Hi,

Journalism is a force, which binds a society or nation as an organic mechanism. In the new era, it has assumed prominence because of its potential as a “change agent”. It informs, innovates, mold, and impresses people living in a region or country. Humans are in a supine posture as far as the bombardment of news, views, critical comments, and thoughts on their minds are concerned. The combination of audio, visual, and audio-visual tools of communication has created a new ethos that affects us all. Journalism, supported by high-technology tools like TV, DTH and the internet make us believe that we are living in a Utopia, literally!

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Journalism has come of age. It not only informs us about the latest happenings but also it makes us aware of the sensitive issues, which must be addressed by a society or nation. Politics, economics, empowerment of women, community health, international sports tournaments, various summits or conferences and visits of dignitaries are some of the issues that are covered by journalists of the new millennium. Today, the emphasis is not on coverage of a new or an event; rather, rational prediction of happenings of the future and appropriate comments on such happenings are vital for the journo of the new era.

No field of human endeavour can escape the wrath of journalism- Stock markets, business tycoons, MNCs, political parties, households, NGOs, the UNO and its organ, people in power and those out of its corridors, core sectors of the economy, the hoi polloi of a nation, VVIPs, celebrities of the tinsel world of cinema, authors, painters, artists, farmers and many more are adequately covered by the media on a minute-by-minute basis. Thus, the ‘targets’ of journalists are vulnerable to the photographic tricks, live coverage, blunt questions and sarcastic comments of the latter.

Journalism as a Profession

We shall of the aforesaid categories, relevant in the field of journalism. Thus, this profession can be categorized into the following classes:-

1. Print media journalism:

Professional of this stream are- staff correspondents, special correspondents, news editors, chief editors, political commentators, cartoonists, columnists, feature writers, content writers etc. These professionals have amazing abilities to analyze political, economic and social situations prevailing in a region, nation or the globe. They weave a magic spell of words in the print media and regularly attract the attention of readers. They are in touch with politicians, media barons, business tycoons, editors of newspapers and magazines, industry Doyen and the people closely assaulted with press production. Young journalists are accepted as trainees and take nearly eight years to become experienced writers.

1. Broadcast Media Journalism:

Professionals of this stream can be divided into two sub-categories, as follows:-

1. Radio journalism:

They are radio and correspondents. They move to various locations to get news or interview the VVIP. They may collect news or data from the masses as well. They are also supported by various agencies such as Univarta, Bhasha, Reuters, the UNI, and PTI etc. If they get news and data from their agencies, they do not have to travel quite often. They are well versed with the operations of sound recording equipment, microphones and public address systems. They write their features or new clips, which are given to the editorial staff. These staff edits the news and gives the same to radio announcers. Many senior radio journalists are comments. Nowadays, such people must be fully conversant with digital data recording, operations of the net, audio their news items or articles. Quite often, they have to send voice dispatches and newsreels to their broadcasting stations. Radio journalism falls under audio mass communication.

1. TV Journalism:

This is the second organ (and perhaps, the most important one) of broadcast journalism. The idiot box has brought about a great revolution around the world. The news, stories, dramas and movies that were hitherto out of the reach of the hoi polloi are easily accessible by all nowadays. Everyone is a TV fan and why not? Nearly 90 per cent of India’s Population is being covered by various TV broadcasts. There are merely 130 channels to choose from. The DTH is a reality. A child of 75 years plus and a dude of 10 years minus share the same sofa set to watch cricket matches, Chitrahaars, dramas, news, cartoon shows and what not? In order to make software for these 24-hour channels, there was a need for planning and executing 24-hour coverage systems. Many news channels jumped the news bandwagon to begin with. Later, they started new channels that provided handsome entertainment to all the strata of the human race. In the parlance of news reporting, several TV channels like Star News, Aaj Tak and Zee News took an early lead. Further, Doordarshan also played its role in TV journalism during the eighties and nineties of the centuries gone by. Today TV journalism is deemed synonymous with news coverage, dissuasions with experts, comments on national and regional happenings, and reality TV. The journalists affiliated to news channels collect news along with their cameramen. It is an enthralling audiovisual media. These journalists face TV cameras quite often, but “their rendezvous with the lens” is interspersed with TV footage or news coverage. The TV journalist of today, a male or female has to possess a pleasing personality, deep rich voice, good command over language and an ability to extract the news or information from the person being interviewed. TV is an audiovisual communication tool. It requires the attention of two senses of the targeted individual- audio and visual. Hence, the TV journalist has not only to give pleasing music, voices or other audio signals to the targeted subjects, but also he has to mesmerise them with the help of his personality, mannerism, news (the actual video footage), and appropriate color combination. TV journalism also includes recording music/dance shows or live chat shows and offering the service of an anchor in the same. The camera crew is not a part of TV journalism; its activities are highly technical while TV journalism is a stream of mass communication.

1. Internet Journalism:

Professionals of this new stream are web-masters; multimedia specialists, HTML and XHTML programmers, Java specialists and other professionals who create and modify advertisements for the net. They also create websites, which are, in fact, mass communication tools literally hanging in the sky. These professionals define new types of banners, boxes, flags etc. that are used on various websites and search engines to attract the attention of web surfers.

Classifications are sufficient to describe the profession of journalism in the modern times. Further, authors cannot be called Journalists.  Cartoonists and sketch makers (artists) are chiefly associated with the print media. Thus, it would be logical to associate them with print media journalism, although they are not fully covered under the category of broadcast journalism.

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