Can I pursue Journalism with a blog?

Question

I'm 17 years and and going into my senior year of high school. I've decided that I definitely want to pursue a major in journalism when I go to college, but right now I have no formal training or experience with journalism.

I came up with the idea to start blogging about 2 to 3 articles a day. It'd be a good way to practice my writing skills while building up a portfolio for when I apply for colleges and internships. Do you think that's a good idea? Any thoughts?

And another thing is that I don't know what I should write about. Articles that are current, relevant, and well-written are a must, but I need some sort of inspiration. Should I just read the newspaper every morning and sort of write my versions or takes on certain news stories that catch my eye? Please if you have any advice or ideas here, please help me out.

Answer 1

Journalism is a broad word. Hopefully when you further pursue your career in journalism, you're going to focus more on what interests you.  

for example, go to cnn.com or some kind of news website and find a topic, then write about it.  for inspiration, go to

http://home.comcast.net/~majerus-collins...

that's a news/journalism website written strictly by teens. it helped me out a lot..

I'd like to talk to you.. i'm 17 too and recently decided on the college i'm going to attend, and what kind of classes i want to take. they're all english/journalism type classes.. so i think we have a lot in common!

can you email me or something and tell me what you decide to do?

[e-mail]

Answer 2

It would definitely be a good start!

I'm seventeen myself, but I live in sweden. Here school is a little bit different. You exam high school - which is nine years -at the age of sixteen. After that you are going to a so called; upper secondary school. Which is basically like high school - but with more focus. you either decide if you want to go to the nature direction with more math, science and such, social studies direction with more social, language and such or vocational training. Every direction except vocational training is supposed to prepare for higher studies. And you can also choose a certain subject with your direction. Like social studies; economics, journalism, etc. nature; medicin, farming etc... but you still study math, english, swedish and such.. because it's still kind of "high school" but with more focus on the working life.

Myself choosed social studies with the direction of journalism. We study basically all studies like in high school; math, swedish, english, - also history, psycology and journalism of course.

I've been here for one year and as far as i've concerned journalism is a wide subject. I mean, you learn and read about a lot., meet a lot people.

And guess what, almost all my friends have a blogg, including myself. It's like a trend.

You can write about whatever you want; your interests, music, what you have red on the news and your view about it all, your view about the busdrivers in your town, the item you bought, your thoughts about mosquitous during summer. Basically everything.

And a teacher told me once; that if you want to write good, you have to read alot.

I think you are going in the right direction.

And dont forget to be curious about things, travel, experience and learn how to express your thoughts and read books newspapers and such. Then you have a good start.

Good luck :)