The End of Week 2

Reported by Anita Srinivasan

The day's class kicked off with Vincent D'Souza, the resource person, taking the students through a reading of the day's news stories, which could inspire them to do their own over the weekend.

A particularly interesting one, which the students could relate to, was about how tsunami affected children in Nagapattinam are playing the role of journalists and addressing some hard issues in their monthly magazine. Vincent went on to discuss three assignments - one in San Thome, one in Kottivakkam and one in Besant Nagar - for the weekend and then handed over the next session to Sashi Nair, the guest for the day.

Nair, a man who wears many hats, is a freelance journalist and editor who is currently with a publishing house in Chennai. He started his career in journalism 15 years ago, and used to work with India's leading English daily, The Times of India. His future plans include doing research on newspaper techniques for Ifra, the world's leading association for newspaper and media publishing.

Nair began by giving the students a recap of his previous lecture, and then moved on to explain the importance of using the right 'lead' to begin a story, depending on its the subject. He also discussed writing techniques that added value to a journalist's work, and emphasised on the importance of doing background research while writing reports, and using anecdotes and imagery in features.

He said that the main reason behind the success of international magazines like Time and Reader's Digest was their belief in humanisation, or including people and their opinions in articles. He closed class for the day by answering questions about himself, his college days and work.