‘Multitasking key to success of scribes’

Nagpur: The face of media has undergone a lot of changes with the advent of modern technology and therefore journalists should keep themselves abreast of developments taking place in various fields and create their own space for a fruitful career, said Magsaysay award winner and founder editor of People’s Archive of Rural India (PARI) P Sainath on Saturday.
He was delivering the keynote address on ‘New career opportunities in mass communication’, organized by the department of mass communication of Nagpur University and the Alumni Association to mark golden jubilee celebrations. Officiating pro vice-chancellor of Nagpur University Vinayak Deshpande was in the chair.
Sainath said, in effect, the new age journalists are different from their predecessors. Multitasking is the in-thing as journalists today have to follow different work culture to stay afloat in the highly competitive world, he added.
He exhorted reporters in particular to develop the habit of taking photographs while covering events instead of fully depending on photographers. This will add value to their work, he said.
Besides doing assignments as part of job, journalists should evolve themselves by doing research on the subjects they think is important for a cause. Pursuing such stories will not only help the society but also be helpful for self-growth, he said.
In his presidential address, Deshpande said taking one’s thoughts to people is not confined to newspapers as online portals provide a platform to write blogs. The number of bloggers is increasing is proof enough of its popularity. But this is in no way hard-core journalism, he added.
In his introductory remarks, head of the department of mass communication Moiz Haque spoke about the activities students undertook like a campaign against fake news. ‘Dekh bhai fake’ was launched to create awareness about identifying fake news on various platforms. People should be able to make out what is right or wrong, he said.
Journalists Jaideep Hardikar and Chandramohan Puppala, CEO of SA Digital Films Pvt Ltd Anurag Kulkarni and Bhalchandra Chorghade also spoke.
(Reporting by Janhavi Dave)