Television News Reporter Job Description

Series Summary

A television news reporter is a unique combination of journalism and entertainment, of researcher and technician, and of storyteller and fact checker. While newspaper reporters can wear the same dreary raincoat and press hat as they perfect their stories over a cup of coffee, television reporters have to look good and speak clearly and concisely to take advantage of the precious few on-air minutes allotted to their news segments. Interested in the exciting world of television news reporting? In this free video on career information, an experienced TV new reporter explains the job of television reporters. Find out about qualifications and salary for television news reporters and get information on how to become a new reporter. Learn about the pros and cons of being a television news reporter and hear about the hardest and funniest moments of a career in the TV news.

Video Transcript

"A news reporter is someone who goes out into his community, finds out what is going on and then brings that back to the station where it is processed for dissemination to the public. For example, as a news reporter what I do is I speak to local officials. I will go talk to the mayor or the governor or the fire chief and so on and find out what is going on in their world so that I can let the people who live in that community know what is going on. My job is really important because it allows the people who go to work every day at various jobs, you know, regardless of what they are. I comfort them and inform them. I let them know what's going on in their neighborhood and I let them know that everything is going to be o'kay. So my job is really to go out, find out what is going on in that community and then share that information with the public at the end of the day. The job responsibilities of a TV news reporter are fairly simple. They consistent of finding out what's going on, get as much information as possible of what is going on. For example if there were a fire, well was anyone hurt in the fire? If so, how many people were hurt in the fire? How much property damage? Did it effect neighbor's houses? That sort of thing. Once you have the information about the story you have to write it out. You basically type up a story with all the pertinent information and you present that story to the public at the end of the day or the noon newscast or the six o'clock newscast or whenever that may be. Some of the differences between a television news reporter and some of the other jobs such as a news anchor or a sports anchor or that sort of thing, or even a news producer are as follows. A news reporter goes out into the field, goes out into the world and gathers the news. He picks up exactly, he goes and gets the information, he gets the picture of what is going on whereas a news anchor has, is more of the figure head of the station. They do a lot more stories than the reporter. The reporter will go out and gather news but the anchor will read a lot of information, a lot of different stories whereas a reporter typically only does one or two. Now a producer for example, decides where everything will be. There is usually many different stories in a newscast and a producer as opposed to a reporter will decide where those stories will be in the newscast. This will be the first one, this will be the second one and so on and then make sure that everything goes smoothly during the show."