Journalism students find out it takes more than books to be a journalist.
We the B.M.M. journalism class of National College (Bandra) got a rude awakening on our first lecture of Features and Opinion last week. We found that our general knowledge was way below average, not a good sign for a class full of to-be ‘journos’ (as he calls us). We owe that enlightening first lecture to our professor, Mr. R. Sridhar.
After the usual drill of introducing ourselves, he began by sharing some of his experiences in the field. Then he shot questions, on what was happening around the world and what was in the news. Most of us looked shamefully blank, some people murmured, very unsure of what they were saying…others made attempts at giving half correct answers. Basically, we were poorly informed and hence he decided to start from scratch.
So what does a class full of future journalists need to know?
Parts of a newspaper, is what we were introduced to. Most of us had no idea that all the different printed matter in a paper had separate names. Dateline, Mast Head, Headline (Smiles, we knew this one!), strapline, snippets, slug, briefs (the smiles were gone by now) and the list went on.
Then we moved on to the difference between a tabloid and broadsheet, more columns and content in a broadsheet etc. etc. But did you know that a tabloid is exactly half the size of a broadsheet?! We sure as hell didn’t. Now we were beginning to feel stupid. I repeat, beginning.
Half an hour later, he threw a few more questions at us about things like the nuclear deal and who is the editor of which paper, thankfully we got one or two good guesses, although honestly few knew the editor of the Times is Mr. Jaideep Bose.
After a quick nap/coffee break Mr. Sridhar questioned us about what was happening around the city. No surprise that we didn’t know much, “You must read the City pages, not only to be informed but also to be a good citizen, your going to be journalists!” he said to 14 very red faced students.
By now we were not only embarrassed, but also guilty at how we never put our heads in the papers that we wanted to write for. As if this was not enough, Mr. Sridhar brought out the “Mahaquiz”, adding salt to the injury. We couldn’t answer simple general knowledge questions we should have known. Our class is always told that a journalist must get his facts right, but we answered a question about a non existent fort!
The quiz was for one mark and after 15 minutes of looking around sheepishly and trying to answer, we doubted whether any of us would score more than a 0.1.
By the end, we had every intention of picking up the first newspaper we saw and getting down to business. Mr. Sridhar said, “To be a journalist, you need to have a nose for news.” And we were thinking, we need to know what’s in the news before we can come close to having a nose for it.
Kudos to the professor, he succeeded in what he was looking to do. Making us feel so bad about ourselves that we are now making an effort to be more informed.
