If newspapers die, what would happen to allied media fields? What would happen to, say, PR and advertising?

THE NOTE I SENT OUT TO MY STUDENTS JUST NOW:

Hindustan Times is shutting down its Kolkata edition as well as its editions in Ranchi, Bhopal, and Indore. Details here.

One of the reasons could be a decline in circulation followed by a decrease in ad revenue.

Young people (including media students, some of whom get as much as Rs.5,000 a month as pocket money) refuse to pay as little as four or five rupees to buy a newspaper. Could this be the reason for a decline in circulation?

I urge you to consider what would happen if newspapers and magazines all over the country were to suffer the fate of HT's Kolkata, Ranchi, Bhopal, and Indore editions.

If newspapers die, what would happen to allied media fields? What would happen to, say, PR and advertising?

What would happen to journalism?

Do use your imagination to consider what would happen to your career in the future.

And please think about buying at least one newspaper every day. And persuade your friends to do so too.

Best wishes,

RP

---

UPDATE (January 17, 2017)

Death of a newspaper: Read this piece on The Hoot, which describes how HT's Bhopal edition was "slowly stifled before it was shut down earlier this week" — A requiem for the Hindustan Times, Bhopal.

UPDATE (January 19, 2017)

There is already blood on the floor of one of the last bastions of print media in the world. Major national dailies are shutting editions, laying off staff, slashing costs, and freezing expansions and investments. Smaller papers have been doing this for the last five years. Worse is to come if taxes are raised under the GST regime, if the damaging two-month impact of demonetisation persists in this quarter and the next, and if the government does not at least part-discontinue the wage board.

That is an excerpt from a hard-hitting edit in The Times of India today. Read the column in its entirety here: Indian newspaper industry: Red ink splashed across the bottom line — Hard-hit by factors beyond its control, print media needs reasonable tax and labour policies.

---
UPDATE (January 30, 2017)

WHY THE GUARDIAN WANTS YOU TO MAKE A CONTRIBUTION:

Can you write a three-word intro? Do three-word intros work?

Here is the three-word intro Sam Borden wrote for a golf story in The New York Times:

It was in.

To understand why it is a great intro, you will need to read a little bit more. But don't take my word for it. Instead let a master, the man I consider my journalism guru, Roy Peter Clark, guide you through the story's spectacular structure. Here is Clark's post: Want a lesson in focusing your writing? Read this hole-in-one lead.

PS: Marvel too at the nut graf in the original news report — again, just three words.

• Learn more about Roy Peter Clark: The power of writing. Commits students can also borrow from our library three wonderful books written by Clark: Help! for Writers, How to Write Short, and The Glamour of Grammar.
• On New Year's Eve, Roy Peter Clark retired from Poynter, a legendary journalism institute. His first piece since retirement was published six days later: 40 things I learned about the writing craft in 40 years. There are so many great points on the list, these three especially:

8. Tools not rules: We could think of writing as carpentry, learning how to use a set of tools. Rules were all about what is right and what is wrong. Tools are all about cause and effect, what we build for the audience.

9. Reports vs. stories: Reading scholar Louise Rosenblatt described a distinction I adapted to journalism: that reports were crafted to convey information — pointing you there. Stories were about vicarious experience, a form of transportation — putting you there. 

19. Emphatic word order: The journalist with news judgment decides what is most interesting or most important. That judgment can be conveyed in word order, placing the key words at the beginning or end. Not “The Queen is dead, my lord.” But “The Queen, my lord, is dead.”

Can you imagine a Reuters copy editor not knowing the difference between "it's" and "its"?

Last evening I spotted a typo in a caption for a picture accompanying a story on the Reuters website. So I scrolled down to the "Corrections" tab and wrote this message:

Rd Prabhu, Oct 12, 10:02 PM SGT:

The Amazon Echo, a voice-controlled virtual assistant, is seen at it's product launch for Britain and Germany in London, Britain, September 14, 2016. REUTER/Peter Hobson

----

That is the caption for a photograph accompanying a Reuters story about Amazon's new music service. "...it's product launch"? That should be "...its product launch".

