Traits of Journalism

The traits of journalism are, simply, guidelines to which one must abide in order to ensure correctness within ones work. They are unspoken rules, and define whether or not a journalistic piece is correct.

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The first trait is fairness. This trait, simplified, explains how in order to be recognised as a credible journalistic source, a platform must always show unbiased behaviour towards whomever or whatever the piece is about. A piece of journalism must always be written with full objectivity.

The second trait of journalism is attribution. Attribution simply means that one must always present enough options, such as hyperlinks within online journalism, in order to have provided full information to the reader.

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The third trait of journalism is accuracy. This trait means that one must always always always present extremely accurate information to the public, by way of journalism. In order to gain credibility, a publication must always exhibit signs of accuracy when reporting the news, no matter what.

The fourth trait is relevance. The trait covers how the fact that news must always be relevant to the public reading it, as well as the society it presents itself in. An Egyptian man, for example, would not be very interested in reading about a petty crime in Croatia as mush as he would be in something happening in his own country.

The final trait is newness. Newness applies to the fact that news must always be updated to show the newest, most urgent news. Always have publications on top of their game, updating the news as it happens, and always giving their readers the chance to be able to access breaking news whenever they can.