Classroom Report / April 30

By Bharathi Yegnanarayanan

Today's class started with the daily newspapers.We were asked to go through the newspaper and see whether something in them triggered a story idea we could work on. Some of us struggled and the ideas did not 'sell'.Meenaxi said she would go down to Elliots Beach in the morning and meet up with members of the Frisbee Club and the Laughter Club.Shreya has lots of stories to offer- one was to follow up on a plan to have park in Kotturpuram on the Adyar river bank.

Sameeksha had two story ideas - one on a lady in Adyar who takes care of injured squirrels and gives them in adoption and another on a lady who does designer clothes and tailors them too.I suggested that I would follow-up on a report that fishermen in Thiruvanmiyur were offering cattamaran rides in the sea to beach-goers on weekends to make some quick money and also write on a re-laid park.These exercises challenge us to come up with story leads quickly.
Mayuri was assigned a story on the closure of a century-old post office.'The Hindu' reported it on the front page this morning and Mayuri was asked to visit the office and file a story.

Resource person Vincent D' Souza then spoke about the position of a a reporter in a newspaper/ media organisation and the opportunities he / she has there.He suggested a web site we could check out. The URL- www.poynter.org. Though this site is based in the USA and is useful for professional journalists, the site also has content for media students.Some of us have had our reports published in 'Adyar Times',the weekly community newspaper for the Adyar area(e-mail - adyartimes@gmail.com).D' Souza said he would consider using some more if the reports we filed were good.