If you’re interested in news writing and reporting, you need to know that the media industry is very competitive.

Most people view the news media as a glamorous field to work in. You may, too, at first. You may want to be on camera, not primarily for the glamour, but a little bit.

People say, “You know, you’re gonna meet celebrities,” or, “You have this exciting lifestyle.” On the other hand, the media industry has a bad reputation. Journalists take offense when people say, “Oh, it’s all fake news. There’s no real news.” So, you need to ask yourself why you want to write for the news media, and why you believe it’s important.

Today, journalists are as necessary to society as they ever were. People need to hear facts about topics such as COVID-19. And for a vital issue like this, nothing hits you more than hearing a personal story about someone coping with the virus. As a journalist, you can get in and tell those stories. You’ll not only inform the public but also enrich your own life. You have this privilege to walk inside someone’s life, share their experiences, learn from them, and translate everything into a story that will be meaningful to readers.

What makes news writing special is the opportunity to be the first one in the room with the thing that everybody wants to hear. It’s kind of like when you meet up with your friends and you have a story that you just can’t wait to tell them—that’s essentially the job of news writing. But, instead of just meeting up with your friends, you get to tell tens—or even hundreds of thousands—of people something that you believe they need to know.

The key to news judgment is finding something that people are interested in but also something that they’ll benefit from knowing. Something that will make them better citizens or more informed voters. Something that will help them know where they’ll want to travel or help them be more prepared for what’s coming next in the world. With media writing, it’s always about finding a balance between the things that will get clicks and bring people to your website and the things that will actually enrich them for having read them.

I once had a great editor who told me that you want to write stories that get read, but you need to write stories that are worth reading. I’ve tried to follow that advice. One thing that’s special about news media, is that you aren’t telling the reader what you think might be true, or what you’ve had a hunch about. Instead, you’re telling them what you know; what you’ve sussed out, nailed down, verified, confirmed, and what you can say with full confidence that you know to be true.

Personally, I think that’s where you build your reputation as a good news writer—when people come to you, hear what you say, and don’t feel the need to check three or four other sources. When they think “okay, this is a place I can come to for information that’s verified, and I can take it as a known fact”, that’s when you’re doing your job well.

Standard media education and online media education are excellent places to start on the path towards understanding the media industry, and what it takes to be a good news writer.

When it comes to entertainment stories, the people who really excel at media writing are people who become super fans and want to be in this business to take a peek behind the curtain and see how things operate, get a media education. When I was very young, I was obsessed with watching as many movies as I could and watching as much TV as I could. My mom picked up a letter from me when I was 5 years old, and it said “I just want to eat popcorn and watch movies all day for a living.” I got about as close to that as I could, having a real job.

People are putting their hearts and souls into these productions, and when a movie bombs opening weekend and everybody’s making fun of it on Twitter, years of people’s lives and their livelihoods have banked on the movie’s success. There are a lot of different parts of the making-a-movie stew that can screw up, and the movie goes from an Academy Award winner to total dust. There are so many parts that go into making a movie, and people work so hard to put their all into it. It’s such a tight rope of putting yourself out there. If you really are passionate about learning those stories from people, that makes a great entertainment writer, and that makes a great entertainment story.

Alongside that, you want to be able to pull yourself out and be professional enough to know that there is a business element about the media industry. Like at “Variety,” we’ve been known for more than 100 years as the business of entertainment. That’s our slogan because we want to break down the deals in the deal-making. It’s the intersection of loving art and then understanding the commerce behind it.

Entertainment and media journalists have a bit of a luxury. They tend to be a little bit more adventurous and curious than other journalists and other fields I’ve met with, wanting to understand what’s new. The music journalists at our publication, they’re all musicians in their spare time, and they’re not stuck in whatever decade they came of age listening to music. They’re wanting to hear what’s fresh, what’s new, and really act upon that. One of the things about my job that makes me the happiest is finding that small movie or that small record that you really think deserves a bigger platform and then telling people how great it is.

If you want to keep that content fresh, you’re gonna want to keep the site refreshed, updated, and current. You’re gonna want to be on all social media platforms and integrate yourself in a way that is natural while not trying too hard to fit in. We at “Variety” always know that we are a business publication. So when we go on Tik Tok, for example, we’re teaching people how to make it in the entertainment industry or how to be an entertainment journalist. It’s a type of online media education. We’re trying to comment on these platforms from our vantage of knowledgeability plus trying to remain current and keep ahead of things.

