What do you enjoy most about writing?
It should evoke a little non-conformist, rebellious and Gonzo journalistic streak in the characters. I’m no puritan.
Tag: Journalism
His name was Mr. Veeraraghavan. We call him Veeru sir. When I knew nothing about media, he quietly gave me my first job as a trainee in Asianet. That changed my career life forever. He’s no more. But I always remember him.
Describe a man who has positively impacted your life.
I’m a self-made entrepreneur! And I’m so proud to say it.
What are you most proud of in your life?
When did ‘Whats Up?’ become a WhatsApp since?
How has technology changed your job?
When we studied Mass Communication and Journalism in the late 80s, many of us wanted to work in print, on the radio or assist cinema directors.
The copywriter’s job didn’t pay very much. They gave us copies to write about ₹200 ($2) worth of di-pole television antennas. Disgusting!
Television hit India big in the mid 90s. A lot of us could find jobs in the news and entertainment television. The job paid us well.
We were just about halfway through mastering the analogue format of broadcasting and the digital world hit us blind.
4:3 (aspect ratio) gave way to 16:9. All in a blink. Star Group’s Channel V was a rage among the younger music-loving audience. People watched MTV-grind till late at home.
Tapes were gone and we carried large disks. Digitization was a jiffy. Edit at a low resolution and make the master copy in high-res. Multi-layering helped insert cut-away shots quickly. Broadcasting soon became 24/7.
Social media came like a deluge. That hit us big. We were threatened with job losses at Y2K. We sat clueless many times.
Machines have become smaller and one machine (Fire, Flint and Finalcut Pros) did it all. From scripting, sequencing, digitizing, editing, keying, GFX, sound-mixing, titles and mastering. All from the word GO!
The cameras have a lot of pixels to offer. Technicians shot many episodes on a given day.
Citizens journalism is the new kid in town. Thanks to an explosion called YouTube.
The tool for shooting a film sequence is now just a phone. A smartphone is your pocket broadcaster. All credit to technology.
Amateurish pan-shots. Bad cuts. Jump videos. Poor quality soundbites. No ‘rule of third’ in the composition. Long boring stories. Unethical content. No age-appropriate certificate.
And the greater casualty is the watershed at 9pm was gone. Anyone can watch anything, anytime.
YouTube has become the broadcaster’s market for cheap goods. Made in China.
The ‘cheaper a dozen’ market now has around 2.6 billion (about 250 crore) active users per month.
More than 114 million (about 12 crore) active channels.
People upload 2,500 new videos every minute and more than 150,000 videos are available on your phone every hour. There’s no stopping a video on YouTube.
The last time we heard about an assembly line of a product was when Henry Ford made cars.
Such is the scale of spoil in the mind of an avid video-watching kid.
Ryan Kaji is a nine-year-old boy from Texas. He has over 29 million subscribers on his YouTube channel, Ryan’s World. In 2020, Kaji earned nearly $30 (about ₹3 crores) million from his channel. All he does is review toys for kids.
We lost the race a long time ago, thanks to the arrival of technology. IMHO!
PS: Today I could sit and ask an AI (ChatGPT) to write a brief about how technology affected an editor’s or a news producer’s job in the television industry. But, why?
This is the only time I could give the AI some rest and do a job that’s genuinely mine. So I’ve chosen to write one myself.
Thanks for reading.
An Observant.
What is one word that describes you?
A career in journalism taught me to be a good observant. I take a value-based decision. Non-judgemental. Always.
Kill the word ‘Youtuber’.
If you could permanently ban a word from general usage, which one would it be? Why?
You won’t miss a Youtuber today. He/she should be everywhere. Sitting next to your house, a co-traveller on the bus or on the tube, a parent right across the table filming their kid eating, a motorist whizzing past your car, a couple on the seashore posing against surging waves quite unmindful of you present and a cop filming himself issuing a ticket to you for a traffic violation. Bizarre!
They all have a mission on hand. Carry a smartphone, turn on the camera and start filming.
Film whatever moves and emits a noise on Earth.
And hell! You watch them coming up on screen in a jerky, jump-cut, jarring, boring and long video on YouTube, every day. Crazy!
Many cram their loudmouthed, dimwitted and cut-not-to-a-grammar production on another similar (madding crowd) platform called TikTok.
All have one thing in common. They’re amateurs. Not trained to shoot a video or checked through a well-scripted audition.
They call it citizen journalism.
As the media in the world have gradually evolved over many hundred years, from radio, print, television, digital and social media, people have suddenly seen an untapped space in independent media. A free space to say anything. Do anything. And show anything.
And address themselves proudly as ‘Youtubers’.
That’s alarming!
But freedom of speech has often been misused here. Scholars debate now if censorship should be enforced on these free-roaming citizen-journos who show no regard to the ethics of filmmaking.
The debate is raging. And for that reason, therefore, please ban the word ‘Youtuber’ from general usage. Period.
A ‘PRESS’ for Freedom!
If there was a biography about you, what would the title be?
It was a long time ago. An October month in 2000. I just joined in a news television as Senior Editor cum Producer.
Journalist in India are highly acclaimed jobs equal to professionals such as doctors, engineers, advocates and bureaucrats. People notice you and give you respect.
Journalists usually carry an ID and a whole lot of commercial houses such as hotels, cinemas and places of worship give them a free pass. That’s a bonus, and that comes with the job.
They display a printed readymade sticker ‘PRESS’ on the front windshield of cars so that police or security too pass them off quick. No needless stopping and searching.
I just joined and my office said they had run out of those stickers. They said I could buy one from the stores located close by.
As planned, I visited a decent looking store one day during a weekend.
I asked the person at the front desk if I could buy a sticker which read: PRESS.
The sales staff quickly went inside the store and brought a box.
He opened the box, threw down on the desk and bingo, there were a whole lot of stickers. All various sizes and colours.
He started looking for the one which I had just asked.
He quickly found many that read: PUSH and PULL.
He was sad and said, “sorry sir, I’ve got PUSH and PULL only. No PRESS. Visit us next week, please”.
I and my wife looked at each other and left the store in a jiffy.
We burst into a roaring laugh when we got inside the car. We were laughing all the way home.
A hearty laugh.
"சென்றிடுவீர் எட்டுத் திக்கும்" 