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Grabs your heart and convinces your brain

John Tulloch is professor of journalism and director of the School of Journalism, University of Lincoln. He is also involved with the Chevening Scholarship’s ‘The Young Indian Print Journalists Programme’. Aanandika Sood spoke to him about good journalism and all that is new and happening on his campus What is a good journalism school about? A good journalism school has to have a definite approach to journalism. It has to believe that journalism has more to do than just acquire a skill-set. Our philosophy at the School of Journalism, University of Lincoln is based somewhere in the middle of English and Humanities. We are interested in the links between journalism and writing. We are interested in finding out how has journalism changed, its future, its role in the world. A good journalist reaches out to the people. Good journalism embraces issues that people are concerned with. In our School the visiting faculty is a source of that. We have links with the BBC and the regional press and

Diplomatically yours

I have been thinking of ways to save my articles with me and thought who not post them on my blog!!! I know it is not the greatest idea bu whatever...here goes the latest se pehle wala The North India Programmes Officer, Embassy of the USA, Clayton A. Bond will soon be taking over from Robin D Dallio, whose tenure in India as the First Secretary, Cultural Affairs, Embassy of the USA is coming to a close. Clayton says, “I went to the University of Hampton and studied Political Science and Environmental Studies. I was always interested in travelling all over the world and meeting new people, so I thought of taking up a career in the Foreign Service.”For Robin, who has been working as a diplomat for the US government for the past 12 years, the decision to join the Foreign Service just happened by chance. She says, “I always wanted to become a veterinarian. I was also very interested in learning languages. I joined the Peace Corps and on various assignments went to various countries as an

Full Blast

Yesterday night the real meaning of the phrase generation gap dawned on me. For the first time ever I accompanied Sachin to one of his bank meets. It had been organised in a disco and I did not know that. Now the prospect of an outing, that too in a disco should have sounded purrrffeeeeeeeeecccccct to me because the tv had broken down and all the guests who had been staying with us for quite some time now had left. The house would be unusually quite. So you would think that an evening out would have been a good change. But it happened so that I had a very usual day at work and was very hungry. All I wanted to do was go to an empty house make a basic dal-chawal kind of meal and play Ludo afterwards. The only good thing was that I would not have to cook and so I agreed to going with Sachin. When we reached the place we were guided to a disco. DISCO!! I should have been happy about the music and the lights and the works but it just managed to put me off in a big way and that is when I rea

Crimes against stories

The writer in me does not want to write news stories. It wants to write something to which I an lend 'my' touch. Now I have often been criticised for being obsessed with 'my' self but well, there are some things we can't do anything about. So, now when I look at people who are happy with getting a byline and their salary, the halo of my happiness gets disturbed. I can't fathom how can they be happy about their stories being brutally mangled and changed. The fault is not with the people at the desk. Ok may be to an extent. And that too of only those who think of themselves belonging to a superior breed. Reporters don not know how to write. Largely they are not concerned about writing a story. They simply get the facts and like a postman deliver them at the doorsteps of the subbies. I have been a sub and was very unhappy in the job because of my obsession with 'my'. While editing those copies I could not get myself to feel proud of the improvements I would

A breathless new year

This is the ninth day of 2007, which is the 7th year in the 21st century and in the third millennium. It has been designated: International Polar Year International Heliophysical Year Most of 2007 overlaps with the Year of the Pig in the Chinese calendar. Children born under this year will be perfectionists, say Chinese astrologers. anyhow this blog was not to be about astrology and 2007 as such. It was just to be a top angle view of how have these 9 days been for me. The onset of the year brought lot of phlegm and cough in its wake, so much so that I would be breathless for a while- a while that became longer than it actually was. Well in any case Subu's timely intervention with a glass of lukewarm water and salt, my gargles and Sachin's insistence about steam inhalation saved my life. mum was here and that was the best thing to have happened, that too as the year started. Then the next remarkable thing to have happened in these nine days is cricket. not the keeda that rubs i

Mann

happiness he said was not subjective. I did not really understand and then he said,"Its like being in love. You just know when you are in love. You need not be told or reminded about it. You can just feel it. You just know it." anybody who has ever fallen in love would understand it or like me, anybody has been loved deeply can understand it. being loved is more basic need. thats the way we humans are. selfish. i dnt knw why all the time i was with him i kept smiling from ear to ear. nitin bhaiya's aura must have something to do with it. his voice, his presence, the way he would stop in between while talking about his Guru ji as if to sample the moment once again before letting it go...everything that he spoke about, the sheer intelligence of the conversation appealed to me. i could give that basic course a shot. all that i did not understand which no one has yet been able to explain to me is the mann and where is it situated, when does it come into action, when do yo

Educate

The importance of getting a decent education had dawned on me not very early in life. I should not be saying this because I do not consider myself any different or special or blessed in a special way from the rest of the human species. That one notion broke long time back when someone explained the concept of deja vu to me, else I would have gone on to believe in my special powers. Well too many Naagraj and Pahntom contributed to the notion. Getting back to education, ah, I realised the importance of being educated when I stepped out of my hometown into the big world of larger cities; where there were people whom I did not know. The only thing that I ever knew since I embarked upon mission 'live life' was that I wanted to be heard. I wanted my opinion to be known. I realised that nobody would hear me if I did not learn the language of the big world. The journey was of course eventful. I educated myself. I taught myself to speak smart and work smart (or so I thought until I emb