when i joined journalism i had absolutely insane, cynical & rude (mildly put) seniors who imbibed a certain spirit in us, made us sit up & think abt our profession, that we MUST have a certain discipline, passion & COMMITMENT -altho’ many among them did NOT possess it is another issue…
We were put through gruelling times & believe me it was UNFAIR…seniors who ridiculed our ideas but passed them onto someone else in a jiffy! Seniors who rubbished our ideas & few months later we’d see someone else’s by line to the same story suggested!! worse still seniors who said our stories were worth trashing & would carry the same day wt their own bylines!! Yet, these very seniors taught us a lot thru’ their example & otherwise.
Some rare good ones were confident of themselves, tore our copies and made us re-write in simple conversational language…made us unlearn all that we’d learnt. Some even led by example. We could discuss the world wt them without having to fear ridicule. They taught us to produce a ‘dhasu’ story! They helped us smell news that’s likely to become BIG….
Even today if there’s anything that makes me smile sincerely, is when i get a dhasu story, covered wt the same amount of passion that I had began my career with. Today i’m a dinosaur!!! Old & forgotten species..Yes in the day new era of news people like me are nearly forgotten.
Today-spare me if a sound like an old Parsi aunty-(wc i’m proud if i do sound), MOST news organisations are hiring young, just-out-of-college kids, anorexic, who wear minimal clothes wt shakal but NOT necessarily akkal. Many who are abso immature & to top all they are in journalism for MONEY & QUICK FAME…what quality of news are we going to expect? They are asked to bring bytes & stories are made like desk-top pieces in the studios.
There was a sonic boom- a ball of fire wt a loud sound- airforce exercise wc was to take place across the seas but mistakenly was conducted across the residential areas of Karjat in October 2oo4. News telecasted- one channel said a Plane crashed & later at least apologised. A leading Hindi news channel said one plane crashed into three pieces but NO clue of the passengers. The sabse tez said they sighted an UFO!! Yes…then for 3 days the channels forgot all abt this news. No astronaut, scientist or minister saying anything. It was later confirmed that it was a sonic boom!
One more black day was when the Mah CM was to be declared, the news reporters fm channels were in their rush to get exclusive news first. so they prepared the son-in-law of the former CM (now central power min) as their main source!! I was moving b/w the State assembly, Cong & NCP office. By afternoon i was informed by my friends in Cong & NCP that Vilasrao had signatures of 47 MLAs & he had staked claim to become the CM else he would cause rebellion.
It was the BLACKEST day for TV news. Sabse tez went abt giving detailed report & live phone-ins abt how Sushilkumar Shinde had become the CM…i was in NCP when my friend fm Star news called & asked how come my favourite bet had lost the chance …I told him he had wrong info. NDTV ran similar news but thks to Rajdeep he pulled up the local bureau head (famous crime reporter) & they actually apologised. He ridiculed that their source was son-in-law of shinde since he proved to be very stupid & dumb! pranab mukherjee had filled in rajdeep wt all the details….. others forgot all about apologising.
Recently again sab se tez declared that the living deputy chairman of state legislative council had died-vasant davkhare-when the person who died was NCP min vasant chavan.
More recently when Mahajan was shot by his brother channels ran a breaking news that he moved his eyes & fingers!!
Sadly whatever may b the case I don’t hear many complaining….