When I entered Shanghai International Studies University five years ago, majoring in International Journalism, my Chinese journalism professor once told me that to be a successful correspondent, I should master three basic skills: the first skill is reporting, the most basic skill for a correspondent; the second is proficiency in a foreign language accessing to cross-culture and bilingual reporting; and the last one is driving, which means we can reach the scene as soon as possible to get the news.
However, the world has changed a lot in the past five years. The above skills are not enough on the journey of a successful reporter.
I used to be only interested in paper journalism, which usually have different work division for reporters and photojournalists. But during my work for Shanghai Morning Post as a film reporter, I found it extremely important for a journalist to command the skill of photography, for so many newsworthy things will happen aroud you just unexpectedly. The celebrities may suddenly cry, become angry, burst into laughter or do things out of expectation which would make you feel regret if you didn’t catch the moment.
Sometimes, pictures speak louder than words. An image has no age, language or intelligence limits. Since then, I established a habit that wherever I go, I will take my camera with me. Though I took a photojournalism class in college, I found that it was hard for me to use the skills in my daily work. When news broke out, my first and only reaction is pressing the button without a moment’s thought of taking a nice picture. Sometimes, I find that a reporter, if he grasps the skill of shooting, would take better photos than a photojournalist does, because he knows which pictures his story needs. That’s one of the reasons I am in the Journalists’ Toolkit course, I want to learn more about photojournalism.
In the past, different media seem to have a clear dividing line, press just needs pictures and articles, radio needs audio, and TV needs video. But after the boost of new media, the internet, things have been changed a lot. The dividing line is now fading–the press may also have their own websites, in which, video and audio are required, while TV put some investigation and deeper analysis articles on the websites. Being a good journalist who can meet different challenges seems to be a must for a journalist.
Technologies in communication field are developing quickly, we must keep the pace. Maybe in the future, a journalist should choose the way of reporting when he or she faces an news-event: news writing or shooting? And all serve the audience.
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