example of journalistic essay

Free Journalism Essay Examples & Topics

A journalism essay is a type of paper that combines personal records and reports. Besides news and facts, it should contain a story. An angle that creates a unique narrative of the events you are describing is crucial. However, let’s start with the definition.

No matter how often people hear about journalism, they still might get confused about what it is. It is an act of informative writing about news stories. It can be digital and non-digital, print and non-print. Journalists strive to present information in an interesting way while staying true to the source.

If you have seen journalistic article examples, you know there are two types. News can cover “hard stories”, meaning world events and politics, and “softer stories” about celebrities, science, etc. Journalism as a profession is multidimensional in nature. It can include texts, photography, interviews, and more. Content varies between different categories, such as literary reportage and yellow journalism.

Here, our experts have combined tips about how to write a good journalistic essay. We gathered information that will be useful for starting research and completing it. Moreover, you will find journalism topic ideas. You can use them for inspiration or to practice. Finally, underneath the article you will discover some stellar journalistic essay examples written by other students.

How to Write a Journalistic Essay

In this section, you’ll find tips that can help you start writing. However, nothing is more vital than choosing an appropriate journalism essay topic beforehand.

Before picking the subject, ask yourself several questions:

• What themes do I want to explore?
• What will my story be about?
• What points do I want to make?
• What is my attitude towards the topic?

Answering these questions can allow you to improve your storytelling. What’s more, look for one that can allow you to write intimately. Personal touches and views will influence your paper immensely. With all that in mind, try our free topic generator to get more ideas.

To write an outstanding journalistic essay, you should try these tips:

• Gather facts and references first.

Collect all the information you may need for your paper. For a story in journalism, you may be required to interview people or visit a location. Most importantly, you’ll have to research online. Also, you can read stories written by other people on the Internet to gain a better perspective.

• Organize your ideas and arguments before writing.

A good story is always organized. The structure of a journalistic should represent an inverted pyramid. The most crucial facts appear on the top, less important details go further, and extra information stays on the bottom. You can reflect in your writing. Organize all your arguments before writing, sticking to a logical structure.

• Rely on storytelling.

The story should become the main focus of your work. The writing should serve it and grab the reader’s attention from the start. Think about storytelling techniques that can keep your reader interested till the very end.

• Work on your style and language.

Another essential technique to keep your work both logical and engaging is to write in short sentences. If you search for any journalistic writing examples, you’ll see that’s how journalists write. The main goal of your paper is to deliver a clear and strong message. So, working on your style is going to help you further this agenda.

21 Journalism Essay Topics

There are so many journalism topics you can write about, and it can sometimes be challenging to stick to one. If you are still unsure what to describe and explore in your paper, this section can help you make this choice.

Here are some original journalism topic ideas:

• The way race impacts the news in different states in the US.
• Super Bowl as a phenomenon is more important than the game.
• Why people refuse to believe in climate change.
• How have sports changed international politics?
• Is creative writing in high school an essential subject?
• How vital is transparency in broadcast journalism?
• Is media responsible for the Covid-19 crisis in the US?
• Journalism as a profession can help change the world.
• A privacy issue between British journalism and the royal family.
• Are social media and blogging the future of journalism?
• The role of religion and race in Hollywood.
• Why has the Chinese economy risen so much over the past decade?
• How can media help in battling poverty in developing countries?
• Can music be used as political propaganda?
• Connections between social media and depression.
• Should mobile phones be allowed in educational institutions?
• Has the Internet impacted the way how newspapers and articles are written?
• Should fake news be banned on social media?
• What are the biggest challenges of investigative journalism?
• Can reality television be viewed as a type of journalism?
• How can athletes impact social awareness?

Thank you for reading the article! We hope you will find it helpful. Do not hesitate to share this article or a list of journalism essay examples with others. Good luck with your assignment!

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How to Write a Journalistic Essay

Jessica cook.

