They run around half the time looking for interviews, always with a pen and paper and from their close to flawless language and demeanor, you figure out that even you can hack it. Well you may be on the right path, however, journalism requires more than just appearance and command of the language. If you want to get into news reporting, there are several traits that you should have.First and foremost, good news reporting requires someone who is a lifelong reader. You must love reading and reading widely. Reading is one of the biggest sources of collecting ideas for your story. News reporters must love words, movies, places, animals, trees, in general they love life. You should have a sense of what you want to write about and you cannot achieve this without being open minded, derived from extensive reading.To be a news reporter you need to have ‘nose for news’. Everything that happens around you is a story but not everything is newsworthy. Good news reporting requires that you to come up with your own story ideas. You have to have an eye for the extra ordinary. As the popular saying in journalism circles go: ‘dog biting man is not news but a man biting a dog that is news’.Report writing requires a lot of research. One of the principles of journalism dictates that a news piece should be factual. A good news reporter should dig in to find facts before writing. You should be able to source for information from a variety of sources embracing both the traditional and the modern media techniques. Getting the facts right in news reporting protects you from lawsuits and defamation or slander claims.A good report writer is well organized. When news reporting, there are several steps and procedures which require organization if at all you news piece is to be understood. You should follow the rule of who, what, when, where, why and how. This rule governs the flow of writing and you should be able to understand it. News reporting is broken down into three parts: Lead, body and conclusion. As you can see, organization is a key trait to have.News reporting requires keenness and attention to detail. In news reporting you ought to look out for various journalism prerequisites while in the meantime write a piece that makes sense. Keenness means looking out for grammatical errors, issues with tenses, word uses and re-use and story flow.You should also learn the various criteria for newsworthiness: timeliness, proximity, prominence, consequence and human interest in the story. These guidelines should be learned by heart by everyone interested in news reporting.So now you know what is needed to engage in news reporting. This list is not exhausted as many other traits are more of personal characters traits that will help you when handling your interviews, interviewees and help you cope in the media environment. Finally a good news report writer knows when to stop. You never want to be boring on paper, it tells a lot about who you are.

Sammy Roth is the author of this article on Journalism App. Find more information on Hyperlocal News here.

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