The next step is to get a bachelor’s degree in journalism. Some people also study liberal arts at college or get a master’s degree in journalism. While at college, make the most of free time by gaining experience with the college newspaper, radio, or television station. The more experience one has, the better he/she will be at work.

In the print media, i.e., newspapers, magazines etc, journalists work as columnists, copy editors, editorial cartoonists, editorial writers, feature writers, news editors, photojournalists and reporters.

In the broadcast media, like television, journalists work as assignment editors, commentators, correspondents, news directors, newscasters, and news writers. The broadcast media offer higher salaries than do the print media.

Training in journalism also provides a background for careers in advertising, book publishing and public relations.

In this lesson, lets understand the third, very important step of  how to design a layout for your newsletter.

Keep the following points in mind and make a list:

1) Decide on the number of pages that your newsletter will contain.

2) Design a logo for your newsletter.

3) Take a sheet of paper and, using a pencil, roughly mark the places where you want the logo to appear, where you want the name of the newsletter to appear, and where you want the page numbers to appear.

A newsletter usually contains two columns for the write-ups.

Headings for articles are bolder and bigger than the rest of the writing. These should be neatly enclosed in a box drawn with a ruler. Collect jokes, trivia etc., and use them to fill up small spaces in the newsletter. You could also ask around if anyone wants to place a small advertisement in the newsletter. Ask them what size the advertisement will be, so that you can fit it in a column. If possible, offer to design the advertisement for them.

Finally, decide how many articles you want to write about and allot the number of columns for each. This is necessary so that you don’t end up with one extremely long article and another, which is very short! People will get bored! Short and interesting articles are very popular.

The next step is to use a fat notebook to make a rough copy of the newsletter. On the first page, make a table of contents in which you will write down the headings of all your topics. If you have time, number the pages and write the corresponding page number in front of the topic in the table of contents. This will make it easy for you to find an article without having to flip back and forth through the notebook. Take a topic one at a time and write an article on it. Refer to the material you have gathered in order to cover most of the points that you scribbled. Keep the language simple and clear and avoid using long, complicated words…you don’t want someone to sit with a dictionary while reading your newsletter, do you?

Editing your articles is very important before making the final copy. Check for spelling mistakes, grammar, and repeated sentences. The best way to edit it is to ask your mom or dad to read the articles and correct the mistakes. After editing, make a fair copy of the articles and let your mom and dad read it once more. Get the final copy printed on a computer printer and if possible, make photocopies and staple neatly. Then distribute the newsletter among your friends and neighbors.

If you have, we can go ahead and take the next step in preparing your Newsletter, which is gathering material. The best way to gather material is to ask friends to contribute articles on a variety of subjects. One could write about endangered animals, another could write about the latest events happening in school and so on.

Talking to older people, like your dad, mom, uncle, aunt, grandpa or grandma can be very helpful in getting information. Grandpa or Grandma could tell you about life in olden days, how they studied, whether they watched movies or not, what modes of transportation they used for going to school…and a lot of other things.

Take down rough notes in an exercise book.  Write an article like ‘Amazing facts about the year 1936’, or whatever else you can think of!! Your grandparents could also help you make a family tree and help you trace your ancestors. Wouldn’t it be fun if you got to know that you are, somehow, related to Isaac Newton? Think

Your neighborhood uncles and aunts could help you find out about the society you stay in, the society club, the facilities that your society offers etc. Information about your society could help everyone know about any important events that are scheduled to take place in your colony, or any important meetings for the adults that is going to take place.

The other way to gather material is to refer to encyclopedias, science magazines, and other types of books. Encyclopedias give detailed information on any topic. Read the topic and write an article on that topic in your own words. Wherever you can, draw pictures to add a little bit of life to the newsletter. The Internet also provides detailed information on any topic, but it can be a little expensive. Joining a library or using your school library is a cheaper and better way of gathering material.

Whatever method you use, be sure to stick to it till you think you have gathered enough material for your newsletter. Remember, your newsletter is going to represent YOU.

So, make sure you write interesting articles and make people want to read them again and again!

First of all, what is a Journal? A journal could be a newspaper, a magazine, a periodical, a ledger, a newsletter… and so on.

Preparing a Newsletter involves a lot of things. Start by choosing a topic. After you have thought of a topic, decide what age group you wish to write for and what extra activities you can put in the newsletter to make it interesting. These things could be games, quizzes, crossword puzzles, and so on.  It is important to plan a layout for the newsletter in order to arrange pictures and articles neatly and symmetrically.
This newsletter will be your own newspaper cum magazine. Ask your friends or your family to assist you in preparing the newsletter.

