So You Want To Be A Journalist

Linda Soules's So You Want to Be a Journalist is a clear-eyed career guide for ten- to twelve-year-olds who question what they hear. It strips away headline glamour and shows reporting as verified, patient, necessary work. For parents, that honesty is the point.

This guide explains how journalists serve the public: ask hard questions, verify every claim, and write what communities need to know. Coverage spans the ethics code, FOIA requests, beats and bylines, and tools from spiral notebooks to audio recorders. A day-in-the-life section runs from overnight story tips to a filed byline after fact-checking with an editor. Profiles of Ida B. Wells, Nellie Bly, Edward R. Murrow, and Gordon Parks show reporting changing real communities. Closing pages cover school newspapers, interviewing a neighbor with careful notes, and the Five W's every young reporter should know.

Soules writes clearly without watering down the work. She gives real weight to reporters buying their own latte, the newsroom rule that even your mother's word needs checking, and the Chicago Tribune headline that declared Truman the loser before the votes were counted. In the So You Want To Be A series, illustrations of newsroom desks and field reporters draw children in and make dense sections easier to follow. Parents and teachers should read alongside them, turning each page into a conversation about beats, bylines, and the weight of putting your name on a story.

Hand this to the kid who fact-checks group-chat claims before bed. The guide respects that instinct and shows where patient, plain reporting can lead.