"Why our media can't explain India"

When Prime Minster Manmohan Singh held his first press conference last month in the country in four years this was the first question he was asked:

“Sir, mera naam Umakant Lakhera hai. Main Hindustan, jo Hindi akhbar hai, uska Dilli mein chief of bureau hoon. Pradhan mantriji, mera aap se yah sawal hai ki aap se pehle Bharat mein jitne bhi pradhan mantri hue hain, economy ke baare mein vey log bahut zyada nahin jaante the. Yah desh ki khushkismati hai ki aap economist hain aur aap ne azadi ke baad ka, Bharat ki economy ke utar-chadhav ka, bahut lamba samay dekha hai. Mera aap se yah sawal hai ki aaj price rise par control kyon nahin hai? Aisa kyon hota hai ki inflation kam hota hai aur mehngai badhti hai? Pehle ke zamaney mein mantri jab bayan dete they, to agley din mehngai ghat jati thi, aaj aisa kyon hota hai ki aap ke jo ministers hain, aapke mantri jo bayan dete hain, uske agle din mehngai badh jaati hai? Aisa kyon hota hai ke economy sarkar ke control mein nahin hai aur aam aadmi ka zinda rehna mushkil ho gaya hai? Common man ko lagta hai ke sarkar ke niyantran mein cheezein nahin hai. Economy ka jo slowdown hai aur jo mehngai hai, aap us par apne vichar prakat karein.”

Compare that with the opening question asked by Washington Post owner Lally Weymouth, who interviewed Singh last year: “You are (US) President Obama’s first official state visitor. What would you like to accomplish in Washington?”

It's no wonder then, writes Aakar Patel in his thought-provoking column in Mint Lounge, that our prime minister is not at all keen on engaging the Indian media.

Read the brilliant piece here.

And then, for another (not very positive) take on Aakar Patel's column, read this post by Outlook editor Krishna Prasad on sans serif, the most interesting blog by an Indian journalist.

How much do you know about e-mail etiquette?

Richard Baum of Reuters, in a column published in Mint, tells you how to deal with some common dilemmas, including this one: "A colleague is angry because I forwarded an e-mail from her without asking her for permission. Was I wrong?"

Read the column here.

Speaking of etiquette, Mint has also published a handy guide to the dos and don'ts of Twitter. Here's an excerpt:

Bottom line: Watch what you say online because word travels fast. Although Twitter is relatively new to India, it is rapidly racking up users: according to Alexa, India is the world’s third highest user of Twitter, and the site is already the 13th most popular in India.

Journalism books you should read

Look for these books in the Commits library.

The best Indian podcasts

I follow Rajdeep Sardesai on Twitter. One of his recent tweets led to my discovering Indicast, in my opinion the best Indian website for podcasts. Media students will love Indicast and our audiovisual communication students who need to produce a radio feature in the third semster will get some good ideas — check it out here.

And listen to one of my favourites (descriptions from the site):

• Point Blank with Rajdeep Sardesai

In this podcast, Rajdeep Sardesai takes us back to his school days and talks passionately about his cricket, table tennis, and quizzing before drifting into journalism after studying law at Oxford University. His dad, Dilip Sardesai, comes to life in the conversation when Rajdeep talks fondly about the values that he grew up on.

Rajdeep started his career at a time when television was yet to make its debut and in his words, "Journalism wasn't as glamorous as it is today. There was a lot of drudgery involved." Rajdeep reasons out why the quality of modern journalism has been in decadence. Yet he is hopeful that this only presents an opportunity for some interesting stories to be told. He believes that news channels will soon be judged on their credibility and integrity and not on how much noise they  can make. He also uses strong words against the "quick fix" journalism that Indian media indulges in under the veil of "investigative journalism".

Like an experienced Test match opening batsman, Rajdeep Sardesai plays it safe in the "V" until the 9th minute and then cuts loose without mincing words in the slog overs right until the last minute.

(About seven minutes into the interview, Rajdeep talks fondly for some time about his "educational visits" to the newsroom of The Afternoon, the newspaper I helped to launch in Mumbai in 1985.)

A-1 advice from an author

A few months ago we had a distinguished guest at Commits: Anjum Hasan, poet, writer, communications consultant, now books editor of The Caravan magazine, and author of the two popular novels Lunatic In My Head and Neti, Neti.

Anjum had a long session with the First Years where she talked about her work and about fiction-writing in general. She also read a few excerpts from Neti, Neti. The two hours went by so quickly that there was no time at the end for some of the questions that the students had for Anjum. So we sent her the questions by email and she very graciously answered each of them:

Hi Ramesh,

Here are my answers to your questions. I don't have all the answers, of course, not even most of them. But it's always fun to participate in any conversation about writing. Thanks for the opportunity!

