Having worked with state-run Doordarshan as news anchor for
16 years, Rini Simon Khanna has become a household name in the country. In
addition to presenting news, Rini is an experienced voice talent, rendering
commentary and voiceovers for documentaries, advertisement films and feature films.
She also anchors international and national conferences, cultural shows and
seminars for prestigious organisations, UN agencies, corporate groups and government
agencies
In conversation with Rini Khanna...
Journalists
then and now
There are lot of
differences between the journalists of yesteryears and journalists of today. I
think technology has a big role in this. The truth is that people who are in
the media are not definitely tech-savvy – a lot of us. Technologies change
one’s ability. We have to be savvier with what we are doing and also savvy with
the technologies that are available worldwide .There are lots of technologies
which have changed the world. So people in the media have to be savvier with
the technologies worldwide. One cannot say that ‘I was not aware of it.’ You
have to be somebody who is connected all the time, you have to know the
breaking news, best deals plus to be able to upload and send your reports. You
can no longer say that you couldn’t file your story because you didn’t have a
fax machine or connectivity. Definitely, technologies are the gamechanger today
plus the input for information; you have twitter, face book, all the social
media tools plus all kinds of information is coming from all kinds of media. Obviously,
journalists of today are not just the ones who read some books and wrote
stories some time. You have to be updated with everything happening around. You
can’t afford to be out of the scene for any reason.
Quality
of journalism students
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The problem is not in
the education part. The problem is that everything is ‘breaking news’ today. So,
in the hurry to get that, you skip a lot of fact. You don’t have the time to go
into anything in depth. How much attention do you give a particular story? If
there is a ‘breaking story’ today, there might be five breaking stories at the
same time. So, according to me, people who are doing reporting today don’t have
the depth of knowledge that a senior journalist has. Their knowledge is very
superficial and they don’t have the time for investigation, so they take any
information they get. They are not ready to go back and check whether the
information given is true or whether somebody is trying to mislead them with
false information. The senior journalist has that many years of experience
behind him; he also has that much of wisdom behind him. He has been able to
analyse news, give it enough thought, was able to put it in the correct
perspective, and was efficient enough to give other angles to the story.
Resolving
the issue
The market will tackle
it. It is like going to a bookshop – there are lots of books. There are books
which are churned out in a minute, book by overnight authors, you have twitter
authors. The audience knows what to pick up. They would pick up books which
they take back home and sit in an armchair, give it a thought and read, or
books that can be read in a flight journey when you can fling it out after
reading. It depends on the audience. Right now, the audiences have 250 news
channels to graze through. The same is the case with journals and other
magazines. What do they choose out of this? Burning-out rate is on the rise –
that is the reason why many channels and other media organisations are closing
down. So unless your material is authentic and well-developed, you are not
going to sustain.
Media
institutes
In my days, there were
no journalism institutes apart from Indian Institute of Mass Communication
(IIMC), but things have changed now. We have different media institutes and
universities offering media courses. The saddest part is that only few
institutes are able to sustain. Again, the market decides which is better. Journalism
is not like an essay written during your academics. In beat reporting, you
should have an idea about crime, politics, law and many other things that are
happening around. Each media institute caters to a particular audience. I don’t
know about the quality of institutes because it is like comparing apples to
oranges. Each institute has its own unique character.
Need
for media institutes
Nobody has to be
qualified to become a journalist. You can’t say that you are a surgeon after
doing one operation; the same is with journalism. Your standard and quality is
determined by how long you are able to sustain this. After all, this is an art.
You can’t be just a writer and say that you are a journalist. There is so much
to add to your skills. There is certain discipline that you need to follow in a
media school. You are exposed to certain things which you may not be able to be
exposed to. For instance, a common man will not be able to step into a studio
and record or do a story or use a machine. You don’t necessarily have to be a
part of a media institution to be able to become a journalist, but there is a certain
sort of grounding that has to take place.
PC: caravanmagazine.in
Article first appeared in the 2013 December issue of Education Insider magazine
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