Журналист пишет статью о городе.

to write

Breakdown of Журналист пишет статью о городе.

• город: the city
• о: about
• статья: the article

Questions & Answers about Журналист пишет статью о городе.

Why is there no word like “the” or “a” before журналист or статью?

Russian simply has no articles.
Words like журналист and статью can mean “a journalist / the journalist” and “an article / the article” depending only on context.
So Журналист пишет статью can be understood as:

• “A journalist is writing an article”
• “The journalist is writing an article”

Both are possible; Russian does not mark this difference in the sentence itself.

What form and tense is пишет, and does it mean “writes” or “is writing”?

Пишет is:

• 3rd person singular (he/she/it)
• present tense
• imperfective aspect
• from the verb писать (to write)

In English it can mean both “writes” (habitual action) and “is writing” (action in progress).
Russian does not distinguish these two with different forms; context decides which English translation is better.

What is the full conjugation of писать in the present tense?