Social Contacts Help Obtaining News Sources

出自香港新聞網 - 樹仁新傳系學生實習習作

Mr. Ping-wah Cheng states that besides independent sense and observant ability, a successful reporter should also have good personal communication network. Today, Mr. Ping-Wah Cheng, the executive reporter of Sing Tao Daily shared his own experiences of being a reporter with students in Hong Kong Shue Yan University. He told the students that journalists should be able to exploit stories and interpret these stories in a true and objective way.

He explained that it is inadequate to report an event or an issue superficially. For example, when there is a traffic accident, it is inadequate in just reporting the location of the accident and the number of people injured. The responsibility of reporter is to make a deep study and analysis of the subject. For this instance, reporters should find out the cause of the traffic accident instead of just reporting it superficially.

Mr. Cheng further explained that a successful journalist is much relied on his or her social contacts. Almost all news sources are came from the police, but actually, all class of people, even vendors, can be able to provide news sources. Therefore, journalists should highly engage in social activities and gain the trust from the people in order to build up their own personal communication networks and hence, can be able to obtain more news sources and information.

And, Mr. Cheng’s experiences told the students that being a reporter requires insights and courage. He stated that “new”, “novel”, “interesting”, and “accurate” are the four essential elements in news reporting. Accuracy is specially important as mistakes and faults can cause to an end of a journalist’s life.