Cultural Reporting

Culture reporting

The term “The Culture Beat” refers to the way a newspaper will assign reporters to cover various sites where news originates-city hall, the police reports, sports, entertainment, local, etc.

Culture reporting is characterized by its punchy style, rough language, and

ostensible disregard for conventional journalistic writing forms and customs. The reporter attempts to present a multi-disciplinary perspective on a particular story, drawing from popular culture, sports, political, philosophical and literary sources. It is styled eclectic or untraditional. Culture reporting remains a feature of popular magazines. It has a good deal of entertainment value.

Culture reporting also focuses on the personal lives of people, primarily celebrities, including movie and stage actors, musical artists, models and photographers, other notable people in the entertainment industry, as well as people who seek attention, such as politicians, and people thrust into the attention of the public, such as people who do something newsworthy.

Culture reporting today is the province of newspaper gossip columnists and gossip magazines and has become the focus of national tabloid newspapers .  It differs from feature writing in that it focuses on people who are either already famous or are especially attractive, and in that it often covers celebrities obsessively, to the point of these journalists behaving unethically in order to provide coverage. Paparazzi, photographers who would follow celebrities incessantly to obtain potentially embarrassing photographs, have come to characterize celebrity journalism.

It is the most common kind of reporting where reporters are placed at the most strategic news-breaking points like hospitals, courtrooms, police headquarters, airports, railway stations, universities, government and corporate offices and health and recreation centers. Unlike editorial writing, the culture reporting is impersonal.

A culture reporter is should essentially be an honest storyteller, who should rise above his prejudices and subjectivity. He should be fair and impartial and present in all aspects of the story. Complete objectivity may be required as the primary job of a reporter in any beat is to tell the truth.