As we all know, our life is digitalized now, we are encircled by social media platforms, websites, and a lot of incidents that are occurring every single minute, thus we are exposed to fake news and true ones.
This digitalized era has revolutionized journalism and doubled the work of journalists. They should search for news, fact check it, use multimedia tools, and learn new skills like photoshop, video editing, and more.
So, here are some digital skills every journalist must acquire in order to search, fact check, and deliver the right message in a professional, and digitalized way.
1. Learn editing techniques
News published in video form gets more likes and will be shared more, in addition, it will deliver the message in an easy and understandable way. All you have to do is go to YouTube, check tutorials, and download the suitable application.
Most of the field journalists are relying on using videos to deliver their messages in a quick and attractive way, for that you need to write a solid script.
You can use KineMaster a mobile editing application; it exceeded 80 million global downloads, and has over 18 million monthly active members.
2. Use Livestream Option
You are in the field and an incident is taking place, turn on the live streaming on Facebook, or Instagram. It is the best way to pass on the message quickly and the audience will stay updated but keep in mind journalistic ethics like if there is an accident don’t shoot the dead bodies or don’t film underaged people.
Go live on Twitter and use the Periscope app an application that lets you share live video streams from a smartphone.
3. Use Social Media Platforms
As we said in the previous articles if you are not available online; you are not available no-where!! And if you are a journalist with no online presence, that is a big mistake! Use all these platforms to get closer to your audience, they can be your reference, you can check with them what’s going around in their region, they are a worthy source.
Social media platforms will advertise your work, for example, you did a worth reading article or report, why not share it on Instagram or Facebook? or even on your blog! In this way, you will get more impressions and your videos/articles will get a higher reach.
And if you are out of ideas, always ask your audience what topic they are interested in, so in this way, you will always have content to work on.
4. Always Fact Check
News is spreading worldwide in no time, and many journalists post fake news in order to stay on the top of the list, so as journalists we should always fact check news before publishing it. In that way, you will stay a credible and trustworthy source.
There are many tools you can use to fact check news, first of all, check the source of news, call the people who are within this incident, check the resolution of the image or video, use Google Reverse to check the image, GPS Geolocation, and more.
5. Use Online Calendar
Journalists have an exceedingly hectic life for that better to be organized. Have an online calendar that reminds you of the tasks and upcoming events or meetings. There is an amazing app named Trello that can manage your schedule.
6. Track SEO Keywords
In order to rank better on Google or on any social media platform, you should always use the targeted keywords, as a result you will always appear in the audience search list and you will get more views and interactions.
And if there is no idea in mind to write about, you can check what people are searching for and write an article immediately. There are many websites to check the most searched keywords like Keyword Tools, Soovle, Google Trends, and more.
7. Always Stay Up-to-Date
Being a journalist is a great thing, but keeping yourself updated and enriched with knowledge is an amazing thing. Always seek new information, take online courses, expand your public relations zone and learn new aspects of content creation.
8. Produce Creative Content
Always produce creative content that attracts your audience and enrich them with new information, and keep in mind to use multimedia tools, if you are writing an article use images, and videos. If you are producing a video, use some music in the background and some pop-out stickers, and write an attractive script.
These are some essential skills that every journalist must acquire to shine in the digitalized era, and the most important thing is to stay online and stay updated to succeed in the world of digital journalism.