Shortly afterwards I received this automated response:

Ticket #78452: Mistake in caption

Hello, Thank you for contacting Reuters Online Support. Your request (#78452) has been received, and is being reviewed by our support staff. To view responses to Frequently Asked Questions, visit our Knowledge Base.[link Knowledge Base tohttp://reuters.zendesk.com/forums ] We will get back to you as soon as possible. Kind regards, The Reuters.com Team

And when I took a look at the story again, the error had been corrected:

Is it any wonder that a Google search for "its vs it's" throws up more than 13 million results?

• ALSO READ:

In 8 minutes, a response from The New York Times to my e-mail pointing out a typo in a headline

Even journalists seem to have trouble figuring out when to use "I" and when to use "me"

Every writer needs an editor. Or, why subs are worth their weight in gold

Why American writer Dinty Moore is all praise for Indian speakers and writers of English

We can't ignore typos in a blog post by a sub-editor, can we?

An e-mail interaction with author Mardy Grothe —  It all depends on the telling, sure. But surely who does the telling matters?

And this is what happens when subs fall asleep on the job

When both reporter and copy editor screw up big-time

Page 3 of Bangalore Times today — that should be "greenbacks" (a colloquial term for the US dollar), not "green bags".

• ALSO READ: When subs fall asleep on the job

Who are these people who get bombed while doing their work but keep going back?

And who are the people bringing us their stories?

Physicians working for Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) have saved countless lives in troubled and war-torn regions over the years.

Dr. Navpreet Sahsi, an emergency room physician from Toronto, on his daily rounds in an MSF camp in South Sudan. Dr. Nav, as he is known, features prominently in the podcast discussed below. Photo courtesy: NPR/David Gilkey

But what does it take to volunteer for a mission with one of the world's leading humanitarian organisations?

And how will we, siting in the comfort of our homes, know what it means to be an MSF doctor if we didn't have journalists who risk their lives too by travelling to these dangerous areas to report on the work being done there by these amazing, brave, big-hearted men and women?

If you want to know more, and I'm sure you do, click on this link: Embedded for Five Days and Five Nights with Doctors Without Borders.

When you get to the page, click on the "play" icon to listen to the podcast.

When listening to the podcast, pay attention to the journalistic values — how similar is this podcast to a news feature in a newspaper?

Also pay attention to the following:

1. Pronunciation

2. Voice modulation

3. Use of music

4. Use of silences

This is a great example of "radio journalism".

Also, it's a great example of a human interest story.

Who else but journalists can bring us such stories?

• NPR is a wonderful source of some gripping podcasts, as is Longform. Here are some of my favourites:

The mother of all podcasts: Serial

Do you have dark thoughts?

You can learn so much from listening to these fascinating podcasts

Why you should listen to this spellbinding podcast interview with the mother of one of the Columbine shooters

Listen in as Rukmini Callimachi, the remarkable journalist who is tracking ISIS, talks about possibly the most difficult of media assignments

ALSO:

The best Indian podcasts

"I'll drill you, I'll grill you, so that the industry won't kill you"

What makes a journalism professor tick? This short video perhaps provides the answer:

This profile was produced by Commitscions Shristi Thapliyal, Shreesha Ghosh, Meghana Khare, Dona Dey, Soumya Matham, Sneha Rudra, and Sudeshna Bardhan (Class of 2017).

• ALSO READ:

WHY I DO WHAT I DO, or What a joy it is to be a journalist and a journalism teacher!

What you must do to become a journalist

If you love what you do, is it "work"?

Golden words of advice for journalism students

On journalism, Commits students, and the historic Commits-Network 18 tie-up

When Commitscion Prema Sridevi's Times Now story became the talk of Parliament

Prema Sridevi (Class of 2005) interviews the former Home Secretary...

...and the next day the story is brought up in Parliament.

