Right now, when I look at everything in perspective it’s easy to feel like a small fish in very strange waters. When I think of the type of journalist that I want to be my first thought is that I have to be different to everyone else.
I’d like to develop my own niche within the journalism market that people avidly come to my work specifically to see. I don’t want to be another random name at the bottom of a story. I would inevitably like to have a strong body of work similar to that of Sir David Attenborough but in terms of culture and trending news (as opposed to animal documentaries).
My journalism will have an aim of service to the public. The primary role would be to help explain complicated topics such as wars or societal issues that could quickly become boring if they were just to be read from a traditional newspaper. My target market would be those that prefer watching over reading and primarily those aged between 16-30. This specific age range is my target as I feel they will be most interested in my presentation of the information.
The nature of the documentaries I would like to produce urges me towards freelance work. Vice is one of the only platforms that comes close to the authenticity I want for my work.
I would like the freedom to find stories that I can personally go out and chase wherever in the world they may be. I wouldn’t want to do desk research unless elements of the research were too unethical or dangerous to go and carry out. Although I appreciate I may have to start with desk work.
The best way for me to start my journalism career would be to focus on a generalist approach to which stories I write about until I find my market and become a specialist. Writing about a variety of things will aide to developing my writing talents as opposed to specialing straight away and becoming overly comfortable with one style.
Matt Thompson suggests that there are four types of journalists; the storyteller; the newshound; the systems analyst; and the provocateur.
Personally, I connect to the role of the storyteller more than any other style. I enjoy having a beginning middle and end to my pieces whether that’s in written text, video or audio content.
I think that stories are best communicated when they are personalised. A great example would be the viral ‘Kony 2012’ video. The video went viral due to the association of child slavery to the young boy named Jacob who was featured in the video. This made the video more relatable and sensitised the ordeal to the viewers that watched. I hope to achieve this method in a lot of my own works of art.
By Mazvita Musendo
The unorganised undergrad makes her masterpieces here. 