A splendid profile of the first woman to be named the editor of the New York Times

Once, it was preposterous to think that a woman could become the editor of the Times. When Eileen Shanahan, who went on to become a well-respected economics reporter, arrived for an interview with Clifton Daniel, the assistant managing editor, in 1962, she hid her desire to become an editor. “All I ever want is to be a reporter on the best newspaper in the world,” she told him.

“That’s good,” Daniel responded, as Shanahan told the story, “because I can assure you no woman will ever be an editor at the New York Times.”

JILL ABRAMSON

This is one of the many gems in a New Yorker profile of the new executive editor of the New York Times, Jill Abramson, by the respected journalist and author Ken Auletta.

There is more in the same vein:

Susan Chira, an assistant managing editor, says that she kept thinking that when she joined the Times, in 1981, many Times women were “sad, bitter, angry people who were talented but who had been thwarted.” Editors openly propositioned young women.

After giving us this little bit of history, Auletta plunges wholeheartedly into the business of helping us to understand what makes Jill Abramson tick. It is a splendid profile, worth reading not only for its insights into the decision-making process at one of the world's great newspapers but also for the quality of the writing itself. How much time and effort must have gone into putting together the thousands of words that make up this article!

Read the profile in its entirety here: Changing Times.

PS: Here's Ken Auletta on how Abramson first made it to the Times:

When the [Clarence Thomas confirmation] hearings ended, Abramson wrote [to] Maureen Dowd, who covered them for the Times, a mash note. Dowd, who later became a columnist, sent back a mash note of her own. Some years later, Dowd told Abramson that she was looking for more women to join the Times. “You know any sensational women out there?” Dowd asked.

“Yeah, me!” Abramson shot back.

Dowd reported this to the Washington bureau chief, Michael Oreskes, who invited Abramson to lunch. She joined the Times in September, 1997, and in December, 2000, she was named Washington bureau chief.

• In Talk to the Newsroom, a Q&A with Times editors, reporters, columnists, and executives, Jill Abramson offers some illuminating answers to questions posed by readers. Read especially her thoughts on whether young people will read newspapers and on how news affects real people.

• Also read Ken Auletta's illuminating book on the "business of news". It's available in the Commits library.

A foreigner's experience of playing an "extra" on a Hindi film set

What does it mean to be a foreign "extra" in a Bollywood movie?

Writing in Open, a 20-year-old German student says that, for the first time in India, "we as whites are not at the centre of attention but mere background decoration".

In the piece, published under the "True Life" rubric in the magazine, Marian Brehmer gives us intimate details of the whole experience of being a "prop" in a Karan Johar film — he does not reveal the name of the movie, but tells us that Kareena Kapoor and Imran Khan are the stars, so it must be the upcoming Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu.

Here is Brehmer's desciption of the moment when Kareena arrives on the set:

Suddenly, she is there, among us. Like a fata morgana, the diva has emerged out of nothing. As soon as she sits down, Kareena Kapoor transforms the place. She is constantly cared for by a personal stylist who buzzes around her like a multi-armed Hindu deity: waving a comb, hairslides and a mirror at the same time. Kareena is in her own world and totally absorbed in the role. She constantly reads and rehearses the lines. “She didn’t practise her role?” a fellow extra asks me. None of us has great appreciation for actors we have hardly ever heard of — Kareena Kapoor, and then Imran Khan, who joins her later. Kareena seems utterly unreal and unapproachable to me. She is treated not as a star, but like a living goddess. Even the staring men are spellbound by Kareena’s invisible halo and keep their heads down.

The shoot, which was supposed to last only a few hours, goes on through the night, taking its toll on Brehmer and his fellow extras:

It is past 3 am and many of us don’t feel like moving at all. Nevertheless, I want to be productive and create my own show as a random shopper. In this scene I unfold and test the softness of a brown towel, smell soaps of different quality and compare the prices of milk chocolate. This continues for at least two hours. I take it in good humour, but I can sense the tension rising around me. The blonde lady starts swearing in Polish. It sounds ugly.

Finally, the two British girls burst out in anger: “We were to be dropped back in Colaba at 7 am! We need to catch a plane at noon!” Nobody takes notice of them.

It is 7.15 a.m. when the crew declares the shoot over. At the end of it, each foreigner is paid Rs.500. But this was not about the money, writes Brehmer, it's the experience.

