Qualifications to be a Journalist

Journalists write about anything and everything, but when someone queries their techniques of work, they get livid. With the help of the internet these day, anyone can try and become a journalist. Using blog sites and social sites such as twitter, bloggers think of themselves as journalists. In the earlier days, because of being an undeveloped profession, journalism didn't require any level of qualifications. But today, Journalism is a profession, and according to me every profession should have a certain level of qualification for practice. If a person is not qualified for the job, they shouldn't be called professionals. Every job requires a level of qualification, for example, if I have a passion for something and I do it just for fun that would be known as my hobby and not my profession, whereas if I had a qualification for that particular job, I would have much more knowledge and experience in the field. Another issue emerging is the state of journalism today, unqualified journalists are recruited due to lack of man power, the qualified journalists, having more knowledge and understanding about journalism, are still at the same level as unqualified journalists. Many established and successful journalists never went to school, but as the chairman of Press Conference of India, Makarand Katju said “they were good journalists despite that, and not because of it and Many others could have become great journalists and blossomed, but did not because they did not have formal training.” I totally agree with him. The biggest media firms have started having a minimum requirement for journalists. I think this is a great idea as it filters out the under qualified and it would be impartial to the qualified journalists. I think every field in this contemporary world is advanced and requires a level of understanding, passion and knowledge, comprising journalism. 

Dhwani Shah