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Greetings!
This Newsletter from the GujaratGlobal brings to you the latest happening in the media particularly in Gujarat, whats hot and whats not , who's in and who's out , you want it and you get it here !This newsletter is about people who craft voice and image of others. It is about the real newsmakers.
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Editor........ Developing Skills
 In this continuously changing world we have to develop our skills to remain in what is called market. The rate of change is increasing and so the need for adjusting to the change. I think journalists need continuous skill development most. This is precisely the reason that I am stressing on it.
There is no effort for in-service training nor there any avenue where a serious journalist can go for learning the new dimensions of a beat. For instance, crime scene has changed a lot and so the fiscal economics. Is there any way to learn about cyber crime or terrorism?
We have different representative bodies covering different aspects of the media, but there is none catering to this basic need. I think this is the responsibility of the media as industry and individual institutions to focus on the in- service training and development of skills.
If we take the case of Gujarat, it has longest coastline of 1600 kms and maximum onshore oilfields. We have reporters who have beats covering maritime and oil industry. How many of these journalists have knowledge of ships, ports or drilling of an oil well?
Here I would like to mention about efforts of Gujarat government. We condemn government as inefficient, red taped ridden and outdated mechanism. But the way, government is investing in in-service training is laudable. Even the information department, a work force with low esteem because of attitude of government, has an excellent in-service training programme conducted in the Sardar Patel Institute of Public Administration where there is a separate department presently headed by Pulak Trivedi , Deputy Director of Information.
Here training is imparted to officers of the Information Department for subjects ranging from making a news copy to films. It has a visiting faculty of senior journalists from different newspapers and electronic media. There is a system of evaluation of performance of both participating staff and the visiting faculty. Training at SPIPA deserves a separate article.
This issue has an article about Modi tapping young aspiring Mediamen through his innovative strategy. There is another article about hacking of e mail account of US Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin. This is a good example of reporting.
Have A Happy Reading.
With love
Yogesh SharmaGujarat Global | |
Archive...
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Archive Gallery..
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Media Masala
Lady reporter in a B School
Recently a young lady reporter went to the leading B School, B K School of Management in search of some story. The lady representing a leading English Daily, asked for some student representative and the Institute asked some students to attend to the representative of the Fourth Estate.
First question the lady asked was how students studied? It was quite surprising for her that the first semester students of MBA were making presentations. After some other familiarization questions to students was the grand question. Students were quite surprised when she asked about their school. It turned out that she was under the impression that they were straight from the schools.
Students had to tell her that they were at least graduates and they got admission after clearing a state level competitive examination and the first 100 get chance to join the B K. This question was enough for the budding managers to have their round of interview of the young lady. She told that she had a PG diploma from a very reputed University of Gujarat and had not been in the profession for long.
A student asked had she been to any PC and if she got some good gift at PC. Questions certainly had her eyes wide open. She said she was in a hurry and took the cell numbers of the students and asked them to give news to her.
Students are wondering where to give information because she did not give her number! Certainly a good hands on experience to budding managers to deal with media in real life.
Ashok Bhatt to hold media workshop
Speaker of the Gujarat Assembly Ashok Bhatt is master of the art of hitting headline. He is one of those rare politicians who set agenda for the media. Bhatt having very good relations with media now plans to hold a workshop for media before the next session of the Assembly.
He says that the idea is to make reporters aware about the basic fundas of Legislative Reporting like types of questions and privilege motion. Bhatt who can make any information important news now feels that media should give more coverage to the MLAs from rural areas and should have more factual reporting.
Certainly, now the agenda of Bhattji is different as he is the Speaker.
New look Assembly press room
It was a pleasant surprise for reporters when they visited the press room in the State Assembly last week. The press room has a new ambience with new furniture. Now there is more space in the two rooms as new tables are smaller, but quite decent looking (certainly relatively).
The press room has two computers with internet and a mobile charger box.
Assembly Speaker Ashok Bhatt was curious to have the reaction of the reporters when he had his press conference. When none talked about the press room he himself asked about it. A reporter quipped that there should have been a printer attached to the computers!
Witty Ashok Bhatt had a prompt reply, I would have arranged for the printing press if I had known Gandhinagar Collector.