THE EXCLUSIVES/Prema Sridevi (Class of 2005)

I was able to get the first interview of former IB (Intelligence Bureau) Special Director Rajendra Kumar, who spilled the beans on the Ishrat Jahan controversy. And then I was again able to get the first interview of former Home Secretary GK Pillai in which he told me that the LeT reference was deleted by someone above his level.

The national media followed this story and it was also brought up in Parliament.

On March 1, we once again aired another "First Big Interview" (see below) of the man who signed off on those affidavits. Both the Congress and the BJP held press conferences in New Delhi after this interview.

I am hopeful that after all these revelations there will be a fresh probe into this entire case.

You can watch this exclusive interview by Prema here.

ALSO READ:

• What it means to be a TV news producer-1

• What it takes to be a TV news reporter-1

• What it takes to be a TV news reporter-2

• What it means to be a sub at a TV news channel

• What it takes to be a TV news anchor

• Want to know how to have a successful internship at a TV news channel? Read this post.

We can't ignore typos in a blog post by a sub-editor, can we?

A few days ago I came across a terrific blog post titled "A day in the life of a sub-editor". Everything written in the piece spoke to me because I've been a deskman all my life. But... there were two horrible typos that ruined the article for me. So I wrote to the commissioning editor of The Walkley Foundation, the Australian organisation that publishes the blog:

Hello Clare,

This is Ramesh Prabhu, professor of journalism at a media college in Bangalore, India.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this "excerpt" from Charles Purcell's diary.

​I was a deskman for many years with newspapers in India and Dubai, so I get where he's coming from.

May I point out a couple of typos, though?

In the first paragraph​, there's this line: "...educate them into the correct use of 'myriad'."

Shouldn't that be "...educate them on the correct use of 'myriad'"?

Of course, I understand "...educate them into..." may be a colloquialism in your part of the world. But in the second paragraph there is surely a typo:

"Passenger accuses me of vandalism, until I point at that I am, in fact, a sub-editor..."

That should be "Passenger accuses me of vandalism, until I point out that I am, in fact, a sub-editor..."

Regards,

Ramesh

***
Not too long afterwards, I received this e-mail from Clare:

Hi Ramesh,

Thank you for your email, it’s wonderful to know we have a reader in Bangalore. Glad you enjoyed the piece, and thank you for pointing out the typos – I knew it was only a matter of time before someone spotted something!

We’ve corrected those now.

Thanks again,

Clare Fletcher

Program Manager
The Walkley Foundation for Journalism
Commissioning Editor
The Walkley Magazine
T: +612 9333 0925 | M: +61432 616 810 | E: clare.fletcher@walkleys.com  |  www.walkleys.com

***
Now I can happily recommend "A day in the life of a sub-editor" to everyone. Read it here.

RE CORRECTING TYPOS, ALSO READ:

• An e-mail interaction with author Dinty Moore — Why American writer Dinty Moore is all praise for Indian speakers and writers of English

• An e-mail interaction with The New York Times — In 8 minutes, a response from The New York Times to my e-mail pointing out a typo in a headline

• An e-mail interaction with author Mardy Grothe —  It all depends on the telling, sure. But surely who does the telling matters?

Once a journalist, always a journalist

Commits alumnus Ayushman Baruah (Class of 2008) on why, after a brief stint as a corporate communications professional, he has returned to his first love, journalism:

AYUSHMAN BARUAH

Journalism is unlike any other profession. The great Gabriel Garcia Marquez has gone on record as saying a journalist has the best job in the world. I am in complete agreement. It’s a rare profession in which a salary is immaterial. If I were making enough money through other sources, I would be willing to work as a journalist for free. I can’t think of any other profession that one would be willing to do for free. (Sure, there are exceptions to every rule!)

There is a reason why journalism can be, and most often is, a great profession. And I am talking about good journalism here — that’s the assumption I am making throughout this article. Journalism gives us an outlet to voice our opinions and share it with the larger public. As human beings, we all have an inherent desire to express our feelings and be heard and here is a profession that allows us to do so in a professional way with the added elements of style and context. What more can we ask for?