A journalistic essay is a combination of journalistic reporting and personal essay writing. A newspaper article contains straight journalistic reporting most of the time, while a personal essay tells a story. In a journalistic essay, you must combine these elements in order to tell a story with a factual basis in reporting.

Do your research. The basis of a journalistic essay must be factual; you should use your skills as a journalist to interview the people involved with the story you want to tell and research any available background information. Record interviews, take notes, and spend time at the library or online researching the information you need for the story. Take photos as you conduct your research so you can add them to your essay or at least use them to help you remember important information.

Organize your facts. Begin your essay by outlining your factual information and organizing it in a manner that is easy to understand. You do not always have to tell a story in chronological order; instead, consider how to tell the story in a way that will keep your readers interested from beginning to end.

Write your essay in a clear and concise manner. Avoid overly flowery or confusing sentences; you should strive to make your point clear, not to impress your reader with your vast vocabulary skills.

Let the story be the important part of your essay, not your writing. Your writing should showcase the story in the best light, hooking your reader's interest and keeping it until the end.

• 1 The Guardian: How Journalists Write, by Peter Cole

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Journalistic writing is, as you might expect, the style of writing used by journalists. It is therefore a term for the broad style of writing used by news media outlets to put together stories.

Every news media outlet has its own ‘house’ style, which is usually set out in guidelines. This describes grammar and style points to be used in that publication or website. However, there are some common factors and characteristics to all journalistic writing.

This page describes the five different types of journalistic writing. It also provides some tips for writing in journalistic style to help you develop your skills in this area.

The Purpose of Journalistic Writing

Journalistic writing has a very clear purpose: to attract readers to a website, broadcaster or print media. This allows the owners to make money, usually by selling advertising space.

Newspapers traditionally did not make most of their money by selling newspapers. Instead, their main income was actually from advertising. If you look back at an early copy of the London Times , for example (from the early 1900s), the whole front page was actually advertisements, not news.

The news and stories are only a ‘hook’ to bring in readers and keep advertisers happy.

Journalists therefore want to attract readers to their stories—and then keep them.

They are therefore very good at identifying good stories, but also telling the story in a way that hooks and keeps readers interested.

Types of Journalistic Writing

There are five main types of journalistic writing:

Investigative journalism aims to discover the truth about a topic, person, group or event . It may require detailed and in-depth exploration through interviews, research and analysis. The purpose of investigative journalism is to answer questions.

News journalism reports facts, as they emerge . It aims to provide people with objective information about current events, in straightforward terms.

Feature writing provides a deeper look at events, people or topics , and offer a new perspective. Like investigative journalism, it may seek to uncover new information, but is less about answering questions, and more about simply providing more information.

Columns are the personal opinions of the writer . They are designed to entertain and persuade readers, and sometimes to be controversial and generate discussion.

Reviews describe a subject in a factual way, and then provide a personal opinion on it . They are often about books or television programmes when published in news media.

The importance of objectivity

It should be clear from the list of types of journalistic writing that journalists are not forbidden from expressing their opinions.

However, it is important that any journalist is absolutely clear when they are expressing their opinion, and when they are reporting on facts.

Readers are generally seeking objective writing and reporting when they are reading news or investigative journalism, or features. The place for opinions is columns or reviews.

The Journalistic Writing Process

Journalists tend to follow a clear process in writing any article. This allows them to put together a compelling story, with all the necessary elements.

This process is:

1. Gather all necessary information

The first step is to gather all the information that you need to write the story.

You want to know all the facts, from as many angles as possible. Journalists often spend time ‘on site’ as part of this process, interviewing people to find out what has happened, and how events have affected them.

Ideally, you want to use primary sources: people who were actually there, and witnessed the events. Secondary sources (those who were told by others what happened) are very much second-best in journalism.

2. Verify all your sources

It is crucial to establish the value of your information—that is, whether it is true or not.

A question of individual ‘truth’

It has become common in internet writing to talk about ‘your truth’, or ‘his truth’.