Sandesh has new Group Editor
Gujarati daily Sandesh has Manoj Gandhi as its new group editor. He has been brought in the place of Raj Goswami who had quit Sandesh to join the business paper of Dainik Jagran which has been closed before the launch.
However, this week four journalists of Sandesh lost their jobs. Three were involved in the production of a supplement and were said good bye by the management as the supplement has been closed down. They were told in advance about it.
Media is agog with the advance notice phenomenon of Sandesh as it has happened for the first time. Otherwise, staff here is told at the gate not to report for the duty.
The fourth person who has lost the job is a senior reporter. He was asked not to come to office any more.He is just fired.
Gautam Purohit rejoins GS
After the disastrous adventure with the Gujarati business publication of Dainik Jagaran, Gautam Purohit is back with Gujarat Samachar. Gautam is one of the several journalists who have become jobless after the Jagran decided not to go ahead with its ambitious project.
While Gautam is lucky to get the job, many are still desperately trying
GMC Garba
Gujarat Media Club has organised Garba night at the Karnavati Club on Sunday, October 5. This is the first Navratri event by the GMC.
Do Beegha Jamin
Recently formed film appreciation club will screen Do Bigha Jamin on Saturday as the film of the month. This is the second film by the Club. It has planned a film on the first Saturday of the month and it will be screened in the Vidypith auditorium.
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Friends as I told earlier, the newsletter has a subscriber base of 2100 plus. There are many more who are reading it either directly from the website or through forwards. I request you all friends to mobilize more subscriptions to the newsletter by enrolling your friends in media. This is your platform. Help it grow.
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Tapping Young Media, Modi Ishtyle
Politicians in power are now increasingly making noise about what they term as media's apathy to development. There are seminars, generally government sponsored, where developmental journalism is one of the major issues. Gujarat, however, has come out with an innovative strategy to have developmental journalism as an integral part of the mainstream journalism.
It is to tap budding journalists in the campus. It is not a recruitment drive for Government's Information Department. It is to give a dose of development journalism to the students through one day workshops. Two such workshops have been conducted in Ahmedabad and Jamnagar and the third one is to be held in Junagadh this Sunday.
Students are given topics well in advance for making presentation in the workshop. In the workshop, they are told about the articles and other publicity material prepared by the government on those topics and they are asked to give their views.
Commissioner of Information, Bhagyesh Jha, says that in his interaction with about 100 students, he has found students full of new and innovative insights and attractive presentations.
It is more than sensitsing students about the developmental issues, he says. We get fresh ideas and insights to make entire campaign of development and progress interesting, lively and most important quite palatable.
The biggest problem with the reporting of developmental issues is to arouse interest in both, writer and the reader.
For Jha, it is a different kind of learning experience. In the first workshop, he says, he had gone with an idea of spending of an hour or so. But, he was there for more than six hours. He found interaction with the students of Gujarat University very stimulating. He says that he is compiling the ideas of the students for future use. Students will have their Intellectual Property Right by way of getting credit for the idea, according to Jha.
The experiment is like the well set practice of idea innovation by some major companies which hire young boys for scouting creative and feasible ideas.
Pulak Trivedi, Deputy Director of Information, in charge of SPIPA, who conducted the Jamnagar workshop and is also associated with the Junagadh says that three topics are chosen for the workshop. They are Nirogi Bal (Healthy child), Swarnim Gujarat (Gujarat is completing 50 years of its formation in 2010) and Industrial development of Gujarat.
Commissioner of Information, Bhagyesh Jha, says that it is basically the idea of the Chief Minister. He wants that media students be sensitized about the developmental issues and the progress Gujarat has made. He is carrying out his boss's diktat with great zeal.
He has a reason for it, he says. Last year, he says, he had asked about Van Bandhu Kalyan Yojna to the journalism students of MS University. His question drew a blank from the students.
This shows that we must make students aware about all this. Obviously, to sensitise the media of tomorrow, he quips with a grin on a face with eyes shining with the success of the strategy from the word GO!!
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How of the Hacking of the e-mail account of Sarah Palin
Here is a good case of cyber crime reporting which gives details of how an e-mail account of US Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin was hacked.
