Friday, April 22, 2016

Career Goals for An Aspiring Journalist



As a broadcast journalist being one of the better storytellers in the business is the consummate goal. As an aspiring sports reporter with the eye of going from a small market to a medium then a major market that type of work ethic to tell the story should shine and work as a branding tool for you the reporter. It brings back to light the week five discussions on branding yourself and what it means to actually brand as an independent person.

A trend has been happening ever since the growth of social media and that is self promotion and branding. Journalists and reporters getting out their stories with a link while also adding a small description. The writing quality and the gained following only help the individuals doing the branding and promotion for themselves as writers or broadcasters. It definitely can be argued that this is one of the most important aspects of this business and class. How are you making yourself unique in the eyes of your target audience?

In the sports and news world people recognize the better storytellers in the business of journalism. Branding goes beyond the name. It is all the pieces that communicate to the reader, listener and viewer about who you are and what you do. For me this is key to understand and continue to work at because getting noticed online, through social media and your stories being shown on-air is tough to do nowadays because as Michael Hyatt would put “It is just too Noisy.”

Ways of sharing the stories have gone from Facebook to twitter as two main user realms that help grow your audience or get you one.  A chance to get views, likes and listens. For example, I have a sound cloud account I was a reporter this year for a High school basketball show in West Virginia called Basketball Friday Night. I would report on the stories of our standout athletes of the week. Trying something new I posted a link to one of my stories from sound cloud on twitter. The story went from zero listens to ten. I found that linking the stories to my social media accounts helped my listening total number as my followers continued to click on the links and hear the story on the standout-athlete.


No one is better at knowing your platform than yourself. The process for branding takes time but can be built to your benefit without the need for hiring outside help. If you have done a great job of this self promotion and building of quality work not only is there audience growth but audience trust for you the writer and broadcaster. Everything hinted at in this post is something I need to be aware of. Making sure I utilize all these aspects to the fullest extent to help build a following and audience. This connection comes full circle for any journalist wanting to make a name for themselves in a crowded and competitive field.

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