Follow these instructions carefully:

Decide on a name for your Newsletter. Once you have decided on a name for your newspaper or magazine, the first thing obviously is to decide what you are going to prepare it for. A few things you can prepare aNewspaper or Magazine for are:

1) Your school

2) Your family

3) Your building, your society, or the colony you stay in.

4) Topics of interest that you share with your friends, family and neighbors, like movies, sports, pets, nature, toys etc.

5) Topics that you wish to draw other peoples attention to, like the harm caused to the environment due to plastic bags, how you feel you should keep your surroundings clean, and so on.

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They are: 1) Newspapers 2) News Services 3) Magazines 4) Radio 4) Television, and the latest 5) The Internet.

Advertising, Public relations and publishing are also fields related journalism.

Newspapers

Newspapers cover a variety of stories from all over the world.

These stories are usually much more detailed than the ones presented on the television. Although television, radio, and the Internet are popular today, newspapers are still going strong because of this. Apart from reporting stories in detail, newspapers allot more space to news than does the television or the radio. For instance, a half-hour newscast on the television would fill only part of the front page of a standard newspaper. Newspapers also allow readers to read the news at their own pace, at their own time, unlike newscast which is aired at particular times. Newspaper readers can skip the items that they don’t find interesting. They cannot do that while listening to a newscast!

News Services

News services have journalists who gather news from around the world. The newspapers that don’t send their journalists all over the world rely on news services for news. To get news from a news service, a press has to be a member of the service and pay a certain fee to the service. This way, a small newspaper can also get international news without sending its journalists abroad.

Magazines

Magazines, like newspapers, make it easy for people to read news whenever it is convenient for them. Weekly magazines are very popular because of their colorful writing. These magazines also include regular articles in the arts, business, education, science, and other fields. Many magazines specialize in different fields, like business, fashion, television entertainment, medicine, banking, publishing and so on.

Radio

A radio is usually the first of the news media to report a local story. A radio announcer can interrupt a program with a news flash as soon as the report comes in. Most stations present newscasts every half-hour.

Millions of people depend on radio for regular newscast. Radios are convenient to carry and most require one or two batteries only. A person can easily carry a radio in case he is going on a trek for example. Many people rely on radios for weather forecasts while traveling. The radio is still a very popular media.

 Television

Television does what none of the other media can do: It relays live, filmed or taped reports. It is the chief source of news for millions of people around the world. Daily news programs on TV provide brief accounts of short stories. However, the visuals of these stories catch a person’s interest and help him understand the story better. Apart from regular newscasts, television also covers special news reports by interrupting the regular TV programs.

These special news reports could be the assassination of a president, the visit of another president or prime minister, a beauty pageant in the country and so on. Documentaries and interview programs on TV help explain a story or a subject in detail. Documentaries may be based on crime, problems of that country, or political issues. Of course, as all of us know, a variety of entertainment programs are relayed on TV everyday. Advertisements, serials, shows, and concerts keep all of us glued to the box!! A brainy box, that is!!! 

The Internet
 
This is the latest means of communication and information through which people can get to know about anything and everything happening under the sun just by the click of a mouse!

Journalism is one of the most important professions today. It keeps people all over the world informed about whatever is happening around the world. Journalists use several means of communication, called news media, to inform people about current affairs. In several democratic countries, people depend on the media to get a fair and truthful account of events taking place. In these countries, the media, or press, has the freedom to publish the truth about all events taking place in the country and abroad. These nations grant the press the freedom to report news without any interference from the government. Freedom of press does not exist in all countries.

The duties of journalism are many in a democratic country. These duties include informing the public, protecting public interest, influencing public opinion, and entertaining the public.

Informing the public is the main duty of journalism.

People need correct information about events happening around the world and so, it is extremely necessary for a journalist to tell all sides of a story. Journalists also have to decide which events have enough importance or news value to be reported.

Another important duty of journalism is protecting public interest. Many news organizations feel that it is their duty to inform the public about any dishonesty in the government of that country, improper management of public money, or some corrupt business practices and so on. Some newspapers handle complaints from citizens. These complaints could be regarding bad roads, water or electricity shortage, poor repair work etc.
Many news organizations encourage certain actions that they think will benefit the society. For example, an editorial might encourage people to approve of a certain candidate for elections. This is called influencing public opinion.

Radio and television are the main entertainment media. Serials, films, shows, concerts, and a host of other entertainment programs are relayed on TV and broadcast on the radio. Newspapers and newsmagazines contain crosswords, comic strips, travel sections, hobbies, reviews of books, and a lot more.