There is a place for this in journalism. It recognises that the same events may be experienced and interpreted in different ways by different people.

However, journalists also need to recognise that there are always some objective facts associated with any story. They must take time to separate these objective facts from opinions or perceptions and interpretations of events.

3. Establish your angle

You then need to establish your story ‘angle’ or focus: the aspect that makes it newsworthy.

This will vary with different types of journalism, and for different news outlets. It may also need some thought to establish why people should care about your story.

4. Write a strong opening paragraph

Your opening paragraph tells readers why they should bother to read on.

It needs to summarise the five Ws of the story: who, what, why, when, and where.

5. Consider the headline

Journalists are not necessarily expected to come up with their own headlines. However, it helps to consider how a piece might be headlined.

Being able to summarise the piece in a few words is a very good way to ensure that you are clear about your story and angle.

6. Use the ‘inverted pyramid’ structure

Journalists use a very clear structure for their stories. They start with the most important information (the opening paragraph, above), then expand on that with more detail. Finally, the last section of the article provides more information for anyone who is interested.

This means that you can therefore glean the main elements of any news story from the first paragraph—and decide if you want to read on.

Why the Inverted Pyramid?

The inverted pyramid structure actually stems from print journalism.

If typesetters could not fit the whole story into the space available, they would simply cut off the last few sentences until the article fitted.

Journalists therefore started to write in a way that ensured that the important information would not be removed during this process!

7. Edit your work carefully

The final step in the journalistic writing process is to edit your work yourself before submitting it.

Newsrooms and media outlets generally employ professional editors to check all copy before submitting it. However, journalists also have a responsibility to check their work over before submission to make sure it makes sense.

Read your work over to check that you have written in plain English , and that your meaning is as clear as possible. This will save the sub-editors and editors from having to waste time contacting you for clarifications.

Journalistic Writing Style

As well as a very clear process, journalists also share a common style.

This is NOT the same as the style guidelines used for certain publications (see box), but describes common features of all journalistic writing.

The features of journalistic writing include:

Short sentences . Short sentences are much easier to read and understand than longer ones. Journalists therefore tend to keep their sentences to a line of print or less.

Active voice . The active voice (‘he did x’, rather than ‘x was done by him’) is action-focused, and shorter. It therefore keeps readers’ interest, and makes stories more direct and personal.

Quotes. Most news stories and journalistic writing will include quotes from individuals. This makes the story much more people-focused—which is more likely to keep readers interested. This is why many press releases try to provide quotes (and there is more about this in our page How to Write a Press Release ).

Style guidelines

Most news media have style guidelines. They may share these with other outlets (for example, by using the Associated Press guidelines), or they may have their own (such as the London Times style guide).

These guidelines explain the ‘house style’. This may include, for example, whether the outlet commonly uses an ‘Oxford comma’ or comma placed after the penultimate item in a list, and describe the use of capitals or italics for certain words or phrases.

It is important to be aware of these style guidelines if you are writing for a particular publication.

Journalistic writing is the style used by news outlets to tell factual stories. It uses some established conventions, many of which are driven by the constraints of printing. However, these also work well in internet writing as they grab and hold readers’ attention very effectively.

Continue to: Writing for the Internet Cliches to Avoid

See also: Creative Writing Technical Writing Coherence in Writing

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from training.npr.org: https://training.npr.org/2016/10/12/leads-are-hard-heres-how-to-write-a-good-one/

• Style Guide

A good lead is everything — here's how to write one

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(Deborah Lee/NPR)

I can’t think of a better way to start a post about leads than with this:

“The most important sentence in any article is the first one. If it doesn’t induce the reader to proceed to the second sentence, your article is dead.” — William Zinsser, On Writing Well

No one wants a dead article! A story that goes unread is pointless. The lead is the introduction — the first sentences — that should pique your readers’ interest and curiosity. And it shouldn’t be the same as your radio intro, which t ells listeners what the story is about and why they should care. In a written story, that’s the function of the “nut graph” (which will be the subject of a future post) — not the lead.

