Four critical things they dont teach at journalism school...

* I don't remember my teachers mentioning NETWORKING but it is the single most important skill which a journalist needs to develop. Rapport building skills; how to make the interviewee comfortable; the art of small talk are extremely important skills and separate a great journalist from a lousy one. Forget your stories, you are not likely to get your next big break in journalism if you are not a good networker. Every single career break, right from my first job, is because of networking...

* They told me in classroom that the news should be objective and unbiased. BULL. Nothing could be farther from truth. Journalists are normal people and like everybody else we have our biases and they get reflected in the work that we do. News is biased. Period. Bias is in the way we ask questions, whom we ask and also what we ask. In the same vein, they never mentioned the word PERSPECTIVE in classroom. As a journalist you should get your own perspective to what you are covering. Who wants vanilla news now?

* Journalism is not about writing. Yes, yes, you are reading it right. Journalism is not about writing. I have had school students telling me that they want to explore journalism because they believe they write well. Howsoever hard I try to explain it doesnt seem to make any dent. Journalism is about getting the right information and presenting it in a concise precise format. In fact you are likely to lose your creativity because you would be doing everything in a particular format with very little room to manoeuvre. The editors are ok with reporters who get the info but write a lousy copy but certainly not vice versa.

* Don't go by the traditional, cliched image of a journalist with a jhoola, walking around with a notepad and a pen. Impressions do matter and just because you are a journalist doesn't mean that you can walk into a luncheon meeting wearing your Reeboks. Once a fellow journalist was not sent an invite for a junket just, just because the corporate communication team felt he would be dressed inappropriately at parties--says a lot doesnt it.
 
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