Journalist

The starting salary for cub reporter / trainee could be anywhere between Rs1.2 lakhs– Rs 3 lakhs per month. For a mid-level employee the salaries range from Rs 8 – 12 lakhs per annum. For senior editors, salaries range from Rs.20 - 40 lakhs per annum.

Journalism is a career where almost every fresher begins as a cub reporter or trainee. Generally a beat is assigned and you are expected to deliver quality news stories with great efficiency. Once you have established your forte in a chosen field of reporting, you can qualify to be a Correspondent / Special Reporter, one who has the ability to interpret, analyse and present news with a totalitarian view. The next step would be that of a Sub Editor, one who sorts the content to be published; rewrites news stories and correct grammatical errors. A sub editor also checks news articles for their innovative headlines and therefore must be someone with a deep sense of news, language and imagination. In a news channel, this person is typically part of the input desk that fine tunes the stories that are to be aired. Next up is an Associate Editor who assigns stories to reporters, ensures they come in on time, plans parts of the paper, designs the layout, writes and readies news, reviews and critical analysis pieces. In the electronic medium, this person is part of assignment/ output desk; he assigns stories, brings various inputs, arranges for footage from remote locations, and is overall responsible for the news that is produced on a daily basis. Editor is the one who heads the ship. It’s a position that comes with years of experience and demonstrated career of great news reportage. An editor gives a news organisation a vision. Typically he/she is the one who decides the voice of the paper / magazine / channel. As the most definitive face of the organisation, the editor is a position of great power and greater responsibility.

Journalism at one time was the domain of whosoever wrote written content or reported on a news story. The person who got the visuals and photographs were often called cameraperson / photographer. Today, however much of that has changed. Photographers have transformed into photo-journalists with their active involvement in bringing newsworthy pictures. Similarly, videojournalism is a dynamic process in the electronic news gathering process.

Benjamin Franklin: Little do people know that the founding father of The United States was a journalist. He published The Pennnsylvania Gazette in 1730’s which he used as a propaganda tool to influence the populace leading up to the American Revolution.

Arnab Goswami, the famous news anchor on TV, started his career with NDTV as newscaster. Currently he is the editor-in-chief of Times Now English News Channel. He did his class XII from Kendriya Vidyalaya, Jabalpur and his graduation in Sociology from Delhi University. 

Vinod Dua, who shot to limelight with his current affairs Parakh for Doordarshan, is known for his cutting edge election and political analysis in NDTV's Hindi channel.

Shekhar Gupta: Editor in chief of The Indian Express, his long career in Indian Journalism began as a reporter, he covered some of the most courageous news stories like North ease insurgency and US terrorist attack and many more.

The typical news gathering process involves an edit meeting at the start of the day that sets the agenda for the entire day’s coverage. In terms of publications (depending on the time of publication), edit meetings are held in the evenings to plan the news coverage for the next day. News in monitored constantly through news wires to stay updated on breaking news and developing stories. Reporters in a newspaper typically cover one-two news events in a day. They return to their desks at the end of their events, and write their stories themselves. The news articles then reach the sub-editors who prune the copies to make them publish-worthy.

News Channels conduct edit meetings in the mornings, where they assign stories to reporters who track events, news conferences. Reporters spend much of the day on the field, covering news, from one location to another. Outdoor Broadcast Vans facilitate the news gathering process by helping news reporters file stories from remote locations. Technology has helped journalists who email / message news to the news desk while on-the-go. The news desk puts together the visuals, writes the script with inputs from the reporters, edits the stories and puts them in the bulletins to be aired.

News is an extremely dynamic industry. The job of a journalist never ends. It is a profession for someone who understands the pulse of news and enjoys living with it round-the-clock!

In case Journalism as a career option does not seem to be a good career fit then you can always explore the other career options that are listed on mapmytalent.in

Also one must always remember to take Aptitude Test and Personality Test to find which careers are suitable and fitting well for the person.

You may also like to read up on other such careers as:

Career as an Indian Navy Officer

Career as a Bank Officer

Career as an Indian Army Officer

IAS Officer as a career