Anyone who aspires to become a digital journalist should have good communication, critical thinking and quick problem-solving skills. One should be able to gather information from various sources on the internet and should be familiar with social media platforms and usage. With “An understanding, interest, appreciation and awareness of how to tell stories using any and all of those media is key.

There are, of course, lots of other useful skills to make you stand out in the newsroom, the list below is not all-inclusive, but these are some of those considered particularly important in today’s media world. In no particular order:

  • Validate and verify ,In the midst of a breaking news event, as information and rumour spread around social networks and the rest of the web, being able to verify content as true, or as close to the truth as can be established, is a hugely valuable and important skill.
  • Understanding analytics and how to use them, Know how many pageviews your last article has received so far, or what the key traffic referrals were? If so, how will you then use that information? Knowing how to find, understand and use analytics data is another important skill for journalists to really.
  • Master the data basics, Data journalism skills vary widely, from more basic techniques involving cleaned tables of data and the creation of a simple line graph, through to more advanced processes to prepare data for analysis as well as coding to create interactive visualizations.
  • Consider content discovery, Do you have high social media referrals, or is search still a big player in driving traffic to your content? If you are already on top of your analytics then you will probably know the answer to that already,
  • Think about platform as well – news outlets with a large mobile audience may consider more of a ‘mobile-first’ approach to how stories are constructed and delivered and more native to the way mobile-readers consume news.
  • Be an active part of your social networks, Journalists are increasingly experiencing the power of online communities when it comes to newsgathering and the power of the crowd, and they may also be putting different tools and techniques into practice to make networks manageable and more meaningful.
  • Good digital admin, In a follow-up to the previous point, keeping on top of all your social media and other platform accounts is also important.
  • Traditional journalism skills

On a final note, while this list is dedicated to digital skills, it is important to close by highlighting that all these should continue to work in tandem with the traditional skills of good journalism, and good writing.

 

Written by Anna Mwikola

Court Reporter | Tanzania Standard Newspaper Limited

Digital Journalist Alumni 2021/22 

Boresha Habari Project 

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