Peanuts creater Charles M. Schultz used to say cartooning was a "sorta" profession. You had to be a sorta good artist, but not that great, because otherwise you'd be a painter or sculptor. You had to sorta funny, but not that funny, otherwise you'd be a comedian.
Reporting is a "sorta" profession -- you must be a good writer, but not a great one or else you wouldn't be able to let your story go by the end of the day or the end of the hour. You need to be smart, but not that smart or else you'd be curing cancer or building a rocket -- or making a lot more money. Reporters need to be good with people. But you can't be a social worker or a nurse, because reporters need to maintain their objectivity. They also must get their stories done and move on to the next one. Perhpas that's cold, but that's the nature of the business.
Reporters need to have a good balance of all those things, plus a sincere curiousity and a determined personality. The Poynter Institute, a non-profit learning center for journalists, has a good intro to reporting on its resources site.
On this blog, I'll post some reporting tips, including information on how to cover a beat using online "help" sites as well as info culled from online, print and broadcast news sources.
To start with, Online Journalism Review, which is published out of the University of Southern California, has some nice tips for blogging. This contains some storytelling pointers not found in traditional textbooks.
