The main goal for journalists is to present news honestly and rationally to help the audience understand what is happening in the world. However, journalism requires more than just checking and rewriting the news in your own words. Comprehensive materials require in-depth research so people can find the details and facts to make the text more valuable for readers.
However, using old methods to conduct successful research is not enough. People keep using old principles in journalism education, which is not so good for the industry overall. Since new technologies have been implemented in journalism on all levels, education should also be changed. That’s why revealing all the information about modern research methods is essential. Individuals will learn faster, and the efficiency of their research will be much higher.
Investigate Your Subject Areas
Since a person wants to become a journalist, they choose an area to investigate. Expanding knowledge, whether in sports, politics, economy, education, or something else, is crucial. In journalism, you don’t have your Royal writer who will do everything for you, so investigating the chosen topic is vital. Remembering crucial events and understanding regularities and trends allows for predicting what will happen shortly or how the specific event may affect the whole field.
For example, if you are writing about the evolution of rules in football rules, you can explain how the upcoming changes will affect the overall pace of the game, who will get more advantage from these changes, etc. For example, one of the newest changes says that goalkeepers must stand still on the line when taking a penalty. It means the goalkeeper can’t make any distractive moves, and the player who shoots gets an advantage.
Social Media – A Treasure for Journalists
Since global digitalization started, social media has become the main source of information for journalists and a tool to search for needed data. Still, these platforms should be used wisely to achieve the needed effect.
Social media are mostly effective when you write emerging stories. Personalities involved in such stories post live updates about their status to let followers know what is happening and what they think about it. Of course, platforms like Twitter are the ocean where you can find treasures and fakes, but if the information comes from a verified user and is approved by two or three other sources, it’s true.
Moreover, with hashtags, reporters can follow trends and find mind-blowing stories. In combination with data-exploration platforms, journalists identify trending topics at different locations worldwide. Still, social media is not the main research instrument but a jumping-off point. Use these platforms at the opening part of your research and then switch to other sources.
Analyze and Evaluate Sources
Young journalists’ most significant mistake is using sources only because the page’s title matches search results. That’s not how modern journalism works; all sources should be analyzed and evaluated. Since you can’t go and buy an essay, you are responsible for the writing, so ensure it’s written with valuable sources. Check the information from each source and decide how impactful it is for the research. If the found data is out of date, there’s no sense to use it. Generally, the primary sources (speech, official statement, a message from the official account, etc.) are more valuable than the secondary (a newspaper report). Once you interpret facts and use them to strengthen your story, use evidence, not someone else’s interpretation.
A practical method to evaluate the available sources is to use the CRAAP test using five factors to identify the source.
- Currency. When was the source published?
- Relevance. Is the information valuable for the story, and what it will bring?
- Authority. Is the source’s origin trustable? Was it fact-checked? Should we search for links to external sources if it’s a webpage?
- Accuracy. Is the source on the same level as other works on this topic? If not, there’s no sense to use it for article writing.
- Purpose. Does the source contain information that brings new knowledge or only supports one side of the argument? You are looking for facts, not supporting arguments for someone’s opinion.
This part probably won’t be a part of your education, but it’s a great advantage for you as a journalist.
Final Thoughts
As future journalists, students have to study the most valuable research methods. Some may be challenging and require time to understand, but once you know how to work with sources, define them, pull the most valuable information, and use it in your text.
