Blink*

Blink~~ Feb 20th 11:58pm I am working on a presentation, which has almost taken a week in its making an still isnt complete. Submission is on feb 21st morning 9 am, approximately just around 9 hours remaining before I stand infornt of around 50 other individuals of my like listening to me as I go on to explain ~ How a report is finally brought down in a newspaper~. Yeah thats my project to cover the whole process from start to finish of  how a report or news reported by a journalist finally makes it to the newspaper. The steps involved right from the scratch to the final execution. I chose my assistance to be a 160 year old granddaddy of all Indian Newspapers the Times Of India. So Times Of India let me tell you, is a tough nut to crack. And especially after the 26/11 attacks its got more cookies in its jar~~which means for a 19 year old like me its almost a herculean task to breach into its head quarters and gather information good enough to make my project presentable.

After almost a weeks phone calls and constant conversing with different voices behind a phone, we(as in my group, i wasnt alone on this project) finaly get entry to this highly secured buliding right opposite to one of the bussiest stations in the country CST. ~~ Blink.

Blink~~ an hour session of how everything goes * I would like to pause here for a moment-- you cant really enter the world of journalism without knowing how a piece of report is edited at TOI. The story comes in and it goes to the senior editor. He or she edits it on the computer and then calls in the writer to confirm it(for the visuals), then the piece goes to a second editor and he revises it with the writer again, then its forwarded to the facts checker -where every fact in the piece, every date, every title, every place or reussergance is checked and varified. Then the piece goes to a copy editor where it is scrutinized once again, then to the chief editor who puts in his own views and points, then production takes place, it goes through layout where every picture, template, borders comes into positioning-- then it goes back on paper, back to the wrtier, back to the copy editor, back to editor no.1 and editor no.2 back to the fact checker back to the writer and back to production again and during this whole process there are specials appointed who are reading and re- reading the peice looking for a red flag(anything inappropriate according to INS) once they are convinced the pages are put for order in printing and the article is published.

-* So yeah as i was saying inside TOI it was an hours session with the Bombay Times editor in chief Marc Manuel. ~~ Blink.