A newspaper journalist is responsible for certain aspects of conveying the news in print to readers. Usually, this type of journalist comes up with article ideas, conducts research, and writes articles. Sometimes, these duties may be shared with other journalists, so a newspaper journalist may have more specified duties than those listed above. While many journalists do reporting in the field, it is also possible to write newspaper articles from information available online or from personal opinions. What a newspaper journalist does depends on the person's career level, specialties, and the newspaper for which he or she works.
Most of a newspaper journalist's job involves writing and preparing to write. This is particularly true if a person is working in a freelance capacity rather than as an employee of a newspaper. A freelance newspaper journalist must be relatively self-sufficient, coming up with ideas and pitching them to newspapers in order to get them published. The entire process must be handled by the freelancer, including research and competent writing. Everything except final calls about editing and other major decisions may be left for the journalist to do alone.
As an employee of a newspaper, a newspaper journalist might work fairly independently on a variety of projects, or he or she might have a more specific job. For example, some people write the same column in regular intervals, which may be about any number of topics. Sometimes, a journalist may be assigned to help other journalists complete a larger project. Working for a newspaper may require some cooperation between journalists.
While writing the actual articles is important, most of the work for an article often goes into conducting research and preparing notes on the topic. If someone is offering opinions, those opinions must often be qualified and topical in order to keep interest in the column alive. For news reports on incidents that have happened or other informational articles, evidence must be collected and interviews must be conducted. Given the time-consuming nature of this work, research often takes up more time than writing.
Often, a journalist of this type must be able to follow the writing standards of the newspaper for which he or she is working. This may mean doing some work researching writing and citation styles. Research for content may need to be performed in a specific way in order to meet the standards of the newspaper, and a journalist may be required to keep records. As such, some aspects of a journalist's job usually involve organizational and office skills.
