7.00 Pre-Assessment

Before starting this course, I didn't have a very great knowledge of Journalism. I knew it had to do with writing and reporting news, but that's about it. I thought a journalist was someone who wrote. I didn't know what kinds of writing they did or to what extent the word "journalist" meant. I thought the purpose of journalism was to write to get information (news) to people. I didn't know there were so many forms of journalism. I knew that as a journalist you had to be ethical and use your own work, not copy off someone else's, but I didn't know that if you did use someone else's work and claim it as your own that it could ruin your whole career. Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew that journalists had to be impartial, but I had never really thought about what it meant, that you couldn't use any opinion in your writing or reporting. In all the types of writing I've done for school in the past, the whole idea is to give your opinion on the matter, but in journalism, that is not always the case. Before starting this course, I knew that journalism had to do with writing, and I knew I wanted to be a writer, but after taking the course and learning about journalism I discovered that even though I loved this class, a journalism career is not for me. However, I did learn many, many useful skills that I will use later in my life, and taking this class has broadened my horizons. Also, I now have a much greater appreciation for journalists.

My definition of a journalist has changed quite a bit. I now know that journalists do a lot more than write: they report, edit, speak for crowds, do interviews and talk on radio shows as well as many other things. Now I believe the purpose of journalism is to inform the people in our country of what is going on around the country and the world. There are many forms of journalism, so everybody can find a medium that they like. I learned a lot about ethics, and I know that journalists have to follow a code of ethics. Before taking this class, I didn't really even know the definition of ethics. My definition of impartial and partial reporting is different than it was before. I had never really thought about how journalists have to be impartial in their writing, or risk sounding biased. There is not a lot of partial reporting in journalism because it is usually fact, and fact cannot be mixed in with opinion. Despite how I loved taking this class, Journalism specifically is not the career I want to be in. I want to be a fiction author, and even though I probably won't pursue journalism, I have learned a lot of useful information that will help me with my writing career. I believe Journalism has a big future ahead of it. With new technology coming out all the time, journalists will have new ways to display their work, and since there is always news, there will always be something to write about!