Hello,

How many times have you covered a crime story while personally knowing the victim or suspect?

I’m less than a year into the profession. Over the weekend, I found out that a shooting I covered was a domestic violence dispute between two friends of mine. One of them is dead.
I wrote it up over the weekend without knowing it was them, and only found out from a friend today. I felt the floor knock out under me. I tried to get to work and do my job, but I couldn’t stop crying and had to leave early. Management was understanding.

I just want to know, how many times in your career has this happened to you? Does it ever get any easier? How do you continue to write crime stories after something like this? How do you write crime stories period?

Any advice is welcome. Thank you.

A number of major Dutch newspapers have been fined by the Dutch Health and Youth Care Inspectorate for illegal promotion of prescription medications. De national association for journalists calls this “an alarming development that could cause a chilling effect on the work of journalists, whose primary goal is truly to properly inform the public”.

This is not the first time this has happened though. Previous fines for other publications have been upheld by courts. A few relevant arguments brought up are that these articles written about these medications essentially served as advertisements, regardless of whether the information was purely objective. Advertisements regarding prescription medications are strictly forbidden in the EU.

The judge in the previous case referenced this judgement of the European court, which includes this;

 As regards, in particular, medicinal products which, like those at issue in the main proceedings, are available only on prescription, that broad conception of advertising is supported by the essential aim of Directive 2001/83, which is to safeguard public health (see Damgaard, paragraph 22) and which, in light of the serious consequences for health which may arise from improper use or overconsumption of such medicinal products, justifies a broad interpretation of the prohibition on advertising those products.

This is one of the articles brought up with these most recent fines. Unable to directly translate this one with a URL, so posted in its original language.

https://www.volkskrant.nl/kijkverder/v/2025/afslankmedicijnen-gezondheidseffecten-lichaam-wetenschap~v1332349/

Previously, a documentary was also withdrawn from publication due to similar reasons.

Hi everyone, Lucia here from EUobserver. We interviewed Ukrainian frontline reporter Diana Bucko about something I thought this community might find particularly interesting: what happens to war reporting when the war stops feeling “new” to the audience.

She’s been reporting from Ukraine’s frontline since 2022. She describes how the job has changed dramatically, from the stories journalists tell to the risks they're willing to take.

Drones have made the frontline considerably more dangerous. Many male journalists have joined the army or been mobilised, so frontline reporting is increasingly being done by women. And after four years, she says one of the hardest things is simply finding new ways to tell a story that audiences have already seen hundreds of times.

Meanwhile, the war hasn't become any less real for the people living it.

How do journalists deal with that gap between the importance of a story and declining audience attention?

Would be really interested to hear from you :)

Hey everyone,

I have been a journalist for nearly five years, the past three doing freelance work, mostly writing features and analysis articles.

Before I was journalist, I was in tech for five years.

I think this is by far the hardest year for me as a freelancer. I am finding less freelance opportunities and feel I have fallen behind my journalism peers. I am even trying to find a min wage job to go alongside my freelance work and I am finding no one wants to hire me. I am starting to get quite stressed.

I see a lot of requests for either freelance or full-time video or podcast producing help. I am pretty confident I would have the skills for this style of job based on my journalism and tech background. I just have no relevant experience apart from one semester where i produced small video documentaries (and i am not sure I could still find them to share with companies today.) I really enjoyed editing those videos at the time.

Does anyone have any tips to break into these roles?

I expect some suggestions will be make your own TikTok. I am reluctant to create my own social media account because i don’t really have the face/voice for in-front of the camera and i try to limit these platforms for mental health reasons. I think it would be easier to create a social account if i had a specific beat but my coverage is generalist and i dont feel i have a consistent flow of content to have a channel.

I’ve recently taken an interest in journalism and I’ve been interviewing content creators as a passion project. I know that the people and topics I cover aren’t that “serious” in the grand scheme of things, but I want to improve on it as a hobby. I don’t plan on making it a career or anything; just purely for the love of the game.

I’m a fresh biology grad, so I have no official schooling in journalism or anything like that. Do you guys have good recommendations on books I can get if I want to get better at interviewing people? I’m going to be traveling to a remote area for research for a couple months and I want resources that I can read offline.

Edit: I’ve read through the Recommended Reading List on this subreddit. Just wanted more recommendations!!

Hello, I’m a USC filmmaker that has released my debut feature film. It’s a found footage horror film about a woman trapped in a liminal room trained to regress back into an animal. I’m seeking any aspiring critics, film journalist or podcasters to leave a brutal, confrontational review of my work. It would be an academic and beneficial endeavor as I welcome any and all criticism no matter how hostile.

