Handle interpretation of facts carefully in Journalism
Er. Prabhat Kishore
Interpretation of facts or issues is something a news agency should handle with extreme care. Only a person of mature judgement and experience who can provide an objective interpretation of facts or write an interpretative story should attempt it with guidance from senior colleagues.
It will always pay dividends if before settling down to write. A reporter spends a couple of minutes organizing his mind the story he will write putting down the main points in the order in which he will persist them and thinking of a crisp and attractive lead.
A reporter should not sacrifice clarity, accuracy or objectivity in the interest of speed. This is not to detract from the need for a speed in agency work. A very well written copy turned out long after the deadline in a competitive situation does no better to the agency than a fast but inaccurate report. The task is to achieve both speed and accuracy.
That is the full mark of a good agency copy. A reporter must make his copy as simple and concise as possible while at the same time providing all the essential facts. There would little point in a reporter putting out a story fast if his opening paragraph does not catch attention because it is cumbersome or if he misses an essential fact or if an error creeps in.
Speedy clearance and transmission can be facilitated if the reporters draft their stories in a manner that would call for minimum touching up at a news desk. For the time taken in re-writing story results is that much delay in its clearance. This can sometimes prove fatten to the story in this competitive field.
When a source is not directly quoted, certain phrases are used to serve the purpose of conveying to the reader that the source though not named is authentic. However, these phrases have each a different connotation and should therefore be used with due circumspection. These phrases include:
1.‘It is authentically learned’- The sources is as god as official.
2. ‘According to knowledgeable sources’ (or ‘According to informed sources’-The source is not official but has access to official information.
The reporter must always remember that the uses of phrases like ‘it is understood’ do not absolve him or the agency of responsibility for voracity of the facts or information contained in the report. The agency reporter should avoid the use of phrases like ‘it is understood’ as far as possible.Every story, even a story consisting of only one part must carry at the top a suitable slug-an identifying tag. Generally, the slug is one word which is often a key word in the story. Thus a story about rain should be slugged ‘rain’ and one about firing should be slugged ‘firing’.
‘Slug’ should be noun and not adjective or various forms of verbs. As far as possible the slug should be short. For instance, a story saying ‘the former Prime Minister Sh. H.D. Dev Gouda left for Pataliputra by air today’ should not be slugged ‘left’ but ‘departure’. Better still it should be identified by the name of the person. Similarly, on a story about a death of a prominent personality his name should be the slug rather than dead or even death.
One slug which has a potential for duplication is agreement. As several agreements are signed or reached in Delhi on the same day there is possibility of the slug being used for more than one story on such a day. The remedy is to avoid the slug and use instead the subject of the agreement-bonus, oil, ‘kill’ should not be used as a slug. This word should be reserved for use on items to draw attention to instruction to kill a story.
Choice of words is important
In a news copy as in any prose choice of apt words makes for precision and consequently better readability. It should therefore be concise and short of all bombastic words. It should take note of all material points concerning an event, elaborate or background them where necessary, but it should not be burdened with dispensable details.
A news copy should be written in simple and familiar language which is within the average readers’ ambit. A reader going through the morning paper is usually in a hurry. He will appreciate news he can easily follow. Simple sentences are often more effective than long involved one. Unfamiliar words and jargonshould be avoided as far as possible. The choice of words should be simple and elegant. When not avoidable, as in a quotation, the unfamiliar words or jargon should be explained in a simple language.
The active voice is generally more effective in a news copy. “The government of India today announced the appointment of a committee to study and report on illegal money held by Indians in Foreign Banks”, has a better flow than ‘ the appointment of a committee to study and report on the question of illegal money held by Indians in Foreign Banks was announce by the government today ‘. Similarly, ‘Bharat and Mauritius today signed an agreement providing for ……………’ reads better than ‘An agreement between Bharat and Mauritius providing for was signed here today’.
However, in certain circumstances the passive voice is useful specially when the deed is more important than the doer. Thus, ‘A general strike has been called for tomorrow by the Unemployed Engineers Association to protest against the growing unemployment in the state’ is more pointed than ‘The Unemployed Engineers Association has called a general strike for tomorrow in protest against the growing unemployment.
Importance of correct spelling
In spelling names, the news agency should stick to the spelling adopted by each individual concerned. This may prove to be a bit confusing but there is no escape from it as there is no way of standardizing the spelling of names. The former Governor of the Reserve Bank of India spelt his name as H.V.R. Iengar, while the former Speaker of Lok Sabha spelt his name as M.A. Ayyangar. In between, there are several varieties of the same surnames. There are similar variationsin spellings of Banerjee, Mukherjee and many other names. It is ‘Shri asoka Mehta’, and not ‘Shri Ashok Mehta’. We accept things as they are and not as what we think they should be. It is no business of ours to set in judgement over the spellings of other’s name. The same applies to the names of political parties, for example, ‘The Janata Dal’ (neither Janta nor Janatha).
All Sikhs and many non-Sikhs in north India have ‘Singh’ as the second part of their names. Shri Singh cannot properly identify a person; yet, in recent years, a tendency has been developing to use merely Shri Singh in the second and subsequent references of a name. In the interest of perception, it is necessary to use the full names (such as Shri Ram Adhin Singh, Shri Jamadar Singh, Shri Ranjit Singh etc.) every time in a copy. By the same token, Das, Kumar, Ram, Prasad, Alam, Ahmad etc. should not be used by themselves when they are part of the first name of a person. Though ‘Shri Kumar’ and ‘Shri Patel’ can be used when they happen to be the family names.
With respect to foreign names, we have to take note of the recent revision of the spellings of names in China consequent upon a change in the phonetic scheme. The new names of the Chinese leaders should be carefully noted and their current spellings should be used. The name of the country’s capital has undergone a change in sound and spelling from the old ‘Peking’ to ‘Beijing’. The Chinese names are usually in two parts, of which the first is the family name and can stand by itself in second or further references in a copy. Thus in Deng Xiao-Ping, Deng is the subsequent reference.
The practice in some countries provides a clue to the sex of a person. In Iceland, for example, the sur-name ‘Thorvaldian’ would indicate a man and Thorvaldsdotte’ a women.In Russia, all names ending in vowels usually ‘a’ or ‘ya’ would indicate a feminine gender with a few exceptions (Nikta a man’s name). All names ending in consonants are masculine. The components are- Christian’s name, father’s name and surname. Thus Ivan Ivanoutch Ruben would be the name of a male person and Tanya PetrovnaRubena, that of a female.
(The author is a technocrat and an academician. He studied Journalism & Mass Communication at Patna University, Patna)
