There is a singular passion that drives most people who aspire for a career in journalism- love for the written word. This is the driving force for most budding journalists who want to make it big in this field that is tough and challenging. Journalism is one of those fields that doesn’t come with stipulated work hours. A journalist needs to be on his toes at all times, aware of his surroundings and capable of reacting appropriately in situations. A journalist’s weapon is his pen and Armour is his objectivity. It is precisely for this reason that journalists need to train themselves in the art of writing and more importantly in the art of observing. There are few things that a journalism student should keep in mind while building his portfolio:

1.Have an inquisitive mind

A journalist needs to be aware of his surrounding at all times. The need to understand things with an objective bend of mind can help to a large extent. Also this habit needs to be inculcated from early on and cannot be developed overnight. Being able to comment on issues proactively and having a fresh take on subjects is an added plus of being a journalist.

2.Read A LOT

While most of us have been educated in good schools and so have a good command over the language, internet and social networking seems to be doing a good job of killing it entirely. SMS language is common and most kids nowadays don’t know how ‘you’re’ is spelt! While it is easy to assume that nothing could have ruined our own language skills, many a times this is far from the truth. It is for this precise reason that reading becomes such an integral part of being a writer in general and a journalist in particular.

3.Try commenting on what you see

It is important that aspiring journalists train themselves to write on a consistent basis. This could start with small articles and graduate to longer more intense pieces. What is important is to build a repertoire of work that can be used as a judge to base your competence as well as  a training for later more professional writing.

4.Develop an interest towards writing on topics you might not like

While most who want to become journalists like to write, this is usually restricted to topics that they enjoy. However the true test of a journalist comes when you are capable of writing on topics you don’t really like. If you think that sports is your area of expertise, try writing on fashion and vice versa. The rationale behind this is that it is not necessary that you might always get to work on topics and pieces that you enjoy. In such a situation you should still be able to write well written articles.

5.Develop an interest towards writing on topics that you find tough

Another test to the true journalism aspirant is whether or not you are open to the idea of writing on topics that you find tough. It is very easy to work on topics that hold your attention, your prowess lies in being able to write an interesting piece on a subject that you find tough. For this, it is important that you constantly keep yourself abreast of all the happening s around the world and try and understand those that you don’t. Don’t like computers? Try subscribing to Chip magazine!

6.Get your work published

A feather in every journalist’s cap is the number of his articles being published. While this doesn’t mean that it needs to necessarily be on superior magazines and newspapers, it needs to be published. There are many websites that encourage budding writers. Try joining a few of them and write for them on a regular basis. Getting your work published as much as possible and build an archive of all your published articles. It works when you need to find work.

7.Variety

Something that can help a budding writer or journalist is to ensure that they have variety in their writing. While this doesn’t just mean being able to write on a variety of topics, it means being able to write with variety. Try writing poetry as well as articles, short copies as well as long ones, stories as well as news pieces. This variety will help in the long run as it gives you the experience of handling multiple ways of writing.

Finally, a writer can remain true to his work only if he continues with what he started off with in the first place- passion. Only if an individual continues to find excitement in his work and keeps the fire for good writing in his heart, will he be able to be a good journalism student and someday a class A journalist as well.

SIES College Of Arts, Science and Commerce (Sion)

The college has started the Bachelor of Mass Media (B.M.M.) Course from the academic year 2000-2001.

Course Coordinator: Ms. Shweta Bhatia

Faculty @ SIES

Visiting Faculty

• Economics – Mrs. S.Sharma
• Computers  -Mr. Kailash Pawar
• Advanced Computers – Ms. Vishwakarma         
• News Paper Making, Editing  – Mr. Rajiv Dogra
• Advertising Design  -Mr. Saransh Mohite
• Feature and Opinion – Mrs. Sushmita Sen
• Copy writing, Brand Building,  Understanding Cinema – Mr. Avinash Mantri
• Reporting  –  Mr. Venkatesh Rao
• Advertising in contemporary Society, Direct Marketing – Mr. Zaeem Mirza

BMM Festival : Frames Film Festival

Students of the BMM department of SIES (Sion) college of Arts Science and Commerce organize Frames Film Festival every year. It is a pioneering national undergraduate film festival in India. It is a unique event, conceptualized to help young students showcase their talents in film making. The festival is judged by prominent personalities from the media and the film industry.

Contact:

SIES College of Arts, Science & Commerce,
Jain Society, Sion (West),
Mumbai – 400 022. (India).
Telephone: 2407 27 29 (Office)
Extension: (103) Registrar, (102) Office Superintendent, (125) Library
Fax: 2409 6633
Email: sies_asc@rediffmail.com

PS. Hey ya! Did we goof up somewhere? Anything more exciting happening at your college? Feel free to add a comment below about…well just about anything at SIES (SION) BMM!

Henry Ford once said, “Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.”

Indeed work would be dull, to say the least, if we had to do it all by ourselves. Good teamwork releases group synergy so that the combined effect of individual contributions far exceeds the sum of their individual effects. The basic assumption here is that individual contributions cannot be as good as all of us working together in a team. But think about it, is it really just an assumption?