Anjum

• FROM PADMINI NANDY MAZUMDER

a. Why don't you write your stories in the first person?

I don't usually use the first person; it helps to write in the third person to see your characters more objectively. Unless all your stories are about yourself (which they ideally should not be) I would recommend avoiding first person. Even if the story is about yourself, use third person to see how it sounds - there'll be lots of things that seem perfectly convincing in first person but silly in third person.

b. How much research goes into your characters? For instance, their jobs (Sophie's job as a “sub-titler” in Neti, Neti), the way their homes are decorated, etc.

It's not as much research as curiosity. As a writer, you're often dying to know what people's lives are like and if you can't imagine them, then you have to find out.

• FROM SHIVRAM SUJIR

When you develop characters like Sophie, you tend to get under their skin, you tend to "become" them. Does it take you very long then to cast them off and become yourself again?

I'm quite happy staying with characters, and when I finish with one I can't wait to get into the skin of another. I would get quite desperate if I had to spend all my time with myself!

• FROM SNEHA ABRAHAM

It's common knowledge that true writers are never satisfied with what they have written. How did you come to the conclusion that the material in your two novels was the best you could publish? Or, where did you draw the line and say, "That's it, this is what I'm going to publish"?

I think there is a creative dissatisfaction and a non-creative one. The creative one allows you to let go of one book but write the next one so you can test yourself all over again. The non-creative one makes you hold on to one text for too long. I think it's good to be dissatisfied and self-critical but not to the extent that it cripples you. Also the opinions of others - editors, writers, readers - do matter. So if they feel a book is ready to go, perhaps it is. But as writers we continue writing books because we're searching for that elusive perfection.

• FROM NAMRATA C.

a. Is there a discipline of writing and reading I have to develop every day if I want to be a writer?

Like I said at the talk, fiction writing is driven by passion and pleasure. Discipline comes afterwards. The only good reason to write is because you desperately want to. If this is your starting point, the discipline will follow. Yes it can be hard to switch on your computer and stare at a blank screen but that's the risk you have to take.

b. I have only recently taken up reading and I find it very difficult to write. I have problems writing simple news reports and features. Is there a solution?

I think reading is a great teacher. So do keep up with that even if it goes slowly. As for writing, practice and persistence. How about keeping a diary and recording your daily impressions and thoughts? Or writing down what you thought about a book. Or running a blog. Doing this more personal kind of writing might help you with other kinds. Also, when you're starting out don't be afraid to imitate. One learns through imitation and slowly develops one's own style.

c. Do you suggest any must-reads, e.g. Jane Austen and Thomas Hardy, which will help me improve my style?

There are no must-reads, though the classics are classics because they've stood the test of time so you will only gain by reading them. But go with your instinct. If you liked one kind of book, maybe you could read more books in the same style/genre. Read reviews - you don't have to agree with everything a reviewer says but at least they'll give you some sense of what a book is about.

d. Any other suggestions you would like to give me to improve my reading and writing skills? Thank you for your time.

Don't be afraid of criticism - use it constructively. And writing is a process. If you write a little every day, eventually it'll all add up.

*

That’s excellent advice from Anjum, all of it. And we’re very grateful to her for making the time to come to Commits and for answering the students’ questions in such detail. 

When sources do not want their names to be revealed...

...here's one way to explain to the reader why you have agreed to grant them anonymity:

Markand Adhikari, the promoter of the television production house, Sri Adhikari Brothers Television Network Ltd, is launching a music and comedy channel called Mastiii with stand-up comedian Raju Srivastava as its brand ambassador. The channel, to be launched by the end of the month, will offer a mix of general entertainment (mostly comedy shows and spoofs) and music, said a media executive familiar with the matter who asked not to be named before a formal announcement is made.

This is from a Mint news feature by Anushree Chandran on the upcoming launch of a new television channel.

ANOTHER EXAMPLE
Also from Mint (July 3):

Rishad Premji has an MBA degree from Harvard Business School and joined Wipro on 18 July 2007 in the banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) business after working with GE Capital and Bain and Co. “He was very interested in the security vertical of our BFSI practice and was involved in a couple of key mergers and acquisitions activities, including the acquisition of Gallagher Financial Systems Inc. in the US,” said a senior official of the firm, who did not want to be identified given the way Wipro views succession. The executive added that Rishad Premji’s appearance in the annual report is one way to make him known to the larger shareholder community of the firm.

Read the article about Azim Premji's succession plan at Wipro here.

Journalism and 'the words of power'

More and more today, we journalists have become prisoners of the language of power.