This module is really an overview of media writing. It will help you understand the professional landscape of becoming a writer in today’s media industry, which is always in flux. Be prepared to change, and be prepared to pivot. The following information will help you understand how to become a media writer in the Digital Era and beyond. In this first module, you’ll understand what it takes to become a professional writer in today’s digital, print, and broadcast industries. Journalism has history, and this module will introduce you to that history. You’ll learn about the landscape of media education and all the skills that it takes to become successful, especially in this Digital Era where everything is in flux as it has changed so much over time. Online media education offers you the ability to navigate this exciting and complex landscape as a dynamic career opportunity.

Good writing is made up of many elements. Writers must display natural curiosity, passion and a drive to undertake the hard work of writing. Writers must write a great deal, writing and revising, practicing consistently to hone their craft.

Learning to write is much like learning to play an instrument. Good writers put in the hours to improve their craft, yet there are those who do not truly understand the process of learning to be a good writer. If one chooses to undertake media writing, that person must put in the effort to learn exactly how that area is unique.

There are those budding writers who become confused about writing, and they might best benefit from media education. These individuals initially think to themselves, “I’m literate; I can read. Surely, I can put letters together, form words, and then make sentences that will form paragraphs.” While it is true that this is a form of writing, that does not necessarily make good writing.

Good writing is something that many in online media education are attempting to explain and teach. However, many teachers are still learning the craft themselves! They need a professor to challenge them in writing essays and other media.

I once had a professor that challenged my classmates and I to an essay contest. During my freshman year, the professor gave the assignment, and my first thought was, “I’m a smart kid; I know how to write an essay.”

However, when the professor returned our essays, he explained that most of the essays had earned “F’s” with a few earning a “D.” There were two essays that had been awarded a “C” – an average grade – and the professor explained that those two writers had “fought for” that grade.

Many years passed before I understood why he gave the class such an assignment. The essay was not about explaining what good writing is; he taught us that we needed to “show” rather than “tell” in our essays. The assignment was not truly to explain good writing, but to demonstrate to the professor good writing techniques in my own work.

What is good writing? Good writing exhibits concrete details that paint a picture for the writer’s audience. Good writing expresses points of view, and it utilizes words in specific ways. Good writing should be structured to a point so that readers can follow the passage. It is not vague. Readers should be able to not only access what the writer is trying to say, but to understand the details and supports for a specific point of view.

Good writers are able to express themselves in a meaningful way throughout the media industry. People must be able to grasp what writers are intending to express. It should be accessible, using vocabulary that is appropriate but not so challenging to readers that they can’t understand the concepts behind the essay. Writers should work to lessen any “speed bumps” for readers – wordiness, unfamiliar words, lack of context clues or jargon in one’s writing. Good writing grabs the reader’s attention and holds it for the duration. It stimulates the mind and leaves the reader understanding the writer’s point of view and perhaps inquisitive to learn more.

At the most elemental level, when you consider what art or story is, you’re thinking about the first moment of consciousness or awareness. At the beginning of civilization, humans made marks all over the wilderness to chart their movements. These were just arrows or instructions on how to find an animal or a plant food source. Later, we began to put marks on the trees or structural walls that symbolized internal meanings.

That’s the start of creating a story where you have not only the external information, the goal or destination, but also the internal emotion that came with it. That is the launch of communication media.

At its base configuration, you’ve got art or storytelling as the meeting of external and internal story elements. And there are few exceptions when you’re thinking about art or media forms, whether high art, low art, big-budget movies, experimental films, literary novels, or paperback novels. There’s always an external and internal story.

In high art, the internal story is more strongly emphasized. The more base and genre-linked the story, the more attraction it holds for the masses when an external story is emphasized. A high-action film is all the physical activities. But if you have an action hero with no internal story, audiences are just not interested, we can’t watch.

But you can think about the story in other ways as well. The E.M. Forester example, which is often cited by writing instructors and literary gurus, is the king died and then the queen died, right? That’s not a story yet. That’s just external fact. The king died – and the queen died of grief is a story because the plot provides an internal story as well.

In journalism, it’s the same. It’s very hard to just report media facts without bringing an internal story. People will ask, “Where’s the story?” It’s something that can be quite irritating if you’re a journalist trying to share helpful information with the public: “These are important facts; I want to get this information out there.” But your editor, a staunch member of the media industry, is saying that there’s no story because there is no internal content.

The public has a really, really hard time remembering or relating to any external facts in media writing without internal content or media education. But I don’t think that that’s really part of storytelling as much as it is part of us. That’s just the way we relate to information and how we structure our memories. It’s also how that we relate to each other. With the help of online media education, people can learn to appreciate the internal story in art and journalism while developing a deeper ability to understand human nature.

