Hone Your Writing and Storytelling Skills with an Advanced Journalism Program

  • Added:
    Feb 07, 2014
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Hone Your Writing and Storytelling Skills with an Advanced Journalism Program Photo by Jason White

An advanced journalism program helps students hone their writing and storytelling skills and gain exposure through field placement and interaction with professionals. Those interested in building a career in this field must apply with a reputed journalism college.

Newsrooms are shrinking continuously but other live media including radio channels and online news sites are growing.  Journalism is undergoing a radical shift, creating a huge demand for young journalists who can quickly adapt themselves to the contemporary media channels.

However, this doesn’t mean that collecting first hand information, understanding the circumstances and report writing have gone out of trend. They are very much there. Then, what has changed in all these years? Nothing, but the level of competition!

It’s true that more and more people turning to online news sites and other live media for required information. But it’s equally important a fact that they are consuming more information than ever. So, it would be wrong considering that journalism is dying. The only need is to be more precise, more effective and more accurate.

Pursuing a Career in Journalism

If you have a knack for examining the current issues, generating reports, interviewing people and storytelling, then probably a formal journalism program is the right choice for you. By enrolling in a journalism course, you will be able to

Hone your writing skills
Develop new skills to cope with the evolving world of reporting and news writing
Learn the tricks of the trade from professors having years of experience
Learn to produce and live-stream radio and television newscasts
Master the art of storytelling
Cover breaking news

Students with an advanced diploma in journalism can find employment with news companies, TV channels, radio channels and news website. The graduates can also gain specialization in different fields of journalism, such as food, travel, fashion, automobile, healthcare, etc by applying for higher studies.

Minimum Requirements

In order to pursue a career in this field in Canada, you need to have

An advanced diploma in journalism
Relevant work experience prior to post graduate diploma
Relevant work experience during and after the completion of the advanced course is an added advantage

Enrolling into an Advanced Journalism Diploma Course

Advanced diploma in journalism is a post graduate program. So, you must fulfill basic eligibility and additional requirements to apply for the course at a reputed college in Canada. The basic criteria include:

A college diploma or university degree in any discipline
Relevant work experience post secondary diploma
An up-to-date resume
Industry references
Six-ten published pieces (clippings or printouts of the published work from established newspapers, journalism blog site, news websites, television or radio channels)

Those who don’t have a record of published journalism need to submit

Six-ten pieces of writing samples
An up-to-date resume

In addition, the applicants need to complete a two-part writing test.

There are a number of journalism schools in Canada, offering around 50 programs in total in this field. It’s ideal to apply with institutes that are accredited by a state or national body.

Once you enroll in an advanced journalism diploma, you will study a variety of subjects and learn about journalism design, news reporting, imaging, magazine journalism, radio news, TV news and beat reporting.

Along with classroom lectures, you will need to travel extensively to gain exposure and hands-on-experience. In the last semester, you’ll be required to work in the field and qualify the test.

Students are recommended to read a lot and remain up-to-date with the latest news. They can’t rely only on text books. Reading magazines, newspapers, browsing sites and watching TV and listening to radio plays a crucial role in remaining aware of the latest happenings around the world.

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An advanced journalism program helps students hone their writing and storytelling skills and gain exposure through field placement and interaction with professionals. Those interested in building a career in this field must apply with a reputed journalism college.


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