Introduction
I will be looking at the personality, qualities and skills possessed by a Magazine Journalist. I will specifically be looking at their physical contribution to the production of a magazine and the variety of communication between the individual and the rest of the development team they are working with.
Written Communication
The written materials which are produced for a magazine is mainly draft articles, this is essentially pitching your ideas and concepts to an editor who will look over your work and decide if you need to add, change or develop any of your ideas. It is important for a Magazine Journalist to be able to translate their ideas onto paper for higher management to look over to save the journalists time and to ensure that the magazines needs have been fufilled. It is a creative skill for the writer to make the narrative exciting and engaging for the target audience. Pre-production is a key aspect of being a magazine journalist development and looking into the legal side has to be well documented in order to ensure that the writer doesn't come across any problems in the future, making everything he/she does politically correct in order to not offend anyone (this mainly applies for publications in the mainstream media). During the magazine unit I ensured that all written documents about the magazine clearly explained and outlined my ideas and what they were about and how I am ensuring that I stick to rules set by Ofcom. I also made written notes of my feedback to ensure that I could improve them to a decent standard which I would hope engaged the audience.
Verbal Communication
Between each member of a magazine production team, there can be a varied number of specialists, depening on the publication. The journalists and photography team as well as the chief editor need to be able to verbally communicate and explain their ideas for the product, to both colleagues and publishers .Throughout my unit 14 I have been able to use verbal communication effectively to explain my ideas to the people around me in order to gain feedback and improve my articles and concepts for relevant articles. For this I also needed good time management skills to fufill the dealine for this specific unit. I think that I had fullfilled this role successfully from my planning of magazine, with key wire frames and flat packs to the actual production of the magazine using industry programs like InDesign.
Practical Production
The responsibility of a Magazine journalist is to write a set ammount of articles for a magazine, such as reviews.I used other magazines to help inspire me and show me what industry standard was for magazine reviews. I looked at gaming magazines like Xbox magazine and music reviewing websites such as RollingStone Magazine and Billboard. This really did help and guide me to making key descriptions and giving the reader insight on my opinions on games. After I did this I created graphics, layouts and all the other essentials needed to create a magazine.
Creativity
I created draft articles and wireframes, for the magazine articles and their placement on my page, as well as looking into key features that are essential to each seperate piece of writing. For example an ediotrial has completely different conventions when compared to reviewing a piece. I believe that this use of creativity and effort put into each article will help me stan out as a writer compared to a fair ammount of writers who specialise in reviewing, or giving step by step guides. The most essential tool I used to help guide my creativity besides the interent and other magazines was simply Microsoft Word, a program that is very basic to use but is really powerful. The way you can change sentences without worrying about making a mistake is so ideal and helpful when looking over weach sentence to see what works better. Microsoft Word also has the essential spell checking too, as I am not the best speller int he world this is a great use of the program for me.
Areas for further Development - Skill Gaps and Action Plan
Reviewing my performance as a magazine journalist. In evaluation, I think that I could have improved my work in the role of the magazine journalist by researching more into more different words by using a thesarus, expanding my vocabulary is a great way of helping a writer to ecxpress themselves while getting there message out more clear to the audeince. I would have also chosen a few different topics, and maybe change the entire concept of my magazine to a music magazine, as that aspect of journalism seems more interesting to me rather than gaming.
If I would have spent more time improving my planning by creating extra articles, then I wouldnt have had to settle with the ideas that I did havem this would have helped expand my ccreative process and vision and may have completely improved the magazine all together. With my main review on GTA V, this page was initially a review for Command and Conquer. But after careful consideration I went for the GTA V idea as I had more interest and knowledge on this game. I was very pleased with the final product and all of the articles, and graphics which I created. However, in order to improve the overall look of the magazine I would need to improve my design skills and knowledge on InDesign as I did struggle a fair ammount. This would be beneficial as the magazine did look how I wanted it to, and read very well. It just simply took longer than it normal would have to produce. I would improve my skills and knowledge mainly by YouTube tutorials like the one below in order to improve my designing skills and knowledge.
Another improvement that I could use would involve me using programs like Grammarly, which catches up to 10 times the ammount of spelling and grammar issues that word finds. This would be able to help improve the quality control of my magazine, though Word did a more than adequate job for this Unit. The best way to become a great Magazine Journalist is to gain experience in the industry and constantly practice your specialism so that you can bring something unique and impressive to employers. I think these skills will come to me over time with tons of practise and dedication to the craft of writing. Another great way to improve my skills is to constantly read other peoples work and potentially pastiching great techniques professionals have used to help influence and upgrade my own style of writing. Essentially adding my own twist on other great techniques used in the industy to make myself unique, but up to industy standard.
In order to gain a more in-depth understanding of magazine journalism and gain key contacts and skills within the industry; my action plan is as follows:
2016 July
I have booked a short 3 day course; 'Effective Writing for Journalist' at London College of Communication ( 11/07/2016 - 13/07/2016). This course will sharpen my writing skills in order to prepare me for my degree and future in the competitive world of journalism. By the end of this course I should be able to demonstrate an understanding effective writing for journalism, write a good headline, have the confidence to develop my own writing style and effectively and efficiently communicate a story
2016-2019
Study Journalism (BA Hons) at Kingston University London, starting September 2016, succeeding my media course at UTC Sheffield. I first gained an interest in journalism during my experience of studying Media at UTC, aswell as my creative writing A level. I was able to develop my writing skills, exercise critical and analytical skills in filtering information, investigating facts and presenting them on public platforms (such as personal bloge, and blogger etc). I have realised that this is something I really enjoy and as for higher education, I am eager to progress further in multimedia journalism. This is reiterated from my work within Unit 14. I have had the opportunity to expand my understanding of journalism from people who work or have worked for successful newspaper agencies / mass communication organizations such as the BBC which happened in creative writing where we got to talk to a journalist. I am also planning to volunteer for a few weeks at a local news agency, such as The Star, while studying at university, during term breaks.So that I can begin as soon I finish my course. This shall be beneficial to my studies and experience in the industry.
2019
There are many options from which I can decide after graduating university with a 3 year degree in Journalism (BA). I may try to obtain a job in journalism, or perhaps secure an apprenticeship at companies. I also have the choice to continue at university onto a Masters Degree, PhD.
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