Career guide: More information on being a broadcast journalist

An inquisitive mind is the one thing someone must possess to become a broadcast journalist.

Angeline Marokoane, manager of news at East Rand Stereo says with this everlasting hunger for knowledge you will be able to talk about a wide variety of topics.

You must be someone that thinks out of the box, have a high amount of creativity talent and have the ability to be versatile.

You also must have the ability to write and with words make a story come alive.

She says there is not much difference between broadcast and print jounalism, because even if radio is an immediate spoken word, you still have to write every thing down.

She says working for a radio station does not mean you go on the air and only start talking, because preparation and thorough research of each topic someone will talk on, is of vital importance.

“You don’t speak on a topic you don’t have a clue about,” says Marokoane.

She writes all the news bulletins for the radio station, one each hour from 7am to 6pm each day.

For this she has to know what is happening in the world.

To do this she watches TV, go through websites and also have a wide variety of contacts where she gets information from.

Marokoane advises students that are interested in becoming a journalist to study journalism or a related degree at a university.

For university studies you need matric exemption.

The journalist has to be computer and digital world savvy and must have a knowledge of where to search for what.

This journo also has to be an efficient social media surfer.

The “tools” she uses to do her work are a digital recorder and computer with internet access where she downloads the sound bytes from the recorder.

The worst part of this job, Marokoane says, is that the tragedies of people which affect every journalist.

She says he developed a way of blocking it out, which is most of the times successful.

The one time this blocking-out did not work was the recent death of Taegrin Morris, because she wanted to cry when she read the story over the radio.

But, the versatility of the job makes all worth it, she says.