SWOT analyses of Journalism

Journalism is one of the only professions in which you are paid to learn. The research and reporting involved in producing a news article requires an inquiring mind, a passion for getting to the bottom of a story and learning every aspect of your topic. Covering stories allows you to move into realms you might never have ventured into on your own.

Strength:

With a press pass, you are allowed to enter a variety of venues that typically are off-limits to the public. If you’re covering a concert, political debate or celebrity appearance for example, you may have access to the backstage and the main attraction. Journalists meet a wide range of public figures and often can spend quality time getting to know those individuals during an interview. Celebrities, politicians and business moguls depend on the press for exposure and usually welcome your presence.

Journalism is an ideal occupation if you enjoy a fast-paced environment with new challenges and opportunities daily. If you need to know exactly what you’re going to be doing day after day, then journalism is not the field for you. When news happens and you are working on the desk of a local newspaper, you need to pick up and go immediately. You’re on the front lines in disasters, weather events and public gatherings. As a freelance journalist, you need to place yourself in the center of important events to report on stories you then can sell to the news outlets that didn’t make it to the scene.

In addition to covering breaking news, journalists are required to come up with story ideas to fill space in the paper or airtime on the radio or television. You may be tasked with following a specific industry or keeping up with trends in various arenas. Journalism allows you to follow those subjects and topics that interest you and that you want to learn more about. Whatever your interests, as a journalist, you can often pursue your passion and get paid for it.

Weakness:

It's true that you might have a chance to meet a celebrity or powerful politician and even be on TV, but journalism involves a lot more thankless hard work than just showing up and getting your makeup done. To survive and thrive in the industry, be ready for long hours, low pay and plenty of stress about deadlines.

 Journalists put in extraordinarily long hours researching stories and tracking down and interviewing sources, and that's not to mention the time it takes to actually produce the story. Even the regular TV and newspaper jobs can include 10 or more hours a day on the job, and usually at odd hours. Journalists who work on morning TV shows may arrive at work at 1 a.m. to prepare for a 5 a.m. broadcast, and when big stories break, staffers may be called in to cover news on their days off.

Journalists are constantly "under deadline." When stories happen, news outlets are motivated to be the first ones on the scene, the first ones to report the story, the first ones to get that key interview -- and that puts tremendous pressure on the entire news team to deliver effective, non-biased, truthful reports quickly. Reporters must move quickly and analyze information on the fly, all while dealing with interviewees who may have just undergone a serious trauma or financial disaster. If you want to understand the definition of stress, walk into a newsroom in the minutes after a major news story breaks. With the advent of the Internet and the subsequent changes in the publishing industry, the field of journalism has undergone tremendous changes since the end of the 20th century. Journalists who once held esteemed jobs as TV producers, newspaper reporters or magazine editors have had to reinvent themselves as web writers, bloggers or social media experts -- and often at a significant reduction in pay. Journalists no longer have a single path toward success; rather, they must be prepared to handle the news for print, broadcast or digital platforms every day.

Opportunities:

In the 21st century, the mass media is rapidly developing. And this fact is a great opportunity for young journalists. Previously, journalists could only work in state channels, but now they can go to work in private channels. And those journalists who know different languages can work abroad. In modern times, journalism includes a lot of specialties so you can safely choose a specialty for your taste.

Internet and all kinds of online applications have made the job of journalists a lot easier. It is easier to find information, to explore archives, to find statistics, to contact sources and to search for experts. Although the workload of a journalist has become higher. On the one hand the job has become easier but on the other hand it can be difficult for journalists because the audience is more critical.

Citizens can help journalists to check information, to provide them with pictures and videos of breaking news and they can help them to analyze large and loads of information. Journalists should use this opportunity to cooperate with their audiences. Citizen journalists and professional journalists should work together. It is mutually beneficial.

Threats:

Is journalism under threat? The image of journalists, as helmeted war correspondents protected by bullet-proof vests and armed only with cameras and microphones, springs to mind. Physical threats are only the most visible dangers, however. Journalists and journalism itself are facing other threats such as censorship, political and economic pressure, intimidation, job insecurity and attacks on the protection of journalists’ sources. Social media and digital photography mean that anyone can now publish information, which is also upsetting the ethics of journalism.

Journalists are professional people, trying to work within a code of professional ethics. As we saw in the last chapter, this includes the need to be fair to all parties involved in any news story.

However, journalists cannot operate in a vacuum, doing what they think is right without pressures being put on them. Journalists face pressure from a variety of sources, all trying to make the journalist behave in a way which is not the way the journalist would choose.

It is important that you try to resist all these forms of pressure, as far as possible.

Of course, you will sometimes fail. This is an imperfect world, and journalists are also imperfect.