After all the news is collected, edited, approved, and laid out in digital form, the production division takes over the task of producing hard copies of the ‘digital newspaper’.

Within this division’s departments are specialists who run and maintain the presses, typesetters, image scanners and photographic engraving machines. Some workers are assigned to the day shift, others to the night shift.

Most daily newspapers have moved to some form of offset printing. This process etches the image of a newspaper page onto thin aluminum plates. Etching means to engrave a design on a metal or glass plate by the use of an acid.

Pages with color photos or type require extra plates. These plates, now bearing a positive image developed from a full-page photographic negative, then go to other specialists for mounting on the press. The metal plates do not touch the paper going through the press. Instead, the plates transfer their inked image to a rubber roller, which in turn prints the page.

Newspaper presses are big and noisy, but they are very gentle on the paper in newspaper. The presses have to be gentle, otherwise, expensive newsprint will tear. These complex machines are huge! Some are almost three stories tall. These are called web presses because they use streaming paper instead of individual sheets. The press assembles the pages of a newspaper in correct sequence, in addition to putting ink on paper. All this occurs so quickly that a modern offset press can force out 70,000 copies an hour onto conveyor belts that ferry the copies to the waiting distribution division.

How are newspapers distributed?

The distribution division is responsible for distributing newspapers all across the country or city. Large newspapers publish two, three or even four editions of a single newspaper, all of which must be ready to leave the newspaper plant at a certain time. At home, we receive our newspapers in the wee hours of the morning every day. Independent people buy copies of the newspaper at a discount and deliver them, using their personal vehicles.

In 18 hours of highly coordinated work carried out by a number of divisions, news from all over the world has moved through computer systems, imaging machines and presses to its final destination – the readers. After 3:30 a.m., few people remain at a newspaper plant. All the other divisions have gone home. All is still and silent.

It will not remain so for long, though! In less than four hours, the newspaper, as it must do 365 days a year, will rouse itself from its short sleep and start all over again.

Reporters

Reporters are a newspaper’s front-line eyes and ears. Reporters collect and classify information from many sources. These sources could be public, such as police records, and others private, such as a government informant. Reporters visit places all over the world to interview famous personalities and write articles for their newspaper. Occasionally, a reporter will go to jail rather than reveal the name of a confidential source for a news story. Some reporters are assigned to a beat or an area of coverage, such as the courts, city hall, education, business, medicine and so forth. Others are called general assignment reporters, which means they are on call for a variety of stories such as accidents, civic events and human-interest stories. Experienced reporters are able to handle beats and general assignment work.

In the movies, reporters have exciting and dangerous jobs. They follow a famous motto of the newspaper business: "Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable". Although a few members of the media have been killed because of investigations into wrongdoing, for the great majority of reporters newspaper work is routine. They are our windows to the world… sorting, sifting, and bringing a sense of order to a disorderly world.

Editors 

 All reporters report to the editor of the newspaper. Depending on its size, a newspaper may have lots of editors. The executive editor is responsible for the news division. Immediately below the executive editor is the managing editor, the person who oversees the day-to-day work of the news division. Other editors — sports, photo, state, national, features and obituary, for example — may also report to the managing editor.

The best known and the most crucial editor is the city or metro editor. Reporters report to this editor directly. The city or metro editor assigns stories, enforces deadlines, and is the first to see reporters’ raw copy on the composition system or computer network. Metro editors are called gatekeepers, because they control much of what will and will not appear in the next day’s paper. 

They often work under the stress of breaking news because their decisions translate directly into the content of the newspaper.

Once the city or metro editor has finished editing a reporter’s raw copy, the story moves from the composition system via the computer network to another part of the news division, the copy desk. Copy editors are spelling and grammar experts.

They remain busy checking for spellings and other errors of usage. They may also look for "holes" in the story that would confuse readers or leave their questions unanswered. Copy editors may also check facts in the newspaper’s library, which usually contains a large collection of reference books, microfilm and online copies of stories that have appeared in the paper.

Every morning, when you wake up and want to know what happened in the world, what do you do ?

Or do you open your newspaper and read about it?

All of us know that a newspaper contains tons of pieces of news that people all over the world read daily. A person sitting in Mumbai can get to know about various things happening all around the world if he/she just takes the time to open a newspaper and read it.

However, what exactly is the meaning of NEWS?

Well, the word ‘news’ is used to mean information from all the four directions and anywhere in between. That is, you take the first alphabets of four words, North, East, West and South, and combine them to get the word N E W S,

News! Amazing, isn’t it?