The second day at DNA was another series of lectures from editors of different sections out to explain why their section was the best.
In particular I found the points raised by Saumit, the editor of After Hrs., the mosr relevant. He is a 30 something guy who has his priorities clear. He asked us to get out the hypocritical belief that entertainment news is frivolous. In fact, he said, most of the news seen today is presented in such a flashy way that the effect of entertaining the audience into reading news is all too apparent. The thing with me is, on my test paper result, they had printed the words "After Hrs - Desk" in an all too apparent way of telling where I was headed, never mind the 360 degree tour of the paper.
THe other instance where I got charged up was the very first one where a certain Mr. Bhatia was talking about the Edit page. In newspapers, this is the most sacrosanct page and the only page where views are allowed rather than news. Therefore it is necessary to spell out the policy of the paper based on which editorials can be written. In DNA however, they seem to be liberal and secular to all issues which goes against the rules since it is impossible to be fair to your ideas if you publish any good piece of work. I argued, but the stand-offish response I got put me off.
OTher people from other sections came and spoke as well. But there was nothing much they could do for me to write about.
Let's see what happens tomorrow. We've been told that the deep end is awaiting us. How deep the rabbit hole goes will be apparent soon enough.
Friday, January 05, 2007
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
Day 1 at DNA
So finally I entered the hallowed (or hollowed) domain of journalists today when I stepped into the office of DNA (Daily News & Analysis) at Kamala Mills today. In a lot of ways this blog was supposed to be started by me a long time ago. I wanted to put my life out here, if only to check and see how similar and how different I am from the rest of my ilk. What further strengthened my resolve was the fact that I was told to maintain a diary as a journalist. So here we go, and hope you enjoy the ride.
I am a mass media graduate with journalism as my specialisation. Once I got my result in June last year, I began work at a company called Ness Technologies. There I worked on as Content Editor for their client - Baseline Studio Systems. It was good while it lasted, (6 months to be precise) writing about Hollywood movies that hadnt released in India and all. But it got repetitive, I lost interest and opportunity came knocking in the form of this job and I took it.
I came to office just after 9 30. I was quite relaxed since I'd just got to know I was expected at 10. I thought it would stretch to 11 by the time something really happens but this time things started off soon. It was induction day. There were 8 other people with me, 4 of whom were from Pune and incidentally, from the ame college as well, Indira School of Communication.
After brief introductions, we were addressed all through the day by different people including Zee head honcho Subhash Chandra. He is a man with weary eyes hidden by bushy eyebrows and has a shocker of white hair on his forehead in his otherwsie black hair. He speaks in a deep labyrinthic voice which can hold your attention immediately but one that lacks aura. He spoke to us about how DNA is just another business for him and that we shouldnt set too high editorial standards. Kind of unexpected, but then well.. really nothing that could be done about that.
One Mr. Suresh provided the only seminar which had zestful enthusiasm. He spoke at length about the campaign that was launched and all the hoopla and behind-the-scenes number crunching that went into it. We were also shown how the printing press at Vashi was built in a world record (their words, not mine) of just 176 days. Also, there was constant talk of increasing circulation and plans of unsettling sleeping giant Times of India soon. Mr. Ayaz Memon was particularly happy to share that today the circulation figure touched 392,000 copies.
At the end of it all, we were divided into teams that would work with different departments all through the month - but that hasnt been finalised so I guess there's no use of writing it.
Tomorrow there are lectures of an hour each from editors of various depts. It's like an extended college lecture day and I just hope they dont tempt me to bunk!
I am a mass media graduate with journalism as my specialisation. Once I got my result in June last year, I began work at a company called Ness Technologies. There I worked on as Content Editor for their client - Baseline Studio Systems. It was good while it lasted, (6 months to be precise) writing about Hollywood movies that hadnt released in India and all. But it got repetitive, I lost interest and opportunity came knocking in the form of this job and I took it.
I came to office just after 9 30. I was quite relaxed since I'd just got to know I was expected at 10. I thought it would stretch to 11 by the time something really happens but this time things started off soon. It was induction day. There were 8 other people with me, 4 of whom were from Pune and incidentally, from the ame college as well, Indira School of Communication.
After brief introductions, we were addressed all through the day by different people including Zee head honcho Subhash Chandra. He is a man with weary eyes hidden by bushy eyebrows and has a shocker of white hair on his forehead in his otherwsie black hair. He speaks in a deep labyrinthic voice which can hold your attention immediately but one that lacks aura. He spoke to us about how DNA is just another business for him and that we shouldnt set too high editorial standards. Kind of unexpected, but then well.. really nothing that could be done about that.
One Mr. Suresh provided the only seminar which had zestful enthusiasm. He spoke at length about the campaign that was launched and all the hoopla and behind-the-scenes number crunching that went into it. We were also shown how the printing press at Vashi was built in a world record (their words, not mine) of just 176 days. Also, there was constant talk of increasing circulation and plans of unsettling sleeping giant Times of India soon. Mr. Ayaz Memon was particularly happy to share that today the circulation figure touched 392,000 copies.
At the end of it all, we were divided into teams that would work with different departments all through the month - but that hasnt been finalised so I guess there's no use of writing it.
Tomorrow there are lectures of an hour each from editors of various depts. It's like an extended college lecture day and I just hope they dont tempt me to bunk!
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