Is this because we no longer care about linguistics? Is this because lap-tops 'correct'  our spelling, 'trim' our grammar so that our sentences so often turn out to be identical to those of our rulers? Is this why newspaper editorials today often sound like political speeches?

Let me show you what I mean.

Excerpt from an address by Robert Fisk, The Independent newspaper's Middle East correspondent, at the fifth Al Jazeera annual forum in Doha on May 23. Read the full text of the address here to understand why Fisk is making it clear that journalists should have no truck with "rulers", whoever they may be.

"Prepone" is now in the Concise Oxford English Dictionary

And to think of the number of times I have corrected students using "prepone" when they meant "brought forward" or "advanced"! Now they will throw the book at me.

This nugget of information came from V.R. Narayanaswami's recent column on the English language in Mint, titled "English, made in India".

Here's an excerpt:

Whenever a new edition of an English dictionary is released, people start commenting on the number of new Hindi words that have got into the lexicon. The 11th edition of the Concise Oxford English Dictionary added 80 words from Hindi. “Prepone” has been accepted, and “slumlord” and “jai ho” are more recent candidates for entry.

More interesting to me are English words created in India or reshaped from existing words, and given new meanings. That reveals the versatility and adaptability of English words. After prepone, next in line might be “trifurcate”, which is what chief minister Mayawati wants to do with Uttar Pradesh.

Read the full column here.

When an email provides a tip-off

In a story in Mint on June 1 about a Godrej executive facing an embezzlement charge, the reporter Joel Rebello wrote about his source thus:

A Mint reader, who requested that his name be not used, provided information about the case in an email sent on Sunday. The fraud surfaced when the jewellers approached GCPL after Gaine couldn’t be reached in February, prompting the firm to seize his laptop and start an investigation, a company spokesperson said.

Read the full story here.

Two benefits of Twitter that I can think of

1. You get a maximum of 140 characters for your tweet, so you need to be brief and, at the same time, you have to be clear about what you are saying. Not very different from being a journalist? In any case, Twitter helps to sharpen your editing skills. Here's how:

A recent status message I posted on Facebook:

The next time you're at Subway, go for the Italian BMT — it really hits the spot! Leave out the "pickle" (as I did yesterday), add an extra dose of the jalapeno, and stick to the barbeque and honey-mustard sauces. Important: Ask for the honey-oat bread. Scrumptious!

I had to edit it down for Twitter:

Next time at Subway, go for the Italian BMT on honey-oat bread. No "pickle"; extra jalapeno; barbeque and honey-mustard sauces. Divine!

BTW, I didn't know what BMT stood for. Here's what I learned from Yahoo Answers:

The "B.M.T." sandwich at Subway was originally named after the "Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit." Consisting of sliced genoa salami, pepperoni, ham and your choice of salad, it has become one of the chain's most popular subs. With time, the sub's name has evolved to mean "Biggest, Meatiest, Tastiest."

2. As Neilima Bh. P. (Class of 2012) pointed out in a Facebook conversation recently, you get to "follow" celebs, experts, stars, even well-known journalists (though you have to hope that it's not some PR hacks tweeting on their clients' behalf) and read what they have to say about issues that interest them (and possibly us). I follow Rajdeep Sardesai, for instance, and his tweets bring me up to date on the major news events of the day. One of Rajdeep's tweets also led to my discovering the Indicast Podcast Network, in my opinion the best Indian website for podcasts. Media students will love IPN and our AVC students who need to produce a radio feature will get some ideas — check it out here.

• Satish Perumal (Class of 2011) adds: We think of Twitter and Facebook as networking tools which we use to keep in touch with friends and relatives. I, too, thought these networking sites were good only for having a... er, good time, an escape tunnel from the real world to the virtual one.
  
  But I did a rethink recently after a job interview with a social marketing company, Uncut Donut. The interviewer asked me for my Twitter ID and immediately scanned all my tweets, looked at my profile, and tried to get a fix on what kind of topics interest me. I was taken aback a bit by this turn of events and did not know how to react.
  
  Moral of the story: These networking sites might be fun, but these days they are a launch pad for the careers of many ambitious youngsters. And HR departments use them as recruitment tools too. So go ahead and get cracking with your networking!

How true, Satish. The best advice then for those using Twitter and Facebook would be this: When you apply for a job, you may be judged on the basis of your virtual life. So, mind your language. Think of interesting and intelligent status messages and tweets. And when you post pictures think about how these pictures may influence a potential employer. Sure, you may argue that your privacy settings will protect you, but what's to stop a "friend" from copying and forwarding content from your page? — RP

• Also read: "Facebook: Boon or bane?"