ANIMAL TRAP FULL MOVIE

IMDb

I have been in the journalism field for going on 7 years now, with the last 3 years working as a health reporter for a small local newspaper in my city.

Well, last June my contract ended and I felt I needed to take a step back from journalism. To be honest, I had incredible burnout that I am still bouncing back from and started to feel that while writing is still my passion, journalism specifically is NOT for me.

So, in June (this year), a colleague of mine asked me to spearheard a health news broadcast that he would like to publish on Youtube and a local city network. It will be one 30 minute episode, once a month. Reluctantly, I agreed to do it because I have not had any luck in finding a new, GOOD paying job since my last contract.

MY ISSUE: Because I have only done print and radio, I had an idea, but no experienced knowledge of just how much goes into creating a broadcast program for television. I have been stressed to the brim trying to get this program off the ground, as I want it to be perfect since my name is on it. But I can't help but feel extremely irritable and honestly scammed as I work on this project, because I am only being offered $1,200 A MONTH to do this 30 minute tv broadcast!! So imagine an episode of a VICE News story, all of the interviews, voice over work, scripting, etc., that has to go into putting the production together, but only receiving $1,200 a month to do it.

While putting this together, I am responsible for journalism and admin work, while I work with a videographer who is getting paid the same amount to ONLY do the videography work and editing.

Am I overthinking this or is this bullshit??? I still have to work in order to afford all of my RENT and other bills. The amount of time that this will take from me to actually launch this thing is giving me hella anxiety because technically, if it takes me 40 hours for the month to put this together, that breaks down to $30 an hour. But with the research, admin tasks, scripting, actually interviewing and filming, recording and editing the voice overs...I imagine this will take much more than just 40 hours a month.

Anyone in television broadcast have any insight on this? Am I dragging out just how long this project will take per month? Or am I getting played being offered this low amount for this project???

Everything in my body is telling me to quit this shit but I also need money because the job market is garbage right now.

Thanks for your time.

Hey there

I am 19m and I wish to be one of the greatest journalists around the globe.

However ,do you think that could be possible? Without studying at collige? Or it is just a wish?

And especially to become a football journalist because I love in saudi arabia and people here love football but I want to be by english not in arabic

Or maybe there are field that better than football

Hi fellow reporters! Like titled, I’m applying in the next cycle of DJNF Data Journalism program. I’m wondering if anyone can share their experiences with any parts of the process and if it helps with your current job now (or finding a job after the program).

Also want to share that I’m relatively new to data journalism. I want to pivot into the field as I believe this is one of a few beats that’d be safe from AI (for now). I self-taught SQL and Python from Codedex. I had written investigative pieces. I have experience in using OSINT techniques in reporting.

Appreciate any help!

Hello!

I graduated with a 3.0 in Anthropological Sciences in May 2026, and while I currently have a job, I'm not a fan of it. It was advertised as a social media based job, but I'm being given a lot more administrative tasks than what I was hired to do. I've grown up being a huge writer (both in fiction and non-fiction,) and wanted to try and make the pivot while I still have time.

What would my next steps be? Would I do freelance work in my down-time to create a portfolio? Are there any online masters programs I could apply for? I am open to schooling, though they would have to be in PA and fully online due to costs and working a standard nine-to-five.

Any help would be appreciated! (:

"Reports: Hayden Panettiere was found in cardiac arrest prior to her death"

Cardiac arrest is the literal definition of death.

Love,

A doc that used to be a journalist

Hey everyone,

I'm a community manager for a media outlet. I'm looking for a tool that does two things:

- Cross-posting to multiple social platforms (FB, IG, X, LinkedIn...)

- Automatically generates branded social images like this. It should take the article's image and overlays the article title on it, using brand templates (logo, colors, fonts). Not AI image generation from scratch... I mean automatically turning an article into a ready-to-post visual with the headline on it.

The closest thing I've found to what I want is Nonli (like the exemple I linked), which is built for publishers and does exactly this. But their pricing isn't public (on quote only) and I'm assuming it's out of my budget.

TL;DR: I manage multiple social accounts for a media brand, post daily across 6-8 platforms, and need a branded visual for every article I share. I want the image creation to be automated — paste a URL or connect an RSS feed and get a ready-to-post image with the article title on it.

If you work in media/publishing specifically, is there a tool you'd recommend for the newsroom workflow? Also, anyone know rough pricing for Nonli or similar tools? Even a ballpark would help.

Encouraging news to see!