Now each extra has a story to tell for a long time.

Read the article in its entirety here: One night in Bollywood.

• Also read: What are the ramifications of a white woman marrying an Indian man and choosing to live in India?

What it means to be a TV news reporter-1

Commits alumna NEHA MEHTA (Class of 2009), who was the Times Now correspondent in Bangalore, gives television news aspirants an insight into the challenges of reporting: 

What is it like to be a television reporter? (Hmm… welcome to hell, people! Oh, I'm kidding! Or am I?)

Reporting is one of the best and, at the same time, one of the most challenging jobs in television journalism. TV news reporting has various aspects to it; the actual reporting is only one of many.

It may all look easy on the small screen, but in reality, it can be totally frenetic. To get your face on TV for those 60-odd seconds in a day you have to work like a maniac for the rest of the 23 hours and 59 minutes. But once your story is on air, the feeling you experience is something out of this world, especially when you know your story can change the lives of many.

There are at least three things to keep in mind if you want to be a successful TV reporter.

AWARENESS OF YOUR SURROUNDINGS: It's extremely important for you to be aware of your surroundings — people, places, and, of course, information. Keep an eye on everything possible; sometimes the least interesting people can give you the most important story of your life. Also, please read newspapers EVERY DAY and, most important, watch other news channels, even regional news channels. This will help you to gather a lot of information that you can use when the need arises.

SOURCES: Your best source of information might not be someone at the head honcho level; often, to your surprise, it can be the ubiquitous chaiwala who sits around the corner. I was primarily a political reporter and I would get much of my information from the chief minister's driver, gunman, watchman… never from his PA. So make as many friends as possible because 'har ek friend zaroori hota hai'.

NEHA MEHTA BROKE MANY STORIES ON TIMES NOW.

SCRIPTS AND PTCs: Your script should have an interactive feel to it and you should always “write to the visuals”, this will help to explain your story better. Don't try to tell your audience too much, nor give them too little; at the same time, don't ever consider your viewers to be simpletons — don’t try to give them information which, more often than not, they would already know. Don't keep asking them questions in your story, probably once is more than enough. Your story always has to be future-looking; otherwise why will your viewer come back to your channel?

Coming to PTCs or the Piece to Camera (also referred to as the P2C), please remember this is your only claim to fame on a news channel. So be presentable, well-groomed, and confident. Your looks can sometimes add credibility to a story.

ON THE "PERSONAL" FRONT: All this was very technical. Now for some “personal” advice. It is very important that you be yourself. It takes a lot of hard work to be a part of a news channel. You will have to work insane hours and days without leave and, of course, appreciation comes once in a light year.

When you have a story in mind go and find out everything about it. Think of ways you can shoot and script it. Think about how this story can be beneficial to people around you; after all, the press is the fourth estate and we journalists carry the baton of responsibility for society. You can get vulnerable in such surroundings but it depends on you how you hold on to your ethics and values. It's very easy to sensationalise news and sometimes your news channel might ask you to do so, but I think it's you who needs to decide where you want to draw the line.

THE TIMES NOW EXPERIENCE: As for my experience with Times Now, it was the best reality roller-coaster ride of my life. Sure, I had my ups and downs but who doesn't?

I enjoyed my stint as a TV reporter because after working hard on my stories I would see them on air and that would give me the best feeling ever, something I don't think anything else can give me in my life.

Not a single day in my life was identical once I joined Times Now. Every day was a different challenge; there is so much pressure when it comes to deadlines that I was constantly hounded for stories and ideas and for months I wouldn't get a day off. Come rain, come shine we had to work and deliver. That’s when I would think back to my days at Commits, the days when Ranita Ma'am would tell us students to pop a pill and get to work. There is no escaping, folks. :). Or, as Ramesh Sir would say, c'est la vie.

• Neha Mehta, who moved to Kolkata after marriage, is now the executive creative director of D'Oh-Boy!, the city's first doughnut cafe. 

ALSO READ:

• 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.

Why you may want to re-think your profile on Twitter

How much can you say in a few hundred characters? Perhaps that is the reason why, as Businessworld columnist Mala Bhargava discovered recently, people are not only uncomfortable with how to tweet, but also with the very creation of their profiles.