Journalism also keeps you away — mostly — from the corporate rigmarole of preparing and maintaining unnecessary Excel sheets and PowerPoint slides, and attending routine team meetings, which often don’t serve any good purpose. To me, Excel files and PPTs are good-to-have tools in an MBA class. Beyond that, a waste of time and effort. Journalism, on the contrary, is more real and grounded. You write articles based on first-hand interviews with the people you meet and these pieces have interesting stories to tell, stories that often have an impact on the people, the company, or the issue concerned.

AYUSHMAN BARUAH'S NEW HOME

During my recent short stint as a corporate communications professional with a software company in Bengaluru, I spent most of my time coordinating and following up with regard to routine tasks such as pending payments and approvals for a press release. To make things worse, I had hardly any control over what I wrote or said, which is the norm for a communications employee in the corporate world: Everything has to be first approved by the company and everyone has to follow a process. Nothing wrong with that, one might argue and I might agree, but if you are a journalist at heart, it will prick you; somewhere it pains.

Not surprisingly, I got out of that role to become a journalist once again. Yes, once a journalist always a journalist. I am hoping I will now write more than coordinate, and use more MS Word instead of MS Excel.

• On March 1, Ayushman Baruah joined Business World as Associate Editor. Before becoming a corporate communications professional with a software firm in Bengaluru, Ayushman was Senior Correspondent — Equities with Cogencis Information Services (formerly NewsWire18). He has also worked in senior editorial roles with InformationWeek and The Financial Express. 

ON OCTOBER 4, 2013, AYUSHMAN, WHO WAS THEN THE PRINCIPAL CORRESPONDENT OF INFORMATIONWEEK, RECEIVED THE POLESTAR AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN JOURNALISM, ARGUABLY THE HIGHEST AWARD AS FAR AS BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY JOURNALISM IS CONCERNED. HE RECEIVED THE AWARD FROM TATA SONS EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR R. GOPALAKRISHNAN AND POLARIS CHAIRMAN AND CEO ARUN JAIN AT A CEREMONY AT THE ITC SHERATON PARK HOTEL IN CHENNAI.

• READ Ayushman Baruah's insightful piece on what it takes to be an IT journalist here.

Why you should listen to this spellbinding podcast interview with the mother of one of the Columbine shooters

On April 20, 1999, when Sue Klebold heard about a shooting incident at Columbine High School, her thoughts immediately turned to her 17-year-old son, Dylan, who was a senior there.

"In the very beginning, I didn't know what to think," Sue tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross [in this podcast interview]. "I was aware that there was a shooting incident occurring at the school. I didn't know if Dylan was in danger, if someone was trying to shoot him, if he was doing something."

Gradually the truth emerged: Dylan and his friend, 18-year-old Eric Harris, had gone on a shooting rampage at the school, murdering 13 people and injuring 24 others before killing themselves.

If you're a media student and if you aspire to become a journalist, here are six reasons why you should listen to this interview:

1. To understand how to ask questions
2. To understand how to listen to the responses and ask follow-up questions
3. To understand — in this case — what questions to ask a woman whose son and a friend shot dead 12 students and a teacher and then killed themselves
4. To understand the importance of diction and intonation
5. To understand what it means to be a popular radio host
6. To understand what works on radio — if you're a media student it is quite likely that the production of a radio feature is part of your course curriculum (as it is at Commits)

So go on over to the NPR website and pay careful attention to how Fresh Air's Terry Gross conducts this interview (recorded earlier this month to coincide with the launch of a book written by Sue Klebold): "Columbine Shooter's Mother: I Carry Him 'Everywhere I Go, Always'".

TERRY GROSS

You can also read a transcript of the interview here. If you have learnt how to "write to pictures" (TV news scripting), reading this transcript will give you a good insight into how "radio copy" works.

