Media and journalistic writing

Media exists to reach mass audiences — to inform, educate, entertain and build awareness — and has long guarded democracy. It is called the 'Fourth Estate' (the medieval estates were nobility, clergy and commoners) or the fourth pillar of democracy. Fraser Bond's contrast: literature 'can be timeless', journalism 'must be timely'.

Unlike imaginative writing, media writing rests on information checked again and again against reliable sources; wide reading, keen observation and careful listening build that store. Example: the Jaipur Foot (devised by surgeon P. K. Sethi with artisan Ram Chandra) being offered free to Angola's landmine victims.

Three types of media: print (books, newspapers, magazines, brochures — needing clear writing and well-chosen detail), audio-visual (radio, TV, cinema — reaching even people who cannot read) and new media (internet, mobile — digital and interactive).

Print history: cave paintings, stone and clay tablets, paper, Gutenberg's press (dated 1447 in the book), the telegraph (1844); Paul Julius Reuter even sent stock prices by pigeon, beating the mail coach. Newspapers carry hard news (crime, accidents, meetings — timely and grave) and soft news (human interest, like Maggie Baxter's work with Kutch craftspeople).

Journalistic writing has three divisions: news writing (the lead carries the key facts; fact kept apart from opinion), editorial writing (the paper's own view, about 300 words, plus op-ed pieces and letters to the editor) and feature writing (human interest, creative but factual). Advertorials mix editorial and feature to promote something and must be labelled as advertisements.