She writes in the latest issue of the magazine:

Recently, I was teaching a class of students doing a course on digital communication, and during our exploration of Twitter, I found that people were not only uncomfortable with how to tweet, but also with the very creation of their profiles. As always, when you teach, you learn, and interacting with the students made me realise a few things about Twitter profiles that I don’t see in the usual fare of ‘Ten Tips’ articles plaguing the Web. I promptly re-did my own bio.

So the issue is not really how much you can say in 140 characters, but what you should say in 140 characters.

Bhargava explains why:

Letting your personality show through in those few words is important because everyone wants to feel they are interacting with a real person. But too often, the description overdoes the attitude or shows the difficulty with being specific about the user’s strengths.

The number of profiles I’m seeing referring to “blokes about town”, “lover of life”, “explorer of dreams”, “clueless about everything”, “spellbound by the universe at large”, etc., is staggering. As long as these tasty morsels of self-revelation are balanced with specific information, they are really fun. In the absence of solidity though, they do nothing to get the user very much.

Read Mala Bhargava's column in its entirety here and figure out what you want to say in your Twitter bio.

• Also read: Two benefits of Twitter I can think of.

A Justin Bieber in the making?

She is supposed to be THE YouTube sensation of India. Shraddha Sharma is her name and, according to a story in Mint Lounge on September 17, her YouTube channel had more subscribers than John Abraham's.

SHRADDHA SHARMA STRUTTING HER STUFF.

In the profile, written by Anindita Ghose, we learn that Shraddha, "savvy songstress, YouTube phenomenon and Facebook celebrity", is a 15-year-old schoolgirl who lives in Dehradun and has never travelled beyond New Delhi.

How did Shraddha get her start?

A little before midnight on 30 April, Shraddha Sharma uploaded a YouTube video of her singing, with a guitar accompaniment, a teary song of separation dedicated to “a special friend who was leaving her forever”. It was recorded on her parents’ living room sofa. She sang Rahat Fateh Ali Khan’s Mein Tenu Samjhawan from the Punjabi movie Virsa.

Five videos and 16 weeks later, in the third week of August, Shraddha’s YouTube channel, Shraddharockin, became the highest subscribed channel in India.

Shades of Justin Bieber! Back in May last year, The Reading Room had published a post based on Time magazine's article on how the internet had turned a 16-year-old into a pop phenom. And now here's an Indian teen rocking the internet charts.

Read the Shraddha Sharma profile here and the Justin Bieber post here.

• Photo courtesy: Mint Lounge

What is the link between India fast bowler Praveen Kumar and Indians' love of gold?

What a shining example of a good intro!

Writing in the Outlook issue of November 7, Arti Sharma begins her story on Indians' current craze for gold with this little incident that occurred during a one-day cricket match between India and England:

It happened once upon a time in Mumbai, last Sunday (October 23). Having strangled England with his banana swingers all season, Praveen Kumar rolled in to bowl yet another over in the revenge series, at the Wankhede. A boundary was followed by a wide down the leg side. Next ball, horror — another wide, this time even wider than the previous one. Skipper Dhoni lay behind the stumps, mystified at the Miser from Meerut uncharacteristically squandering away sundries.

After pondering for a while at the wicket, hands on knees, Kumar proceeded to return to his bowling mark. And, as he passed the non-striker’s end, the bowler suddenly seemed to realise the cause of his temporary strife. Nonchalantly, he put his hand inside his shirt, pulled out a gold chain thick enough to strangulate a 400-pound bear, handed it to the umpire at the bowler’s end, and returned to discover his line and length.

So what? Maybe your bowling hero is Shantakumaran Sreesanth. But that action, in the full glare of cameras, captured India’s magnificent obsession with the yellow metal that now cheerfully afflicts everybody: from city-slickers to the small-towners; from women to men to medium-pacers. And, unlike in the past, when gold was what you stashed away secretly in safe deposit lockers, away from evil eyes, now you flaunt it, if you can afford it.

PRAVEEN KUMAR

It would have been so easy — and so boring — to begin a story on gold consumption in India with the story of a young couple buying jewellery or the tale of a housewife stocking up on the yellow metal for the sake of her children.

But, like a good journalist, Arti Sharma looked for the unusual and found it in a game of cricket. Isn't that something?

