Job Well Done

Being a journalist for several decades, I was often asked: Are you ever tired?

My answer is, you might get tired of life itself, but hardly get tired with the daily news, because for a journalist, everyday is a challenge.

There was a time when professional journalists ate and drank news. For a professional journalist, one must have passion towards its job and treat every news event as the most interesting matter. That is why it is called news “stories”. Quite often we find the news in newspaper, or on TV boring. The problem can usually be traced to the fact that the reporter him or herself was not familiar with the story, didn’t study well about the background, or you can say didn’t have enough passion for that story.

Curiosity is another merit a professional journalist must possess. To get to the bottom of things, to get to the truth, is always a goal to pursue. And when they finally find out the whole story, they therefore can tell the story in the most clear and precise ways. With this kind of effort, any news story could be as interesting and as relevant to the audience as something that happened next door.

Professional journalist would never underestimate their readers or audience, and then use it as an excuse to get by with a lower standard. Quality job will always be appreciated. Quality job will help the audience know the world, and at the same time help journalists to grow.

At the end of the day, when you find a boring news report, it’s not because the news is boring. It’s because the job was not well done. This should be used as the ruler to judge our work.

If you have any comments on news and current affairs programs produced by Fairchild Television in Canada East, please do not hesitate to contact us at newstor@fairchildtv.com