Journalism has many faces. Learning sincere journalism will offer many more facets to a learner. Most of it a young budding journalist can learn, however, is from the past experiences of the past masters and also those who have failed. That way, journalism is no text-book taught vocation.
In Journalism again, News Reporting is typically away from the textbook and class room learning. This new e-book, ‘News Reporting – Made Easy@nirendelhi.com’, is however an exception as it revolves mostly around anecdotes and happenings which have been reported and could be reported.
If Journalism is often a routine affair that requires learning things on daily basis, this e-book can provide some of the answers.
Students of journalism often get confused when they go out for jobs in the industry when no one asks them ‘What is News.’ Rather they are sent out in the field to ‘dig’ out NEWS. Incidentally mushrooming of journalism institutes including those run by prominent media houses across the country has not helped in creation of quality journalists.
A large number of journalism and media institutes have faculty members among academicians – Master’s Degree and PhD holders under UGC norms or so – who have not seen a newspaper office or never have been to the spots ‘reporting’ any event.
We often call it the ivory tower-syndrome, wherein people who teach swimming do not know how to swim.
This new book ‘News Reporting – Made Easy@nirendelhi.com’ is the work of a working journalist Nirendra Dev – someone who has reported Gujarat riots of 2002, the insurgency of Nagaland, cops-don nexus involving sharp shooter Daya Nayak in Mumbai and also the shenanigans of the neta class in Delhi.
Thus the e-book is full of examples of writing intros, headlines and developing stories based on anecdotes and so.
“…..the younger generation (read students of journalism) probably today has ‘wrong role models’,” says Dev in the brief Introduction of the book. He obviously sounds bitter on the manner the media industry has compromised on ethics and values. But he again says, “it’s not all that bad”; and hence probably he thinks this volume can guide youngsters especially those keen to make a mark in print journalism.
Some of the test case samples would be interesting: ‘What will be the headline of a story if cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar asks for free land from government to run a sports academy’.
In the world of News Reporting an important phrase is “hitting the bull’s eye”. In raw sense we can call it filtration process and highlighting the main news, it says.
For example, a pretty shop keeper commits suicide along with his family for his business failure is definitely news but it would be ‘small news’. But supposing he commits suicide a day after stock market crash is very big news, says the e-book.
There are plenty such examples in the tiny volume that would appeal to the new generation of students of journalism and to a large extent also to a few who still consider themselves ‘young’ in the profession. Journalists never retire – if we have heard that maxim; this book will be a safe reading material on your mobile or laptop.
But real take away for the young professionals especially in contemporary setting will be the paragraph that says, “……journalists should develop a passion for reading and reading more. In recent times, the younger generation has been showing keenness to report or write but not read much. This is not advisable as here not only the individual runs the risk of ending up as ‘poor/ill-informed journalists’, on the larger scale it is harmful to journalism as well”.
Then Dev gives an anecdote: “Here is an example of what happens when a journalist is not properly informed. Once a sports TV journalist interviewed a senior journalist mistaking him with former cricket captain Bishan Singh Bedi. This happened because the interviewer had not seen the snap of a cricket legend like Bishan Singh Bedi”. Asking this reviewer? Well, ‘Words fail’ this anecdote!
About the e-book: ‘News Reporting – Made Easy@nirendelhi.com’
Author – Nirendra Dev
Link: https://www.amazon.in/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=news+reporting+made+easy
Price: Rs 98 or $1.5