Speaking of radio copy, you should also read the transcript of a wonderfully descriptive podcast review on Fresh Air of singer-songwriter Sia's latest studio album, "This Is Acting", by rock critic Ken Tucker. Study the structure: Intro by host David Bianculli... SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "UNSTOPPABLE"... Beginning of review by Tucker... SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BIRD SET FREE"... Tucker again... and so on till the end.

You can read the transcript as well as listen to the review here: "Sia Reclaims Songs She Wrote For Others On 'This Is Acting'"

• ALSO READ: You can learn so much from listening to these fascinating podcasts

Golden words of advice for journalism students

Earlier this month Commits student Sudeshna Dutta (Class of 2017) began publishing her blog, Journalism 101. Her first post is titled "Why I want to be a journalist".

Already the post has attracted comments. The feedback (see below) offered by three veteran journalists is especially worth noting for the frank evaluation of Sudeshna's aspirations and for the advice that is sure to be valuable for every young person out there who is keen to be a journalist:

1. FROM PATRICK MICHAEL
Former executive editor of Khaleej Times, Dubai

Dear Sudeshna,

(A few thoughts from a vet, all my very own.)

Enthusiasm. Check. Passion for reading. Check. Writing skill: Check, but could do with a bit more sharpening that will come with experience. (My editors would often tear up my first submission and ask me to write it again, and again, till I got it perfect!)

Welcome to the world of journalism.

The thirst for news has never been greater, the news-gathering tougher, and the competition stiffer. So get ready for a rocky ride, but I promise you it will be one you will enjoy. And cherish.

Sudeshna, you’ve learned the ropes and honed the basic skills of news-gathering and dissemination. It’s time now to put what you’ve been taught to practice and I’m quite sure you can do it. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

When I started out way back in the early seventies, it was said journalists were jacks of all trades, masters of none. Few had the privilege to specialise in a particular beat. Today, the approach to knowledge-based journalism (which is quite different from basic beat reporting) is more demanding. You need to specialise. At least that’s what I think. If it’s investigative reporting, then you need to be the best investigative reporter and work towards it. Be confident, work hard, and you will hit mother lode.

A WORD OF ADVICE: Read, read, and then read some more. I cannot emphasise this enough. Look at issues with many eyes, always do your homework before you go out on those deadline-driven assignments, AND don’t ever be afraid to ask questions or question someone.

I wish you the very best as you take the plunge. Feel the pain, bask in the glory. Enjoy the craft…. And the ride.

2. FROM SHAGORIKA EASWAR
Editor, Desi News and CanadaBound Immigrant, Toronto

Full disclosure: I love hearing about/from young people who want to become journalists, and so I am already sold on your dream. For I have always believed that journalism is a vocation, much like medicine. While anyone can get the marks (if they try hard enough) to make it to med school, a mere degree does not a doctor make. It takes passion and the drive to go above and beyond. The same qualities that distinguish a true journalist from a hack.

Your passion has led you to the right place to learn the craft. Honing it is something only you can do. From the books on varied subjects that you have listed, I can see that you have followed the advice of your journalism professor. It is truly the best advice. Read everything you can lay your hands on. Even the bad ones teach you something – how not to write!

I do have to add a cautionary note, though. Journalism is not all glamour and adventure. There’s a lot of grunt work involved, too. A lot of plodding through material to research the background, to get the details right, to uncover the unexpected angle. A lot of rewrites to finesse your work. Well before you get the 3 am call, you’ll be up nights, fighting to meet deadlines.

That said, I can also assure you that you’ll have so much fun doing it, you’ll never “work” a day. You’ll meet the most amazing people from all walks of life and have the privilege of telling their stories. Every day will bring a new story idea, the opportunity to make a difference.

I wish you all success. I am sure you will make your mark and your journalism professor proud.

3. FROM KOKILA JACOB
Former reporter and columnist, Khaleej Times, Dubai, and Gulf Daily News, Bahrain

Dear Sudeshna:

Congratulations.

