Indira S. Somani, journalist, PhD

First day at IIJNM

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My first day at IIJNM (the Indian Institute of Journalism and New Media) was Monday, Aug. 29.  I’ve got my own office.  The students are in class Monday, Wednesday and Friday, but are reporting in the field Tuesdays and Thursdays.  The Institute has asked me to help create a site for all the broadcast stories.  It’s not quite Rockbridge Report, because the lead producer for that site is creating a multimedia site with both print and broadcast stories.  This site will just have broadcast stories, but will also include slide shows and polls.  I also have to show them how to come with links that relate to their stories. To create this site, we will be using stories that were already produced for the newscast.  But I will be working with a team of students. Producer’s duties: Each team has a lead producer to decide the main stories to lead the site.  That lead producer will a sketch out of how he/she wants to layout the stories. The media lab and studio are high-end.  They’ve got macs in their video editing suites. Reporter’s duties: Each reporter should have each of their broadcast stories transferred into a You tube format.  Each reporter should write their anchor lead-in as they would for broadcast, so this can be converted into a blurb for the site.  Each reporter should come up with a headline for their story.  Each reporter should come up with links that relate to their story as well as a poll question.  Once the reporter has completed each of these tasks, he/she should relay the information to the producer.  We are working on this process, the broadcast site, over a period of four weeks.   Once students grasp this concept it will become part of a daily operation.  Right now they are getting used to coming up with stories ideas and reporting in the field with their camera equipment.  All this starts next week.  Meanwhile, we have the next two days (Aug. 31 and Sept. 1) off because of Eid and Ganesh Chaturthi.