This Leads us to the fourth Essential Pillar of Journalism
This leads us to the fourth essential pillar of journalism. The need to continuously strengthen your grip on any subject. Journalists are by definition all-rounders and masters of certain subjects. We all should try to be proficient in as many subjects as possible.
We should try our best to overcome our prejudices. It is necessary for a journalist to continuously increase his knowledge on the subjects of history, sociology, political science, culture, economics and law. He should not follow any subject within strict limits. Since we have become accustomed to dividing knowledge in this way in today’s times, I am choosing two subjects here: sociology and history.
Sociology
Sociology, the science of human life living in society, is the most useful subject for a journalist. In the West, as the subject developed, its field of study was initially social classes. Then came race, and how it determined a person’s social status.
In India, Sociology is one of the most obsolete disciplines. Even among the people of the academic world, this subject has not been able to make a special place of its own. Most of the sociologists in our country are known for their work in history and political science, which are subjects that get more public recognition and make it easier to contract with publishers.
Since history, mainly, depends on documents and for this you have to go to the library or archive. Whereas on the contrary sociology lays more emphasis on fieldwork and data collection. Due to this neglect of this subject, there is a huge shortage of original work in the field of sociology in our country.
interests and interests
Is it just a matter of interests and interests, or, is it some sly conspiracy to not allow individuals to actively confront the most disgusting reality of this country, namely, caste? Any true lover of sociology should always be ready to delve deep into the question of caste. the main sieve of Indian society, but because of its upper caste and social status, most of the scholars in the academic world stunned by the subject. take turns.
Even if we look at the rest of his theoretic work in isolation for a while, he has found original documents on caste only for a nominal amount. This means that very little on-the-ground and academic work has been done on caste. In contrast, American sociologists have done extensive work on race. Since journalists often want to look at academic work for a deeper understanding of a subject, they end up in a blind well as soon as they come to the question of caste.
Ideally, journalists should consider the subject of sociology, rather than any other subject, as the most important means of acquiring knowledge, because the most important subjects of what journalists mean are those related to human sociology. If you neglect a large aspect of society, it makes journalism poor.
Now here’s the second topic I want to talk about: History.
The journalist’s relationship with history is complicated. A journalist should deal with historical facts and historical processes. It is necessary for him to grasp the tools of history in order to assess the veracity and factuality of his work, so that his work may be usable for future historians.
The Victorian historian John Seeley said, “History is the politics of the past; And present politics is the history of the future.” If they are right, journalists are writing history for the coming generation through their writings; And registering current politics is like writing a journal.
The main question that arises from this is how factual is what the journalists are recording today. Are today’s journalists creating every detail possible of their times? Or that they are merely recording public relations statements of the government machinery in our daily politics? Will these mutilated, washed-up details be recorded as history in the future?
history in the future?
Nowadays a consummate editor doesn’t shoot a news story straight away. He keeps avoiding it at first and does not allow it to be printed. In this way, gradually the pile of unpublished news starts increasing in the folder of the reporter’s computer.
Therefore, In the last six-seven years, Modi has bulldozed all the constitutional-non-constitutional institutions of the country. In recording the present times, the role of journalists has been particularly critical.
Whenever the political bosses expressed their displeasure, the owners of the media houses came in front of them in a gesture of prostration. Self-respecting editors succumbed to power and crushed important disclosures filed by reporters. Nowadays a consummate editor doesn’t shoot a news story straight away.
He keeps avoiding it at first and does not allow it to printe. In this way, gradually the pile of unpublished news starts increasing in the folder of the reporter’s computer. Many correspondents just keep going without getting their best work publishing. They encouraged to do things without historical consciousness. Whereas if he was made to work with this consciousness, then his work could have made sustainable and relevant.
Consequences
As a result, they continue to work like oxen with the pain imposed by the system and wait for the times to change. While a few of them, who understand the pulse of the system, find their way in this environment and are called socially courageous. But even then, through their work, they are not able to shed even the hair of powerful political interests.
In today’s environment, spontaneous stories written around cultural nationalism are a living example of this. This is the reason why you see many articles on cow-hooliganism, attacks on liquor vends, headless statements by the headless politicians, but these articles do not even pull a needle through the hair of those in power. Moving a chair is a far cry.
In some selected cases
In some selected cases, sometimes even a powerful company is heavily targeted. But this is possible because some people of big influence are trying to teach a lesson to someone for their vested interests. But when it comes to crimes at the highest level and organized robbery, journalists often don’t even want to get too close to the truth.
Looking back after fifty years from today, reading the writings of the present era would be like trying to understand the India presented by washing and wiping. When we look at the journalism we do today, we will find almost nothing about these seven major pillars of our country: the Prime Minister’s Office, the National Security Advisor, the Finance Ministry, and the current ruling party president.
Next come: Reliance and the Adani Group,
Next come: Reliance and the Adani Group, the two big capitalist houses that flourished during the Modi era; And finally: the Ministry of Defence, with an annual budget of three lakh crores. The budget of this ministry is the largest in the world and its interest is to maintain tension in the subcontinent. But, contrary to the established values of journalism, there is almost silence on these very important areas.
Of course, you can add many more topics and areas to these, which almost do not get any kind of critical scrutiny. At the state levels, these big national issues have their own regional issues. But I say that if the main responsibility of a journalist is to write on contemporary politics, policies and decisions, then journalists are not performing their duty properly. In that sense, thousands of journalists working in big newspapers and TV companies are not being taken for real journalism work. The work done by him has no archival value.
There are so many subjects
There are so many subjects like politics, economics, science, law and it is a lifelong venture for a journalist to expand his horizons. They can show excellent work on all these subjects while moving forward in their professional life. Undoubtedly, there are tons of text material on every subject in them and it is impossible to read them in one life. It is a humbling feeling that there is so much to learn and learn.
This brings us to our final point: craft, skill or workmanship.
Everything related to journalism falls under the category of skill, craft or workmanship. The language you use. The aesthetics, presentation, setting, characters and attractiveness of photographs, associated with the genre of writing, all matter in the multimedia medium.
Most journalists associate the idea of craft with language only. It’s true that your language and prose are essential ingredients. The way you breathe life into your characters makes your writing memorable. But to limit this skill to language only, to ‘misread’ the ‘craft’ of journalism. The ‘all-suffering-one-medicine’ recipe can prove to be harmful, especially when different types of writing have different styles.
Conclusion
For example, you cannot test the patience of a reader while writing a news story. The tried-and-tested method of pyramid standing on the head considered equally effective even today. News writing cannot be turning into vote-writing.
An investigative journalist may have used a small part of his revelations in his writings. The part which could not use, it is possible that it should be recorded in his notebook. As a way to get to the basement of the ‘case’.
Which he does not want to reveal to the world right now. So that the doors of the basement should not close for him forever. To elaborate the information gathered while writing the feature, your sight-heard can presente with chili-spices. But if that style adopted while writing investigative journalism reports. Then things can go wrong, flooding the danger of the journalist’s story deviating from its original purpose.
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