The journalism lead’s  main job (I’m personally fond of the  nostalgic spelling , “lede,” that derives from the bygone days of typesetting when newspaper folks needed to differentiate the lead of a story from the  lead  of hot type) is to make the reader want to stay and spend some precious time with whatever you’ve written. It sets the tone and pace and direction for everything that follows. It is the puzzle piece on which the rest of the story depends. To that end, please write your lead first — don’t undermine it by going back and thinking of one to slap on after you’ve finished writing the rest of the story.

Coming up with a good lead is hard. Even the most experienced and distinguished writers know this. No less a writer than John McPhee has called it “ the hardest part of a story to write.” But in return for all your effort, a good lead will do a lot of work for you — most importantly, it will make your readers eager to stay awhile.

There are many different ways to start a story. Some examples of the most common leads are highlighted below. Sometimes they overlap. (Note: These are not terms of art.)

Straight news lead

Just the facts, please, and even better if interesting details and context are packed in. This kind of lead works well for hard news and breaking news.

Some examples:

“After mass street protests in Poland, legislators with the country’s ruling party have abruptly reversed their positions and voted against a proposal to completely ban abortion.” (By NPR’s Camila Domonoske )

“The European Parliament voted Tuesday to ratify the landmark Paris climate accord, paving the way for the international plan to curb greenhouse gas emissions to become binding as soon as the end of this week.” (By NPR’s Rebecca Hersher )

“The United States announced it is suspending efforts to revive a cease-fire in Syria, blaming Russia’s support for a new round of airstrikes in the city of Aleppo.” (By NPR’s Richard Gonzales )

All three leads sum up the news in a straightforward, clear way — in a single sentence. They also hint at the broader context in which the news occurred.

Anecdotal lead

This type of lead uses an anecdote to illustrate what the story is about.

Here’s a powerful anecdotal lead to a story about Brazil’s murder rate and gun laws by NPR’s Lulu Garcia-Navarro :

“At the dilapidated morgue in the northern Brazilian city of Natal, Director Marcos Brandao walks over the blood-smeared floor to where the corpses are kept. He points out the labels attached to the bright metal doors, counting out loud. It has not been a particularly bad night, yet there are nine shooting victims in cold storage.”

We understand right away that the story will be about a high rate of gun-related murder in Brazil. And this is a much more vivid and gripping way of conveying it than if Lulu had simply stated that the rate of gun violence is high.

Lulu also does a great job setting the scene. Which leads us to …

Scene-setting lead

Byrd Pinkerton, a 2016 NPR intern, didn’t set foot in this obscure scholarly haven , but you’d never guess it from the way she draws readers into her story:

“On the second floor of an old Bavarian palace in Munich, Germany, there’s a library with high ceilings, a distinctly bookish smell and one of the world’s most extensive collections of Latin texts. About 20 researchers from all over the world work in small offices around the room.”

This scene-setting is just one benefit of Byrd’s thorough reporting. We even get a hint of how the place smells.

First-person lead

The first-person lead should be used sparingly. It means you, the writer, are immediately a character in your own story. For purists, this is not a comfortable position. Why should a reader be interested in you? You need to make sure your first-person presence is essential — because you experienced something or have a valuable contribution and perspective that justifies conveying the story explicitly through your own eyes. Just make sure you are bringing your readers along with you.

Here, in the spirit of first-personhood, is an example from one of my own stories :

“For many of us, Sept. 11, 2001, is one of those touchstone dates — we remember exactly where we were when we heard that the planes hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. I was in Afghanistan.”

On a historic date, I was in a place where very few Americans were present, meaning I’m able to serve as a guide to that place and time. Rather than stating I was in Afghanistan in the first sentence, I tried to draw in readers by reminding them that the memory of Sept. 11 is something many of us share in common, regardless of where we were that day.

