ABSTRACT
The most important equipment reporters have is that which is carried around between their ears.
(Randall, 2007: 4)
Journalism is a process of finding things out and telling people about them. Its products are newspapers, magazines, bulletins, programmes, documentaries, features and websites. These products can be accessed via a computer, a mobile phone, a radio, a television or bought over the counter. The world of journalism is, in some ways, more complex and uncertain than it’s ever been, but at bottom very little has changed: journalism is about people, the things they do and the things that happen to them. Journalists tell stories, real ones, significant ones – stories that draw in listeners, viewers and readers because they want to know what’s happening. Journalism is an intellectual activity: ‘Decent journalism, never mind great journalism, is not a matter of technique, it is a matter of intelligence’ (ibid.: 2007: 232).