What it means to work on the desk at a television news channel

Commits alumnus DIPANKAR PAUL (Class of 2009), who worked on the Times Now news desk in Mumbai, gives television news aspirants an insight into the responsibilities of the subs: 

The sub has mainly one broad role in a TV news channel: Writing news so that the anchor can read and the viewer can understand.

That said, there are numerous other responsibilities that lead up to the anchor reading the news out aloud on air.

DIPANKAR PAUL WORKING THE NIGHT SHIFT AT TIMES NOW.

BREAKING NEWS

During a 'newsbreak', a sub is usually required to operate the ticker. The ticker is a place where the viewer sees the latest news — in real time.

More often than not, in such a breaking news situation, information comes in via text messages, or off the screen of another channel. And both are prime sources for mistakes. The text message may have a typo (for example, while a reporter may have intended to say "1 killed", he may inadvertently type 11, or 12), so it's a great idea to call the reporter and verify. And taking news off another channel is OK only if you can verify with either your reporter, or if at least another channel puts out the same news.

However, that said, in the (highly competitive) world of TV news, where time is of the essence, mistakes do get made. The only thing to do then is to put your hand up, make the correction, and move on. Just ensure it never happens again.

SOUND BITES

A substantial part of a sub's day goes in listening to press conferences, and other bites (collected by reporters on the field). Most bites are lengthy and rambling; some are full of propaganda, especially if there's a political party involved.

The trick is to listen to the entire bite, and then select which part you think is most effective in adding value to the news at hand. At the beginning of a career, the sub is not expected to make calls on selecting sound bites. The senior editors will usually decide which parts of a press conference or a bite will go on air. However, as experience grows, that responsibility falls entirely on the sub. In fact, the sub is the unseen face of a TV news channel. (More on this later.)

CUTTING A BITE. COMMITSCION AAKASH VERMA (CLASS OF 2004) IS ON THE LEFT.

GRAPHICS

Today, all TV news screens are an explosion of graphics. There are 'top bands', 'story slugs', 'infosupers', full-frame graphics, 'stamps', and a plethora of other variations of text on screen, all of which serve one purpose: Informing the viewer.

A lot of importance is laid on graphics because the general assumption is that people watch news with their TV on 'mute'. So, all information that would otherwise be in the script is pasted on the screen.

WRITING THE NEWS
I call this the most important, and the most neglected, duty of the sub. A sub spends so much time on selecting the perfect bite, getting it cut and published, and on creating graphics that there is little time (or so the perception is) to think through a script and write.

But at the end of the day, all frills aside, the job is all about processing the news and presenting it to the viewer. Language must be crisp, precise, devoid of ALL subjectivity. A sub must remember that there aren't a lot of words to play with (a story is usually not longer than three minutes; the bites, PTCs, and graphics will take up close to two minutes, leaving 60 seconds or 200 words to actually write).

FINAL TOUCHES AS A NIGHT SHIFT GETS OVER WITH THE FIRST BULLETIN OF THE DAY.

It is important to know that a TV news script is not the same as a newspaper article. There is absolutely no scope for 'flowery' language. Viewers don't sit with a dictionary when watching the news. The prose must be conversational; it must never be preachy, and never look to incite the viewer: Present the facts as they are; let the bites do the talking.

Most TV channels, though, are likely to have a defined stance (pro-government, or whatever), and this can seep through into the scripts being aired; the subs' challenge, therefore, is to keep their integrity intact.

DIPANKAR PAUL (SEATED, EXTREME LEFT), ALONG WITH OTHER ALUMNI, WAS AT COMMITS EARLIER THIS YEAR TO JUDGE THE SECOND SEMESTER TELEVISION NEWS BULLETINS.

• Also read: "An excellent example of an interview-based local feature".

• Further reading: What it means to be a TV news reporter-1; What it means to be a TV news reporter-2; and 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. 

Is this an example of carrying political correctness too far?

I just happened to be reading the October 2 issue of the Hindu's Literary Review yesterday. The cover story is dedicated to the newspaper's literary prize for the best fiction of the year and, in addition to the shortlist of seven novels, the front page provides a summary of the methodology of selection and the judges' opinions of the submissions for the prize.

Here is the sentence that had me gagging:

Each judge also had his or her own criteria of selection — wit and wisdom of craftspersonship, spontaneity, novelty, irony, poignancy, elegance, relevance etc — so that the final shortlist contains a variety of highly accomplished but dissimilar books.