Observational lead

This kind of lead steps back to make an authoritative observation about the story and its broader context. For it to work, you need to understand not just the immediate piece you’re writing, but also the big picture. These are useful for stories running a day or more after the news breaks.

Here’s one by the Washington Post’s Karen Tumulty , a political reporter with decades of experience:

“At the lowest point of Donald Trump’s quest for the presidency, the Republican nominee might have brought in a political handyman to sand his edges. Instead, he put his campaign in the hands of a true believer who promises to amplify the GOP nominee’s nationalist message and reinforce his populist impulses.”

And here’s another by NPR’s Camila Domonoske , who knows her literary stuff, juxtaposing the mundane (taxes) with the highbrow (literary criticism):

“Tax records and literary criticism are strange bedfellows. But over the weekend, the two combined and brought into the world a literary controversy — call it the Ferrante Furor of 2016.”

Zinger lead

Edna Buchanan, the legendary, Pulitzer Prize-winning crime reporter for the Miami Herald , once said that a good lead should make a reader sitting at breakfast with his wife “spit out his coffee, clutch his chest and say, ‘My god, Martha. Did you read this?’”

That’s as good a definition as any of a “zinger” lead. These are a couple of Buchanan’s:

“His last meal was worth $30,000 and it killed him.” (A man died while trying to smuggle cocaine-filled condoms in his gut.)

“Bad things happen to the husbands of Widow Elkin.” (Ms. Elkin, as you might surmise, was suspected of bumping off her spouses.)

After Ryan Lochte’s post-Olympic Games, out-of-the-water escapades in Rio, Sally Jenkins, writing in the Washington Post , unleashed this zinger:

“Ryan Lochte is the dumbest bell that ever rang.”

Roy Peter Clark, of the Poynter Institute,  deconstructs Jenkins’ column here , praising her “short laser blast of a lead that captures the tone and message of the piece.”

Here are a few notes on things to avoid when writing leads:

• Clichés and terrible puns. This goes for any part of your story, and never more so than in the lead. Terrible puns aren’t just the ones that make a reader groan — they’re in bad taste, inappropriate in tone or both. Here’s one example .
• Long, rambling sentences. Don’t try to cram way too much information into one sentence or digress and meander or become repetitive. Clarity and simplicity rule.
• Straining to be clever. Don’t write a lead that sounds better than it means or promises more than it can deliver. You want your reader to keep reading, not to stop and figure out something that sounds smart but is actually not very meaningful. Here’s John McPhee again: “A lead should not be cheap, flashy, meretricious, blaring: After a tremendous fanfare of verbal trumpets, a mouse comes out of a hole, blinking.”
• Saying someone “could never have predicted.” It’s not an informative observation to say someone “could never have imagined” the twists and turns his or her life would take. Of course they couldn’t! It’s better to give the reader something concrete and interesting about that person instead.
• The weather . Unless your story is about the weather, the weather plays a direct role in it or it’s essential for setting the scene, it doesn’t belong in the lead. Here’s a story about Donald Trump’s financial dealings that would have lost nothing if the first, weather-referenced sentence had been omitted.

One secret to a good lead

Finally, good reporting will lead to good leads. If your reporting is incomplete, that will often show up in a weak lead. If you find yourself struggling to come up with a decent lead or your lead just doesn’t seem strong, make sure your reporting is thorough and there aren’t unanswered questions or missing details and points. If you’ve reported your story well, your lead will reflect this.

Further reading:

• A Poynter roundup of bad leads
• A classic New Yorker story by Calvin Trillin with a great lead about one of Buchanan’s best-known leads.
• A long read by John McPhee , discussing, among other things, “fighting fear and panic, because I had no idea where or how to begin a piece of writing for The New Yorker .” It happens to everyone!

Hannah Bloch is a digital editor for international news at NPR.