As a journalist who has never regretted becoming one and enjoyed every single moment of being one, I can assure you that you have made a remarkable career choice.

My love affair with journalism started when I was in Standard VIII when we had to write an essay on our career choice. My mother advised me to consider journalism noting "you like to read, have a flair for writing and you are always curious about everything". That was an astute observation.

Curiosity is what underpins great news stories, if you have that you will never be short of story ideas.
Just writing well is not enough, you have to develop a "nose for news".

Fact checking is also extremely important. Remember what you are told in journalism class – "When in doubt, leave it out" – I can’t emphasise this enough.

Patrick and Shagorika have covered all other relevant points. I wish to repeat one of them: "Keep an open unbiased mind". It is harder than you think, we are all humans after all, but you have to try your best to do so.

You are launching from a strong base – a reputed institution such as Commits and the best mentor a student can dream of in Ramesh.

So belt up and enjoy the journey with all our best wishes.

Kokila

This media student's answer to a question about "burglary, robbery, and theft" gives a whole new meaning to the word "misappropriate"

What is the difference between ‘burglary’, ‘robbery’, and ‘theft’?

(a) Burglary means forcible entry with intent to commit a crime.

(b) Robbery means stealing with force or threat of force.

(c) Theft means stealing without force or threat of force.

And then there is this:

Obviously, these are testing times for students... and teachers.

Listen in as Rukmini Callimachi, the remarkable journalist who is tracking ISIS, talks about possibly the most difficult of media assignments

RUKMINI CALLIMACHI

How on earth does she do it? Rukmini Callimachi, who began her freelance career in New Delhi with Time magazine and who now covers ISIS for The New York Times, has written some striking stories in the past year or so. Here are just a few:

ISIS Enshrines a Theology of Rape

From Amateur to Ruthless Jihadist in France

The Horror Before the Beheadings

Before she joined The New York Times, Callimachi was working as the Senegal-based West Africa bureau chief for The Associated Press. Her AP stories were nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in the international reporting category last year. Check out those stories here.

Earlier this year, Callimachi was interviewed by Aaron Lammer on the Longform Podcast. I have been listening with fascination to the first part of this two-part interview, which has become especially relevant in the aftermath of last week's Paris attacks. From figuring out how to deal with sources to pondering the journalist-terrorist relationship, from asking the tough questions to taking on the trolls on Twitter — Callimachi discusses the many issues that journalists have to grapple with when reporting on one of the biggest stories of this era.

Listen to the interview here:

• Part 1
• Part 2

A word of advice: To better appreciate and understand what Aaron Lammer and Rukmini Callimachi are talking about, it helps to be well-informed and well-read. Here are a couple of the topics that you may like to bone up on before putting on those headphones:

The conflict in Mali

The strife in Libya

And, of course, you should also read Callimachi's stories, at least the three I have highlighted above.

PS: Rukmini Callimachi, according to Wikipedia, left Romania with her mother and grandmother when the country was being run by a communist regime. Her name "Rukmini" is derived from her family's closeness to Rukmini Devi Arundale, founder of Kalakshetra in Chennai.

• ALSO READ: You can learn so much from listening to these fascinating podcasts

Why Jonathan Bach wants to be a journalist, come what may

Here is a relevant excerpt from a recent op-ed feature in The New York Times:

"...the best journalists connect with readers, viewers and listeners by being open-minded and compassionate. That’s one reason so many people remain in the profession..."

The piece, written by Héctor Tobar, an assistant professor in the School of Journalism and Communication at the University of Oregon, focuses on the importance of journalism while highlighting the journalism ambitions of one of his students, Jonathan Bach.

Read the thought-provoking article in its entirety here: Who'd be a journalist?

Surely "etc." has no place in a news report?

