Posted: December 29th, 2015

Journalism Briefing – Professional Development Plan

Assessment 3 Briefing – Professional Development Plan
Word length – 1500-2000 words

You should post your plan on your blogs. You can write one long post or do a series of posts, whose combined word count is 1500-2000.

The idea behind this assessment is to get you to start thinking more about your own personal and professional development, so that you can make the most of your time on the course and can graduate in a good position to get the kind of job you want.

We also want you to think about jobs in journalism in a different way, to move beyond traditional roles and platforms and think more about the different things journalists actually do. We also want to build your professional awareness of how modern journalists work, what skills and knowledge they need to succeed.

You should try to answer two key questions in this plan:

• What kind of journalist do you want to be when you graduate?
• What do you need to learn while on the course to be that kind of journalist?

The best way to put your plan together would be to write three different sections.

Section 1 – Analysing publications and journalists you admire
This should focus on the places you want to work and journalists you admire. Start by picking a place you want to work – it could be a print or online publication, a magazine, a broadcast programme, a channel, a website or blog. Explain what’s good about the place you choose, say why it’s good and why you want to work there.

Next, pick a journalist whose work you admire. Explain why you admire them. Pick an example of their work – a story, feature, column, documentary, whatever you like. Try to describe the work and what’s good about it. Try to work out how the journalist got the story – think about the skills they needed, the access and the specialist knowledge.