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The Pen of Rick Reilly: a Chronicle of Sports and Society

This essay about Rick Reilly examines the celebrated sports journalist’s significant impact on sports writing and society. Highlighting Reilly’s career from its inception, the essay discusses how his unique blend of humor, wit, and humanity transformed sports journalism, making it accessible and engaging for a broad audience. It emphasizes Reilly’s ability to transcend the traditional boundaries of sports reporting by weaving narratives that explore the intersection of sports, culture, and personal identity. The piece also acknowledges Reilly’s dedication to social commentary, using his platform to address critical issues and foster change. Through his mentorship and commitment to storytelling and ethical journalism, Reilly’s legacy extends beyond his own work, setting a standard for future generations in sports journalism. This essay celebrates Reilly’s contribution to not just sports writing, but to highlighting the unifying power of sports in reflecting and shaping societal values.

How it works

Rick Reilly, a name synonymous with sports journalism, has etched an indelible mark on the landscape of sports writing and commentary. With a career spanning decades, his contributions go beyond mere reporting; they weave narratives that capture the essence of sports and its impact on society. This essay aims to shed light on Reilly’s unique approach to sports journalism, his influence on the genre, and the lasting legacy of his work in bridging the gap between sports and broader societal issues.

Reilly’s journey in the realm of sports writing began in the late 20th century, a period when sports journalism was ripe for transformation. His ability to infuse humor, wit, and a deep sense of humanity into his stories set him apart from his contemporaries. Reilly wasn’t just reporting scores or interviewing athletes; he was telling stories that connected with readers on a personal level, making the world of sports accessible and relatable to even those with a fleeting interest in athletics.

Throughout his tenure at Sports Illustrated, ESPN, and other publications, Reilly mastered the art of the column, a space where he could blend observation, commentary, and storytelling. His pieces often went beyond the surface of games and competitions, delving into the lives of the athletes, the fervor of the fans, and the myriad ways in which sports intersect with culture, politics, and personal identity. It was this ability to see beyond the game and into the heart of the human experience that endeared Reilly to millions of readers worldwide.

One of Reilly’s most commendable traits was his commitment to leveraging his platform for social commentary and change. Through his writing, he addressed issues such as racism, sexism, and poverty, always with a hopeful tone that encouraged reflection and action. His work underscored the power of sports as a unifying force, capable of bridging divides and fostering a sense of community and shared humanity.

Moreover, Reilly’s influence extends beyond his written words. As a mentor to aspiring sports journalists, he emphasized the importance of storytelling, ethics, and the responsibility that comes with wielding a pen. His legacy is not just in the stories he told but in the standard he set for journalistic excellence and integrity.

In reflecting on Rick Reilly’s contributions to sports journalism, it becomes clear that his work transcends the boundaries of the sports section. He used sports as a lens to explore and comment on the human condition, making us laugh, think, and, at times, cry. As society continues to grapple with the issues Reilly wrote about, his body of work remains a testament to the enduring power of sports to reflect and shape our world.

In conclusion, Rick Reilly’s legacy is one of profound impact on sports journalism and society at large. His unique voice and perspective transformed the way we consume sports media, reminding us of the deeper stories that play out both on and off the field. As we look back on his illustrious career, we are reminded of the importance of storytelling in connecting us to the larger narrative of human experience. Reilly’s work continues to inspire and challenge us, a fitting tribute to a writer who saw sports as a window into the soul of society.

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PapersOwl.com. (2024). The Pen of Rick Reilly: A Chronicle of Sports and Society . [Online]. Available at: https://papersowl.com/examples/the-pen-of-rick-reilly-a-chronicle-of-sports-and-society/ [Accessed: 18 Apr. 2024]

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PapersOwl.com. (2024). The Pen of Rick Reilly: A Chronicle of Sports and Society . [Online]. Available at: https://papersowl.com/examples/the-pen-of-rick-reilly-a-chronicle-of-sports-and-society/ [Accessed: 18-Apr-2024]

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