The ability to research is a must-have quality for those in the media. Because video and audio clips are forever, nothing is more embarrassing than for a media industry professional or spokesperson to be caught relaying disinformation.

However, most spokespeople rely on a researcher to take the time to go through articles, compile data, and determining the facts around a topic.

Researchers can make a successful career out of these skills. They may research for the media spokesperson, or they may work as a researcher for documentary productions. A research staff person is critical in providing the production staff with the vital information on a topic. A research staff person is a bit like a computer database; they are expected to hold on to various bits and pieces of information over time. Some even report the information they compile. Others take part in media education projects working behind the scenes.

Some research staff members may put their research to use in a variety of ways. They may write for a newspaper, or they may be a part of a new group of online media writing enterprises, such as blogs and podcasts. Podcasts are becoming highly popular as more and more are depending upon online media education for their information.

One can use reading, writing and research skills in a number of ways in the online world today. A research staff member is able to contribute much to a media organization, and many employment opportunities to utilize those skills are present in the job market today.

People always ask me, “What’s the difference between a writer and an editor, and why does one become a writer or become an editor. Or can you do both?” Personally, I do both.

But, a writer is mainly focused on crafting their pieces. I mean, they’re going to draft them. They’re going to potentially edit them. I was editing and writing always. A lot of times, people ask me that question, “Why did you become an editor? What’s the difference between an editor and a writer? Or, is one better than the other?”

Personally, for me, I became an editor and went down that path for probably two reasons. One, because you have to have a really big ego to be a successful writer. And the reason why I say that is you’re dealing with a lot of criticism, a lot of rejection. To be able to survive that, you have to be able to deal with that level of rejection and criticism. It’s a little easier, sometimes, to be in the background and not get that in your face all the time.

The other reason is that I had so many ideas. I was so curious. There is no way physically and mentally that I would be able to do and execute all the things I want to do myself. That’s why I needed an army of people doing things — I can assign them things and then edit them. And then we’ll tell all these stories I want to tell that I can’t physically do myself. Furthermore, some people are just more talented than me. They have a great writing style or voice. It’s very satisfying to work with people in the media industry who are talented and give them an extra level of attention.

As a singular career path in the media, if you’re looking at editorial, you’ll continue to improve as a writer. There are a lot of writers who are editors for years and years and years, and then they write a remarkable novel. In the past, it was really looked down on in the publishing world that it was another failed writer. You had to sort of keep it a secret that you were working on a novel on the side. I think that’s changed a little bit.

The etiquette may still be to keep your mouth shut a bit with media writing, but there’s a reason that those editors do that. And, you know, they’re just very skilled. They know how to structure a story. They know the workflow of the story. When they have a story to tell, they know how to get it on the page.

One of the more difficult aspects of the media industry is figuring out what’s interesting to others and what makes a good story. That starts with the pitch — the story of the story. What is the reader going to learn? Why does the reader want to know it? And what has come before the story that you’re writing today?

A good rule of thumb for media writing is that if you think a story is intriguing, others might like it as well. So, first ask yourself, “Is this interesting? Would I read it if I weren’t the writer?” That’s one good way to gut-check yourself and figure out if you’re writing something worthwhile that will grab an editor’s attention and make them want to share it with their readers.

What makes a good story? That’s something we all grapple with every day. It’s one of the most difficult parts of the writer’s job — and the one that’s most critical to your success. News editors are looking for something that’s going to immediately attract readers and make them want to know more.
Now, what you had for breakfast this morning may be new information, but it’s not something that anyone cares about. You need to find that sweet spot where you have a particular insight, or, even better, fresh facts about a subject that people already want to know more about. Then, you can bring those to your writing and say, “Look, you may have already learned something about this, but if you read what I have to say, you’ll come away with something new and better.”

Nowadays, when we think about the multimedia environment, there’s been a lot of change from the past. We’ve been talking about new media like eBooks and sort of this evolving landscape for a good 20 years now. Remember that as you continue your online media education.

There’s always been a great deal in the way of antecedent and history in media writing. Because when you look at the invention of the printing press, even there you have this long cycle of egalitarian movement in print. You had originally these illuminated manuscripts, which were handwritten by scribes which took a very long time to produce compared to the blazing speed of today. You could really just produce only one of that manuscript.

But then you had something that just poured out into the world with the printing press. That’s essentially what we have again with the information on the internet, which was great for media education. And again, as it happened with the printing press, we had information that was really good and valuable in the beginning, and then kind of a sea of nonsense. Now you have this shrinking pool of where you want to get your information from. So increasingly it became these high-powered publishers because you trusted them more in the same way that we have our trusted websites today.