CLASS REPORT- 15th DECEMBER 2012

We had an informative lecture by Mr Sanjay Mohan (Executive Producer, South Asia Newsline at Asian News International).

The lecture started with a discussion on the procedure of making a short film/video, he took the case study of a Pakistani microbiologist Mohammed Khalil Chishti as an example, who faced the prospect of life-long imprisonment in India in view of his conviction in a 1992 murder case, is now free to leave the country with the murder charge being overturned by the Supreme Court.

We came to know about various international press agencies like Agence France-Presse (AFP), Reuters, and Wolf

Vox Pops - a Latin phrase that means voice of the people.

He elucidated that how a news agency works. Basically, it works like a Swiss knife having different genres with an amalgamation of various components like wire, broadcast, online, graphics, unedited footage, TV stations. Perspective of both producer and reporter play a major role in editing of a particular footage e.g. Subcon (a simple subversion based configuration). News footage must include the origin, location, date. It must also include the list of events. The agency also prepares an archive of all the footages, so that a past event can be accessed in future also.

When a particular news event happens the reporters have to rush to the close vicinity which sometimes leads to a delay and they are incompetent to capture the right shot. OB vans and satellite feeds are sometimes also used but they are expensive and rare. Reliance Nodes, an approach to extend the lifetime of wireless sensor networks. Using node reliance may sometimes lead to a video which is pixelated. Liveu has played a major role in resolving all these issues; it offers a live broadcasting by providing a seamless broadband channel for live video transmission.

Once the news footage comes in, it is transferred to a video tape for archiving or it is pulled onto video sharing server for multiple users. The users/ press looks at a particular shot/footage and frames a script which on editing results into a video story which is now ready for release.

“Reuters never use the word terrorist instead it uses militant or gunman because for one he is a terrorist but for the other he may be a liberalist” he stated.

At last he taught us some ethics of journalism. To be a good journalist, one should stay focus, work hard and also show enthusiasm. One should also acquire interest in other units too. One must also use spare time to do extra work.

With this he ended his lecture and showed us some sample videos and we expressed our sincere gratitude.