Here is a portion of a badly written press release (something I made up for a news-writing exercise at Commits):

The ten categories at the Ibda'a awards (Ibda'a means 'creativity in the Arabic language) were print journalism, print advertising, radio feature, television documentary, television advertising, animation, graphic design, analogue photography, digital photography and film feature, and students from many countries sent entries, including the US, Egypt, the UAE, South Africa, the UK, etc.

There are many things wrong with it, not the least of which is that abbreviation at the end. Journalists would not use "etc" in a news story because that could imply that they do not have all the necessary information at hand. And surely no reader likes to think that their newspaper has published an incomplete report.

But a case could be made for using "etc." for emphasis, for effect. As in this excerpt from a New York Times book review:

Sometimes reading the book feels like being trapped in a particularly dull town hall meeting — as on the ­pages that ­bullet-point Hillary’s accomplishments as secretary of state or the achievements of the Clinton Foundation: “More than 33,500 tons of greenhouse gas emissions have been reduced annually,” etc., etc. Sometimes it reads like a generic ad designed to introduce a political newbie: Hillary is “a woman with a steadfast commitment to public service, a clear political vision and a deep well of personal integrity.” Or the version that might fit on a bumper sticker: “America is so ready for Hillary,” because “she is so ready to lead.”

In the paragraph reproduced above, "etc." has been used (twice in succession) to convey to the reader that "this is all so much fluff". It works here, but I can't see it working in a regular news story. Can you?

Now, here, in the same vein, is an excerpt from the footnotes to a profile of Roger Federer by David Foster Wallace in Play magazine, which used to be published by The New York Times (this piece dates from August 20, 2006):

There are wonderful things about having a body, too, obviously — it’s just that these things are much harder to feel and appreciate in real time. Rather like certain kinds of rare, peak-type sensuous epiphanies (“I’m so glad I have eyes to see this sunrise!” etc.), great athletes seem to catalyze our awareness of how glorious it is to touch and perceive, move through space, interact with matter.

As for that badly written press release right at the beginning, here's an acceptable version:

Entries for the Ibda’a Awards, named after the Arabic word for creativity, were submitted by students from many countries, including the US, the UK, South Africa, Egypt and the UAE. The 10 categories this year were print journalism, print advertising, radio feature, television documentary, television advertising, animation, graphic design, analogue photography, digital photography and film feature.

Not an "etc." in sight.

Give me full names (at first reference), please

It is important to give full names (at first reference) in a news story. Or isn't it?

I have some difficulty in persuading a few of my students that journalistic pieces should contain the full names of people mentioned in the report. So here, for these students and for those who are interested in such matters (if you want to be a journalist, you should be interested), are examples of news reports with full names and examples of stories that have used only one name for valid reasons:

1. A New York Times report from Kabul uses full names at first reference throughout, except in the 23rd paragraph when it uses a quote from a particular university lecturer — see below:

“The main problem is that some people in our city are Taliban and some are local police,” said Sighbatullah, 25, an agronomy lecturer at Kunduz University, who like many Afghans uses just one name.

2. And here's an illustration from a recent issue of Bloomberg Businessweek:

3. In this story in Mint, the reporter gives us only one name for a source, but we get an explanation for this in parentheses. Take a look:

4. Now here's another example from The New York Times, this one a news feature about how San Francisco is changing the nature of AIDS treatment:

It wasn’t his first broken condom, so Rafael didn’t worry. But three weeks later, the man he’d met in a bar called to say that he had “probably been exposed” to H.I.V.

Rafael, a muscular, affable 43-year-old, went to a clinic and within 45 minutes learned he was infected. Although it was already closing time, a counselor saw him immediately and offered him a doctor’s appointment the next day.

At Ward 86, the famous H.I.V. unit at San Francisco General Hospital, the doctor handed him pills for five days and a prescription for more. Because he was between jobs, she introduced him to a counselor who helped him file for public health insurance covering his $30,000-a-year treatment.

“They were very reassuring and very helpful,” said Rafael, who, like several other men interviewed for this article, spoke on condition that only his first name be used to protect his privacy. “They gave me the beautiful opportunity to just concentrate on my health.”

