Analogous Situation – Journalism
Interviewee – Haris Usman, Reporter for A Business News TV Channel in Bombay, India
Why this analogous situation?
Teachers need to be versatile responders in the classroom – diffuse/contain unanticipated behavioral problems (kids acting up, kids throwing up, kids fighting each other, kids not paying attention) while executing instruction. There are many different situations every day, and every day is different. Teachers have to learn to respond quickly, diagnose and decide on their feet, and prioritize multiple demands to run the classroom.
Journalist deal with these changing conditions all the time. How does journalism operations work, and how do students get trained to work in journalism?
Haris’ background: Huge consumer of news, studied econ undergrad, then journalism grad school, then reporter for channel, then news anchor
Described process flow of TV news station: multiple reporters (get info), Input desk (prioritize info), editors (clear info), Output desk, Production (audio/video footage)
Reporter on Economy beat
Every evening, send a list to Input Desk of agenda for tomorrow (2-3 lines). They can also suggest to you events. Bulk of job is developing your own story.
Major and important, e.g. stimulus package play this, then take me on air
Meantime, get on phone off record interview, then incorporate that in
Work with senior reporter for 1 month
Learn in journalism school: hands-on, go out and shoot stories
Get a sense of how “newsy” something is – what matters to audience. The biggest thing is the “so what,” always ask yourself, “If I have a piece of info and someone has to ask so what? That’s not news.” – you realize whether something is important or not – through classroom discussions, different electives in economics so you understand what’s important in that area
J-school technical skills: put together a story, script it, assess info
J-school learn storytelling skills
Crazy news day: chief of stock market regulators meet with chief of insurance regulators and finance minister on whether insurance companies could invest in certain markets and how
High stakes: Liquidity of markets, every piece of info released will move the market
Get things off-record vs. get their statements on-record
Meet inside Ministry, where cell phone networks are bad
Be outside Ministry at 8am, on air, “this is what’s going to happen today, these are the possibilities”
Tell cameraman to send to Production, Haris calls Input to tell them, sometimes by email and into flash/breaking news to Input/Editor. That day he sent 4 short bullets
