Tuesday 8 November 2011

A few oddities from the newsroom

*PR people are constantly appearing in the newsroom to talk to the reporters about whatever it is they are paid to care about. Probably every 20 minutes or so another one appears. And if it's not the PR people, it's somebody who has a bone to pick about something in their neighbourhood. I still can't believe they let these people into the newsroom, it takes up so much of the reporter's time. I have seen a reporter laugh in the face of a PR person though.

* There are not enough computers for the reporters so they all play musical chairs during the day. When one person leaves to go on an assignment someone else grabs that computer, then they come back and the second person is kicked off. You can see how this can get exhausting. Also there is one telephone between about four reporters. They all use their own personal cell phones to make calls - apparently, their phone bills aren't too high.

* This leads onto my third point - often the reporters will go into the corridor/stairwell to conduct interviews. I'm yet to figure this one out.

* They have no work cars. They all use their own personal vehicle, usually a motorbike, to get around. My chief reporter couldn't believe it when I explained to him I take a work car when I need to leave the office.

* The newspaper entirely consists of hard news, particularly the front page. If it's not hard, it won't be run, simple as that. This became evident one day when someone in the office went over to the chief reporter and said a shop down the road had a real life elephant outside as part of some advertising campaign. I thought "wow, an elephant, that'll make a cool photo" (and I think that was what the woman who told the chief reporter about it was thinking), but the story the chief reporter saw in it was the elephant was impeding on public space. Stories always have a hard angle.

* My next point is of a similar vein - their stories are written very differently. They are not afraid to load intros with names, places and information. I would say the average intro is about 50 words. It's been quite hard for me to get used to, and reading a newspaper here with very limited knowledge proves to be quite a battle, particularly political stories.

* The public use the newspaper as their key source of information. India is one of the few, if not only, countries where newspaper readership is still growing. It makes the newspapers very powerful places. People pay attention to them. It does, however, make more work for the reporters as they constantly field calls from the public asking them if the petrol price is actually increasing, or if that road is actually closing for the day.

1 comment:

  1. Can't believe newspaper readership is GROWING there. I thought it was dad everywhere! Maybe I should move to Bangalore...

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