In the intro, we get only one name. And why we get one name we are told only in the fourth paragraph. That makes sense, if you think about it. The structure and the flow of the story would be badly affected if the intro was written to include that explanation:

It wasn’t his first broken condom, so Rafael, who, like several other men interviewed for this article, spoke on condition that only his first name be used to protect his privacy, didn’t worry. But three weeks later, the man he’d met in a bar called to say that he had “probably been exposed” to H.I.V.

See what I mean?

So, give me full names (at first reference), please.

You can learn so much from listening to these fascinating podcasts

If you're an aspiring media student or a young journalist or a writer-in-the making, there are few better ways of learning the craft of non-fiction than by hearing from the experts how they did what they did. In this respect, the Longoform podcasts are an invaluable tool.

Here, just for starters, are 10 podcasts I have  listened to (some more than once) — and enjoyed thoroughly:

1. https://goo.gl/M0z4ao — Margaret Sullivan, Public Editor of The New York Times

2. https://goo.gl/RURwvy — Alexis Okeowo, a foreign correspondent, has written for The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine and Businessweek. Recently wrote about Boko Haram

3. https://goo.gl/iQj3CG — Rukmini Callimachi, covers ISIS for The New York Times

4. https://goo.gl/MfepbH — Tim Ferriss, productivity expert and author of The Four-Hour Workweek and The Four-Hour Body

5. https://goo.gl/O5AaMo — Cheryl Strayed, author of Wild, which was made into a movie starring Reese Witherspoon, and Tiny Beautiful Things

6. http://bit.ly/1jC9TSw — S.L. Price, senior editor at Sports Illustrated. He has written in his book, A Far Field, about his experience of covering the India-Pakistan cricket series

7. http://bit.ly/1RjtJNC — Carol Loomis, who retired last summer after covering business for 60 years at Fortune magazine. She continues to edit Warren Buffett's annual report

8. https://goo.gl/yhrusL — Ian Urbina, an investigative reporter for The New York Times, who recently published "The Outlaw Ocean," a four-part series on crime in international waters

9. https://goo.gl/7zoywA — Stephen J. Dubner is the co-author, with Steven D. Levitt, of Freakonomics. Their latest book, When to Rob a Bank, came out in May

10. https://goo.gl/YBMhmE — Ashlee Vance covers technology for Bloomberg Businessweek and is the author of Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future 

What can we learn from listening to these podcasts?

• What it means to be a journalist/writer/reporter/editor/author
• How to deal with the issues that come up in the course of work
• How to conduct interviews
• How to ask probing questions, to listen to the answers and ask follow-up questions
• How to articulate your thoughts
• What you have to do to succeed in your chosen field

As of the time of writing, there were 164 podcasts in the Longform archive. So after you are done listening to the 10 listed above, go ahead and wade right in.

UPDATE (November 5, 2015): To understand better the craft of journalistic interviewing, listen to this podcast with the New York Times reporter Sarah Maslin Nir, whose expose of worker exploitation in New York's nail salons was one of the newspaper's biggest stories in recent times. Maslin Nir worked for 13 months over her story, which was then published in two parts earlier this year. You can read the stories here:

1. The Price of Nice Nails

2. Perfect Nails, Poisoned Workers

And you can listen to the podcast interview with Maslin Nir here: #142.

UPDATE (November 6, 2015): I have just finished listening to an eye-opening interview with Anand Gopal, who gave up a planned career in physics to go to Afghanistan to write about the situation there. Why Gopal did it and, perhaps more compelling for aspiring journalists, how he did it composes the bulk of his conversation with Aaron Lammer of Longform Podcasts. Listen to the podcast here: #125.

PS: I have aready ordered the book Anand Gopal wrote about his experiences in Afghanistan: No Good Men among the Living.

• Here you can read an interview with Aaron Lammer and learn how he and his partner Max Linsky went about building the highly popular Longform.org site: The Art of Podcasting.