Reporting

Qualities of a good reporter

1. Affable/Social/Extrovert

According to Mr. Suresh, a reporter has to be a social animal. As a reporter, you have got to talk to people of all kinds. He cited the examples of his own life, when he was able to get vital information about a VIP visit from a chef of hotel ‘Taj Man Palace’, whom he met at his landlord’s house earlier. 

In K G Suresh words,” A contact a day keeps the editor away.”

Concentrating on sources, he said that the second aspect of affability is that reporter should have personal rapport with the sources & never ever let them down.

2. Courage

Mr. Suresh advised students to welcome difficult assignments. A good reporter should not get scared and must have the ability to adapt himself to the surroundings (often new and unsavoury). He gave example of Uphaar tragedy, which he went to cover, and was shocked to find young reporters crying along with the victims and their families.

3. Integrity/Honesty

‘Being honest’ means being honest to your job, your company, your profession. Mr. Suresh said that people will be happily paying you money to get a good coverage. It is on personal discretion and wisdom, that a person has to decide, whether he wants to take that money or not.

4. Patience

As we live in a competitive environment, the pressure is on us to get a good story ahead of others. But, we must have patience when we are trying to get a story; we must be patient enough to cross check every aspect of our story in order to bring it to a proper conclusion. This quality is mainly required by investigative journalists.

Also, while taking interview, we must have the power of patience and persuasion, so as to not offend the interviewee (by being blunt). Mr. Suresh gave example of getting stories from terrorists by practicing the art of persuasion and patience.

5. Inquisitive

As a reporter, we must always be of questioning nature. Healthy scepticism is good as reporters are not supposed to take anything on face value. A good reporter should always be a good learner. We must not fear to tread into the areas which are not of our expertise.

6. Empathy

A chartered accountant or a manager does not require empathy to succeed in his profession, but a reporter needs to have empathy in order to inject a soul in his story, as they are the voice of the people (vox populi).

But today’s competitive environment is eating away our empathy. He gave example when he went to cover a major fire at Chandani Chowk and found one female reporter dejectedly stomping her feet as there were no dead casualties (thus, no juicy story).

7. Motivation

In this field, you need to be motivated, or, auto-motivated. Because sometimes, situation is such that there is no encouragement of ideas, thus frustration may creep in.

Mr. Suresh told students that seniors in this field will try to demotivate you. Thus, even if you do good stories for 364 days in a year, you will pulled up like nobody by your editor for missing a good story on the 365^th day of your year. Thus, very importantly,” you are as good as your last story”.

8. Interpersonal Skills

It matters in a big way what kind of attitude you are keeping with people in general, because tomorrow one of those people will become your source.

Discussing Shivani Bhatnagar murder case, Mr. Suresh alluded to the first point and explained the golden rule of not being a friend (or more) with your contacts.

After that, Mr. Suresh started discussing the topic of News Analysis which is a part of our editing syllabus. He asked some students to read their assignment (Syrian crisis) and then subsequently advised them on their shortcomings. His main advice was to present both sides of the story and then give a perspective (which should be new) at the end.