Okay, let’s look at it like this. Do you think Alexander would have been as great as he ended up being if he had decided to be a one man army? Or would the Indian cricket team be the ‘Desh Ki Dhadkan’ that they are if they decided to be individual players instead of a team? The fact is that they simply cease to be if they stand alone. The power that they have comes from their team backing each and every one of them!

So too many cooks do not really spoil the broth! Also, the fact that there is mutual accountability and togetherness amongst members of a well-knit team reduces the burden from the shoulders of individuals. And our individual experiences have proven time and again that not only is team work good fun, but it is also a great learning experience.

Most modern creative organisations build teams for performing tasks because it can be established that working in groups can provide a distinct competitive yet satisfying advantage. A strong team environment promotes and encourages cooperative interaction between individuals, greater motivation and develops a culture of high performance. It even instils a sense of being comrades rather than competitors, although a little bit of healthy competition really never hurt anyone!

Working individually provides its own advantages such as an increment of personal creative stature, absence of conflicts and quicker decision making, but can hinder effective achievement of goals due to lack of a collaborative environment and an avenue for proactive and creative approach towards problem solving. While working in a team you will never be alone, you will always have some or the other person to suggest you good things. Suggestions and advice can help you in generating new ideas and bring out the creativity in you.

The fact just stated that suggestions and advice can help you in generating new ideas and bring out the creativity in you, is of immense significance. This point is brought out most when you consider media professions like copywriting and creative advertising. Although the two have distinct functions, quite diverse from each other, yet any piece of creative advertising must exhibit a perfect union of copy and creatives. Without the sense of oneness between the two even the most visually creative ads. and the most meaningful copywriting will fail to have the desired impact. And this kind of unity comes only through team work. If the copywriter wants to do his work alone and the creative designer wants to work alone then their work will never show unity, for their minds will not be in sync.

The above example is one in which the team works at the same level. But there are instances when a natural leader will emerge in a team and lead the rest of them naturally. it becomes difficult for some of us to handle such situations when we have to face our individual limitations and take a back seat. For after all, no one wants to admit that someone else is better than us- right! But the beauty of team work is that every team member is equally important as the other. For what good would a leader be if there was no one to follow him! And what good would an individual worker be if he did not have ideas to work on! A team provides a place for both of them. And no matter what you are inside a team, to the outside world you are both part of the same team. This makes you both equally worthy of whatever work you do as a team.

Personal rivalries and egos, therefore, have no place in a team. Essentially, a team is a mini organisation where no matter how much you give, you will never find yourself empty handed. Your repository of leanings will grow in leaps and bounds when you are working in a team. This is what makes working in teams the great learning experience that it is.

Marketing in its most crude description has meant the art of selling. It is the art of subtle( not any more) persuasion that originally was meant for convincing someone to buy something. Today that definition holds true except that in many cases there is an add on to it. It still involves convincing people to buy something, the difference is, you might not really need it. And that is why it is such an art today- no longer is marketing about telling the audiences about availability. It’s about telling them about the plenty that is available and getting them to choose ‘you’ over the other hundred options. It is precisely for this reason that today there is a distinction between Social Media Marketing or New Age Marketing and Traditional Marketing. In every sense of the term, Social Media Marketing is here to stay.

In the beginning, when marketing was all about telling your audiences about where they could find you, marketing was simple. It was all about getting together a good sales team who would be able to put up an interesting campaign in place along with their partner ad agency, to come up with a catchy snazzy ad campaign that could not fail. Add to this an interesting sales agenda and profits would sky rocket with the blink of an eye lid. But then what happened when Company X had a good marketing team and Company Y had a good marketing team too? Along side came A and B and C… Soon the market was too crowded and standing out was important to survive, to get noticed. It was no more just about letting the audience know that ‘I am good and I can be found here’ it was about telling them how your product was better than the many available in the market. So dawned the age of New age Marketing.

In this form of marketing, no stones are left unturned and no attempts are left behind to capture the attention of the ever elusive ‘Target Audience’. The Consumer here is King and there is nothing that is good enough to win him over. This form of marketing believes in the concept of IMC or Integrated Marketing Communications which involves a heady mix of advertisements, events, blogging, direct marketing etc. it is a lot of everything and everything in a lot. Today products follow us wherever we go. Whether you are traveling in a bus or watching a movie or booking your tickets online, there is always a tiny corner peeking out from somewhere asking you to take notice of it- asking you to pick them over the others. This is Social Media Marketing and it has just begun. For all those who believe that they make their own choices on what they want and what they don’t, think again. Unconsciously if not consciously we are trained constantly to choose a product over the other. We are being bombarded by images and events through varied channels of communication in the media to buy things, things we need, things we don’t need and things we think we need. This is the power of social media marketing.

The power of social media marketing lies in its marriage with media itself. Today the media acts as an agent for marketing in a way. Most newspapers today are just one giant flier- each page devoted to another product or company. One switches on the television only to realize that most channels have hours of interactive TV advertising which run late into the night- and most of the time they even work. Most movies are ‘the place’ for product placement as they reach out to wide audiences. Everything, right from houses to cars and even fridges are shown as a part of a deeper scheme of reaching out to the audience in every possible way.

