It's the quality of the journalism that counts, not the awards

Well, the awards count too of course.  This week's reading called "What's a good story" was about recognizing quality in journalist's work.  It says the first place to look for advice on how to be an excellent journalist should be from a judge in a journalism awards program.  Some look for a piece that sucks them right in, keeps their attention, is fair, contains important interviews or facts/ statistics.  The list goes on and on.  A lot of the words used are repetitive when describing what characteristics make up a good journalist...(Accuracy, initiative, originality, creativity, balance, worthiness).  The list goes on and on.  All of this is important of course, but what is a writer without an eye-catching topic to write about?  Professor taught us today that coming up with an interesting story is half the battle, or 50% of the work.  I completely agree.  Once you have the topic you can get rolling, but my biggest problem is picking something interesting enough to keep people captivated.  It's good to be aware of what is expected of you in your writing, so keeping an outline of some basic guidelines helps.  As broad as these 5 terms are they still help remind you of what is expected; Discovery, examination, interpretation, style, presentation.  These skills are crucial to good journalism versus being a mediocre writer.  All of these facts on how to become a good journalist are important, but experience and practice is what I need to be concentrating on right now as well. Everyone knows you don't get better at anything without practice, right? More to come. . .