Introduction to Journalism

1 Background and issues

•	Introduction
•	What kind of people are journalists?
•	Heroes or villains?
•	What is journalism?
•	What is news?
•	Influences on journalism
•	Journalism is about more than reporting ‘news’
•	Serious versus non-serious journalism
•	Classifying types of journalism
•	Future of journalism: issues and developments
•	Suggested activities
•	Sources and resources

Introduction

Journalism covers a huge range of output across all media and is recognizable as a form of communication in almost every country of the world. It is estimated that 80 per cent of adults in Britain read at least one national newspaper regularly and 75 per cent read a Sunday newspaper (McNair, 1999: 19). Most people rely on journalism for surveillance – to inform them ...