For one thing, "etc." should be treated like a non-essential clause and so there should be a comma after "relevance". Second, when a writer (this short piece does not have a byline) uses "etc." in this fashion, it points to a lack of imagination.

But that is not what had me gagging.

It was the use of the word "craftspersonship".

Craftspersonship? Since when has "craftsmanship" been deemed derogatory to women? Aren't we carrying political correctness too far?

Looking for a good book to read?

Feel free to browse my library.

And if you're wondering why it is important to read books, check out this Reading Room post: WHY YOU MUST READ.

• Also read: Coming soon to a newsstand near you, a literary magazine edited by a Commits alumna.

Controversial remarks on Karan Thapar's show by new Press Council chief

I caught the fag end of Karan Thapar's interview with the new chairman of the Press Council of India on CNN-IBN on Sunday and I was dumbfounded at what I was hearing. It seemed to me that Justice Markandey Katju did not have a very high opinion of the media; he appeared to be particularly incensed with television news channels.

So I was glad to read in today's Times of India that the Editors' Guild of India has been very critical of his remarks on Devil's Advocate.

Here is the Editors' Guild press statement in full (reproduced from ToI):

EDITORS' GUILD SLAMS KATJU’S COMMENTS

Editors' Guild press statement in response to remarks by Press Council of India chairman Justice Markandey Katju:

The Editors' Guild of India deplores the ill-considered, sweeping and uninformed comments on the media and on media professionals by the new chairman of the Press Council of India, Justice Markandey Katju. Mr Katju has been making negative statements on the media ever since he assumed office, but his comments in an interview to Karan Thapar on CNN-IBN, broadcast over the weekend, touched a new low.

The Guild notes that Mr Katju thinks the media divides people on religious lines and is anti-people. He objects to TV channels that focus on cricket and other subjects that he disapproves of. He believes that journalists have not studied economics, politics, literature or philosophy, and he has a poor opinion of the media and media people (some of whom, as it happens, are members of the Press Council that Mr Katju chairs).

The Guild notes that Mr Katju, after expressing such sweeping negative sentiments, has asked the government for draconian powers to impose fines on the media, to withdraw advertisements and to suspend the licence to publish or broadcast. The Guild strongly opposes such powers being given to the Council, especially a Council led by someone who it would seem wants to invoke “fear” in the media.

The Guild wishes to draw attention to the fact that its attempt to engage in dialogue with Mr Katju has been rendered futile by Mr Katju, who however continues to express his tendentious and offensive views. The Guild wishes to remind Mr Katju that the Indian media is as diverse as it is vigorous, and that while it has drawbacks and shortcomings, on the whole it contributes to the strength of the Indian system.

Press freedom is a bulwark for the Indian people against the onslaught of people in authority, and the Guild will firmly oppose the assumption of any draconian powers by a Press Council that was created with an altogether different purpose. Further, as the very name of the Council suggests, only the print media comes within the Council’s ambit. The issues and drivers of the electronic media are such that they call for separate regulation. Therefore the Guild firmly believes that the Press Council should have its brief limited to the print media, as it is at the present.

UPDATE (November 3): Today's ToI carries this report on broadcast editors also criticising the new Press Council chairman: 

BROADCAST EDITORS CRITICIZE KATJU

New Delhi: After the Editors’ Guild of India, the Broadcast Editors’ Association (BEA) on Thursday criticized Press Council of India chairman Markandey Katju for making “irresponsible and negative comments” about the media. It said such statements from the PCI chief were “extremely disappointing”.

Taking strong exception to Katju’s remark that “media professionals are of low intellectual calibre with poor knowledge of economics, history, politics, literature and philosophy,” the BEA said it “shows scant knowledge” of the great journalists the country has produced.

It said that in a democracy, criticism was welcome against institutions by individuals and representatives of institutions as that gives a fillip to self-corrective process. TNN

FURTHER READING:

• Mint editorial — "Educating Justice Katju".
• Asian Age column — "Much of what Justice Katju says is not new".
• The Economic Times on Sunday column — "Journos of the country, learn philosophy".

UPDATE (September 5, 2012): "The Hindu’s readers reveal Katju’s infinite bluff" (from Outlook editor Krishna Prasad's blog)