Saturday, December 20, 2008

Walking the talk, being a journalist


Its been 5 days since i’ve Joined Deccan Herald, and am still reeling in a bit of culture shock.
Coming from TOI, which is more of a corporate setup rather than a newsroom, this place had overwhelmed me!

I mean the place even smells like old newspapers (not that I am complaining)

The first thing I noticed here are the people. I mean we could easily have a fancy dress competition for the most authentic journalist look. We have 3 Barkha Dutt lookalikes, one Sagarika Ghosh, two Sreenivasan Jains. It looks like they go through great lengths to painfully ‘create’ the journo look. I mean, how tacky! the signature jhola, jute earring (a la barkha dutt)if you look carefully enough, you’ll find that even the expressions on their faces match.
I mean its quiet amusing, the guys, uh....I think there is an unwritten rule that all men journalist have to be below 5’7 to qualify for the job, unfortunate for me (I happen to be 5'7) . There are always exceptions though.


Press conferences: The press kit and press lunch....the first PC I attended in Blore, I got a coffee maker for just having to write 150 words, and not to mention the brilliant lunch at Leela palace.

And I kinda enjoy the way PR guys suck up to journalists, and then we can act all hoity toity for having the talent of putting sensible sentences together (believe me, 90% of the population can't)

What I love about Bangalore is that it's so happening! I do more assignments and stories in a day than I used to do in a week!

In the beginning I sorely missed my private cubicle at TOI, then I realised that there is so much to do, that I don't need a private cubicle to stop getting caught taking a nap.


And oh, I love the 3 o'clock tea and snacks cart that comes in proper airlines style. Ok maybe Metrolife isn't the best metro supplement Bangalore, I mean not yet...but now that I am here, am sure things will change.

Reporting from Bangalore bureau, Madhuri Kalyan, Metrolife, Deccan Herald.

5 Annotations:

Anonymous said...

your english is just too good.
it is rather difficult to talk with you about anything in this moment. So Next time if anyone has to speak to you or have a discussion, argument:) or anything guys just study GRE Books and some good english books so that we can also use words even which she cannot understand:))
What do you say about that:)

Goli said...

I remember that I had once been to deccan herald to dig out one old newspaper looking for story about one traffic policemen.
And these guys were so friendly, and took me to some room upstairs which had old newspapers of last 20 odd years. I ended up spending full afternoon there, I got the photo and article that I was looking for (which resulted in this post), but I also quite loved reading through some of the old newspapers, and looking at old Bangalore pictures.

Seems like you are enjoying your work :). Dont worry about guys, you just need to walk 100 meters to Koshys for a coffee.. :)

Anonymous said...

Goli is right,just enjoy but have Milk at Koshy's they have the best:)
And it is good for health.
okay let us see what are you going to come up with,when is your first publish we will be waiting what you would put into the paper.
your poetrys are really good so you should go ahead and put them in the paper they are really good to read and let us have some comic peotry where we can just non stop keep laughing:)

Abhay Karnataki said...

Saw Marley and Me, and was wondering about the life of a journalist!
its a nice movie by the way...

It had those cubicle stuctures, which looked nice, oh but yes, there is a chance of falling off asleep!

may be I should visit your office once to see the khalbali of news flowing from all directions, and things getting printed, if the press is in the same building!

Balu said...

reminds me about Sevanti Ninan who digs a lot on Media as well... She runs this "hoot" website ...

you should probably check it out:
http://www.thehoot.org