What this essentially means is that traditional marketing is passé. Not that it did not have its own merits, it cannot exist in today’s day and age. It cannot survive in this world that is fraught with competition and multiple choices. However it is this marketing that has given birth to the new age marketing or social media marketing.

It is to be understood that this new form of marketing has just begun. It is in its nascent stages and has eons to go before it matures. Through IMC, it has only attempted to make a start at the journey that it is on. Not to be misunderstood, this journey is not for the faint hearted. For this new age marketing is bold and forthright and is filled with challenges at every step. And for those who thought marketing was a tough place to be in, this is just the trailer. Social Media Marketing has just begun.

A morning cup of tea, followed by a daily dose of the current happenings thanks to the newspaper that gets dropped at your door step. This sounds like an average day for anyone of us doesn’t it? But then have you ever wondered what power that cup of tea can hold. While it may sound out of this world that the cup of morning ‘chai’ could have any significance, apart from the obvious ones, this is not entirely the case. For, it is possible that many a times that cup of tea is making you think about things that you would never associate it with, things of importance, things that can start revolutions. Thinking all this sounds impossible? I have two words for you- Jaago Re. And quite literally as well!

This is a clear indication of the power that the media wields today. It is larger than life, its powers are all encompassing and it influences our lives in ways we could never even fathom a mere decade back. To think about it logically, who would have imagined that tea drinking would be translated into a massive movement to encourage the masses, the youth in particular, in ideas of governance and the social responsibility? And the brilliance of it all lies in the fact that it worked, it worked like a charm. Tata tea got the image of a life time and a record number of people registered themselves to vote. This is media and its power and its gigantic best.

What does all this go to show? Does it mean that the media is manipulating our thoughts, that all around us there is information that is fed to us, information that we might not really need? Quite on the contrary. This means that there is an agency out there that is making a point to remind us of the things that we tend to forget and if it is making some money out of it, what’s the harm in it after all? I was quite intrigued by a recent theory that I read about which spoke about Media as a gatekeeper. It got me thinking. If this was true then it meant that a lot of what we feel strongly about could possibly be the result of a very intelligent media company or channel and if that is the case then are we actually thinking for ourselves or have we out sourced that as well?

All these questions point to one common truth- good or bad the media today is a sieve. It decides what needs to go out there and in what proportion. It decides what is important, what needs to be kept under wraps- each day. There are two sides of looking at this. For those who specialize in doubting every move and intention this could be a curse. To think that the information that we think we are looking for is actually fed to us without even realizing it! Sounds scary doesn’t it? And if this is the case then how legitimate is that source which is making these decisions for us.

However there is a flip side to the argument. Supported by all the proponents of media and its supporters comes the view that there is and never can be any other channel that can mobilize public opinion so quickly and so effectively. This means that there is a lot of power in the hands of the media to bring about a positive difference in society. It can act as a harbinger of change, questioning the injustice and bringing together the voices of a lot of people who would otherwise have no source to get their voices heard. Even if they did, it would never be taken as seriously as it is when all of them come together. This is what was seen when the Jaago Re campaign succeeded and has happened with many brands after that.

The point of this discussion is to understand that the media today might have an upper hand in dispensing information to the masses. This could also mean that the information that is being passed out is lop sided. But that is the cynical point of view and we cannot survive if we turn into a generation of cynics. It would defeat the purpose of public good and social living. What it means is that the media is powerful, it is a channel and it is the only source known that can influence such a large mass at the same time. While this is a big responsibility on its shoulders, it is also a big opportunity for change. It is the only way that positive change can be dispensed and that is the only way that this power can be used responsibly.

While there will always be people who doubt all that comes their way and question the intention of the media, I think quite differently. Realizing that all in life is not white or black but painted shades of grey, this too is not something that can be all good or all bad. There is worth in the idea of media acting as gatekeepers and at the same time there could be its faults, but the point being made is that there too, one always has the choice of which side to take.

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The MRSC in collaboration with SIES College wants to find exciting new faces in TV journalism. They are looking for anyone and everyone who is willing to rise to the challenge of writing about some of the most crucial issues faced in the world of journalism.

The competition is backed by senior professional journalists from field (print and television).

And you will be judged by the bests in the industry.
The article/Report will be judged for its relevance, journalistic content, facts, commentaries, opinion pieces & examples. It will also be assessed for originality and efforts to examine the issue being written about.

Judges for the final stage will include

The overall winners will be announced at a gala event in Mumbai in June 2011 to which all finalists will be invited.

The prizes will be awarded by the senior journalists. Also winners will get chance for a first hand interaction with the senior TV Journalists.

Prizes

The five winners of first prize will receive 5 Touch Screen Phone.
The 10 winners of second prize will get  10 I Pods.
The 20 third prize winner will get 20 Pen Drives.
Certificate of Honour for all participants

The real prize, of course, is being chance of first hand interaction with senior TV journalists.

Last date of submission is  15th April 2011.

For further info http://www.mrscmumbai.com/comptition1.html