This is a very interesting job as one can learn and gain knowledge on different niches at the same time fulfilling his/her hobby of writing.
Job profile / Description / Responsibilities
- Writing news stories on various political and important social events
- News papers writers also write fun and humorous news items
- Interviewing people like celebs or common people caught in crisis to write news items
- Networking with important people for gathering news
- Looking for useful and investigating news stories
- Being part of press conferences and asking questions;
- Writing and uploading news items on websites
- Working with the news photographers and editors
- Attend council meetings press conferences, court sessions, and diverse scheduled social events
- Interview people caught up in news stories; follow up news releases
- Ensure that the content is error free and well written
- Need to carry out extensive research before writing informative features
- Attending writing workshops to help writers improve their writing skills
Academic
The newspaper writing requires you to have a degree in journalism, English literature, communication media and arts. This will be of additional advantage when it comes to job opportunities and you will have an edge on your competitors in the corporate world. Creativity is the key to success in this field. Additionally, you can join courses that offer you training on Newspaper writing. But the basic requirement is that you must have a flair for writing.
Skill Set
As a writer a person must possess the following skills to succeed in the field of journalism.
- Excellent oral and written communication skills.
- Must be eager to learn new things.
- Must be comfortable to travel from place to place.
- Must be creative enough and should possess adaptive behavior so that they can handle any kind of project.
- Must be capable to handle stress and be ready to work for extra hours if the work requires immediate completion.
- Good imagination power and literary skills.
- The writer must be able to write clear and entertaining script.
Career Prospects (globally)
Whatever field you may choose to develop your career in, if you want to grow, you need two things: determination and discipline. If you strongly follow these two principles, then success is surely guaranteed. There are many local, regional and national newspapers where a newspaper writer can find a job.
The average salary of news writers is around $61,000. However this salary is not fixed and can vary depending on your talent, work experience and the education you possess. The starting salary of a trainee reporter is $10,000. With experience it may rise to $2,000 - $3,000. A journalist gets an average salary of $23,000, while the salary for senior reporters, sub-editors and feature writers can range from $15,000 to $40,000.
One of the prime criteria for the job of a writer are prolonged and unanticipated working hours. Writers in the field of journalism may be needed to attend meetings for long hours. Others may be required to work in shifts, including late nights and early starts and also work on the weekends and holidays at times. So this is a field precisely for those who have a zeal for the work and not care much about a social life or the luxuries involved with a normal job.
