Journalistic Writing

Journalism Lectures, Day-16

More details related to journalistic writing were discussed in class. "A newspaper writer must enjoy a growing love affair with the printed word", proclaimed my lecturer. "It's next to impossible for you to develop journalistic writing skills without having a fascination for the printed word". The hunger to learn new words and phrases must be cultivated in order to increase your vocabulary. So how to go about it?

Whenever you come across any new word, remember to enquire about the meaning of the same. To make the task more interesting, you could also find out about the origin of the word and how best to form sentences with it. All these would help you to sharpen your journalistic writing skills.

In journalistic writing, one should avoid using words that could be unfamiliar to the readers. The use of unfamiliar words could leave an impression of pompousness on the reader. Cliches, jargon and officialese should be avoided at any cost. Journalistic writing also demands economy of words. Use of short sentences helps the journalist to achieve clarity, brevity and precision in his writing.

Main advantages of economy of words

1) It allows a reader to comprehend and understand a story and create the desired impact;

2) It saves space so that a newspaper or magazine can pack in more information in one issue;

3) Brevity and clarity assist a journalist to develop an easy to understand writing style;

Lots more to come on journalistic writing in the next few days!