Following the hack, screenshots of Mrs Palin's messages, inbox, pictures and address book were posted to the Wikileaks whistle-blowing site.
It is thought the attackers exploited the password resetting system of Yahoo's e-mail service.
Details about Mrs Palin's life pulled from public sources reportedly helped defeat security questions.
Formal investigation
Information from Wikipedia and other online databases helped to establish Mrs Palin's date of birth, zip code and other personal information.
Armed with this, the attackers convinced the Yahoo password re-setting system they warranted access and allowed them to re-set the password and then get at the account.
In an official statement Yahoo said: "Yahoo treats issues of security and privacy very seriously."
It added: "To protect the privacy of our users, we are not able to comment on the details of a specific user account."
"Generally, if Yahoo! receives reports that an account has been compromised, we investigate for suspicious activity and take appropriate action," the company said.
Mrs Palin is being investigated for her conduct as governor of Alaska
The attackers broke into Mrs Palin's gov.palin@yahoo.com e-mail account.
This account and another, gov.sarah@yahoo.com, owned by Mrs Palin have now been deleted.
The FBI and the US Secret Service have now begun a formal investigation into the attack and who may have been behind it.
The hackers used the CTunnel proxy service which routes web browsing through an intermediary to obscure where the attackers were based.
However, the screenshots for the attack reveal the original web address used by the proxy which may help investigators track down the miscreants.
It has been reported that records from the CTunnel proxy service are being sought by the FBI.
The attack on the e-mail account comes as questions are being asked about whether Mrs Palin used her personal e-mail accounts to carry out state business.
US law states that all e-mails relating to the official business of government must be archived and not destroyed. However, it does allow for personal e-mails to be deleted.
Mrs Palin is being investigated in Alaska for alleged abuse of power while governor of the state.
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Insurance for Bloggers !
Here is news for bloggers. This shows that blogging has now matured and people have started taking bloggers and their blogs seriously.Though in India, blogging has not reached the dimensions of the west, the day is not far when broadband will make blogging in India as common as in other leading countries.
The Media Bloggers Association announced the launch of an ambitious program called BlogInsure: "a first of its kind liability insurance program for bloggers which provides coverage for all forms of defamation, invasion of privacy and copyright infringement or similar."
MBA president Robert Cox said that for the vast majority of bloggers, the insurance package will cost $540 per year (after the $25 annual MBA dues.) However, some members (those who do certain kinds of blogging that have historically attracted more legal threats) will probably have to pay higher premiums. Those risky blog types include:
Investigative reporting Group weblogs
Highly profitable weblogs (making in the range of $10,000 per year or more from the blog)
Coverage of the pharmaceutical or healthcare industries, real estate developers, or local politicians
Also, according to the BlogInsure FAQ, this insurance is associated with blog, not bloggers. Therefore, bloggers who run multiple blogs must insure each separately.
To try to prevent legal threats, MBA also is offering a trial "legal hotline" program to insured bloggers. This is a Web-based extranet where bloggers can submit questions and get answers from lawyers. This service is operated by the law firm Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal LLP, and overseen by Sonnenschein partner Blaine Kimrey.
"This service is brand new. We don't know yet what the demand will be, so the law firm has agreed to try it out to see if it's a manageable amount of hours for them. If it works out for all concerned, we'll probably re-up on this," said Cox.
In order to qualify for this discounted insurance (and for MBA membership), bloggers must first pass a test proving their familiarity with the core tenets of media law as applied to online media. That test is the final assessment of a new free course offered through Poynter's News University: Online Media Law: The Basics for Bloggers and Other Online Publishers.
According to Cox, bloggers who apply for MBA membership are asked to take the NewsU course. MBA requests dues payment only after applicants complete the course (but bloggers may opt out of the course, and the application process, at any time). In order for MBA membership to be approved, applicants must complete the assessment test at the end of the course and submit their test scores to MBA.
MBA is offering BlogInsure through an exclusive deal with Media/Professional Insurance, a business unit of the Select Markets Division of AXIS Insurance.
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But what is the difference between literature and journalism?
...Journalism is unreadable and literature is not read. That is all.
Oscar Wilde
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With Love, Yogesh Sharma
GujaratGlobal.com |
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