In a country as vibrant as India, the role of media is very critical. The journalism is known to be the fourth pillar of democracy and a voice of the people. A career in journalism requires a lot of courage, intelligence and in-depth knowledge of the current affairs. Journalism as a career field has opened up immensely in the last few years in India. There have been a number of new news channels opening up providing jobs to aspirants in various fields. Also, the expansion of the print medium and the advent of the online medium have generated many jobs in journalism.

Contrary to popular opinion, journalism has far too many jobs than just reporting, writing and anchoring on television. These are the most visible job but there is a host of other career options related to journalism. From technicians to graphic designers to cartoonists to make-up artistes, there are various types of jobs to be taken up in journalism. These days, journalism can be broadly divided into three categories: Print, Electronic and Web. There are many journalism jobs to be taken up in all three fields. In this article, we will cover an analysis of jobs in these fields.

Print journalism is the traditional type of news reporting that dates back decades. Long before there was any news on TV, there were newspapers and magazines that were printed and circulated in national and vernacular languages. This form of journalism is still going strong though it has evolved in many ways and adapted as per the requirements of the modern times. There are very many career options available in print journalism. There are editorial jobs such as associate editors, sub-editors and editors. The Editor is the head of a newspaper. It is the editor’s job to maintain consistency and continuity in the content and quality of the printed publication. It is the whole sole responsibility of the editor to build the credibility and attractiveness of a newspaper. Editor also leads the editorial team of a newspaper and writes articles for the editorial page which is the voice of the newspaper. Associate editors are responsible for a particular section of the newspaper and the magazine and are decide its content. An associate editor is also responsible for the layout and design of a particular page.

Sub-editors are required to re-write or improve articles to ensure that they fit in the given space. Writing catchy headlines is also the job of a sub-editor. For a magazine or a newspaper, its reporters and correspondents are the lifeline. It is the job of the reporter to keep an eye on the latest happenings in his/her beat and reports the news with speed and accuracy. To be a good reporter, one should have an inherent news sense. The report should also be objective in reporting a news item and should care for the authenticity of the news. It is a very demanding job. Then, there are feature writers, columnist, critics, graphic designers, and photo journalists etc who form the backbone of a print publication. There are many desk jobs too where writers and copy-editors process stories for final presentation.

Electronic journalism or TV news is a relatively new field. There are many new news channels that have come up recently and are employing young workforce. This form of journalism has completely revolutionized the collection and presentation of news. In TV and media jobs, the broad category of fields is in reporting, anchoring and production. Generally, TV news jobs are associated with glamour but they are quite strenuous jobs. The job of the reporters is to collect news on the field and report them to the news centre. The competition is so fierce that there is always this race to break a story first. Reporters must have excellent news sense, courage and very good communication skills. The job of the anchors or presenters is to present the news on air. These are presentable and camera friendly faces who can handle live news. It is not an easy job to manage news live and youngsters should not be lured by the charm of appearing on TV. There is much more to this job. Then, there are jobs for camera persons, production executives, make-up artistes, sound technicians, transmission executives etc. Web journalism is more like print journalism but the urgency to upload a news item is similar to that on TV. Internet has made it possible to access any news about anywhere, from anywhere in the world. Thus, jobs in journalism are of varied types and responsibilities. According to one’s inclination and skills, one can choose a job in this field.

Few useful links:

http://www.naukri.com

http://jobsearch.naukri.com/content-journalism/index.php