, homelessness, hunger, lack of education, or whatever. And sometimes it is just a good story, with no wider implications.

An interview for a job in the media is often the culmination of weeks of hard work searching for opportunities, filling out application forms and waiting. So it's important to make the best impression on the day.

This training module from The News Manual looks at language and style in news writing. It offers guidance on how to write sentences for maximum understanding, and examines why care over language is important.