News Gathering Explained in Journalism

This article by Rachel Veroff, a New York City-based freelance journalist and contributor to Downtown Magazine, talks about laying a strong foundation in the research phase as the most important part of putting together a good article. 

Veroff says, “It’s important to do really thorough research before going out to meet people for interviews. Especially if you’re covering an event, you need to have a clear agenda about who you want to talk to and what you want to hear them say. The hard part is doing all that legwork and collecting the best parts of the story. If you do good research, finally sitting down to write is the easiest part.”

One of the sources of information for the Kolkata cycling ban story was interviews. A good interview needs preparation. To appear professional, prepare your question beforehand. Some sources for how to conduct good journalistic interviews are given below.

• How to bring interviews to life
• 10 techniques for successful interviews

Let’s hear more about gathering information and how feature writer Dipanjan Sinha collected information for his feature story on the cycling ban in Kolkata.

In this video, you saw how our instructor Dipanjan Sinha applied the principles of ideation, news values and newsgathering to come up with an idea for his article and gathering information for his feature article. You also learnt about keeping in mind where to meet your sources and forming relationships with them before you even start collecting your information.

The next segment will teach you how journalists write and edit news report. Let's go ahead!