You Can Be Anything › All careers › Media, Communication & Journalism
Journalist
Investigates and reports news stories — holding power to account and informing the public.
Did you know?
Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein helped expose the Watergate scandal, which led President Nixon to resign in 1974.
How subjects help
- Literature: Write a news story that puts the most important facts first and keeps readers hooked.
- Political Science: Understand how laws are made so you can explain what a new decision means for people.
- History: Give background on a story by explaining the past events that led up to it.
- Philosophy: Decide what is fair to publish by weighing the public's right to know against privacy.
A famous name
Nellie Bly: Went undercover in a mental asylum in 1887 and exposed its cruelty in her newspaper reports.
Try it yourself: Report today's news
- Pick something that really happened today at home, school or outside.
- Answer: who, what, when, where and why?
- Write it as a five-sentence news story with the most important fact first.
- Ask someone who was there: did you get the facts right? Fix anything that was wrong.
Journalists check every fact, lead with what matters most, and correct mistakes openly.
Also try: Warm up your voice like an opera singer.
Known for it in
USA, UK, Sweden, Denmark, Germany