My batchmates and I had an entertaining time at the media workshop held at The Current, where the topic was about learning to write news stories, and our instructor was Natasha Zai.
Her lecture was a complete package of writing effective news stories for digital media. One hour of her session was worth a whole semester at a university. I believe we have learned all the essentials of news writing for digital media.
I had learnt about her workshop from a poster in our class WhatsApp group but hadn’t heard of her before. At first, I was thinking about skipping this session, as I was not sure about how productive this workshop might be. However, when the session started, it was a great learning experience. In a short span of time, she had taught us too much.
I remember when it was the first day of university, our teacher asked the students why they chose to study journalism. Almost 90 per cent of the answers were: “Because I want to become an anchor.” Why anchor? The obvious answer is the fame, power and glamour our anchors have. However, we have not known about the struggles one goes through to become an anchor. We were all thinking of becoming an anchor immediately after finishing our degree. Interestingly, nobody had made us aware that it is a very difficult and long journey.
From Ms Zai’s workshop, we learnt that the most significant part about becoming a journalist was learning how to write. However, many of us did not want to acquire good writing skills and were not made aware about this skill. As a result of this, at the end of our degree, we are still struggling to write on our own.
At the end of the session when the students were taking group photos with Ms Zai, I chose to go for a solo picture because I wanted to ask her a few things. I asked her about her past education, and interestingly she did not have a background in media studies. When I asked her how she forged her own path in journalism, she replied that it was a media workshop that helped her:
“18 years ago when Geo had offered a media training workshop, I enrolled in it. Later, I was hired by Geo.”
When I asked her about how to enhance my writing skills. She advised:
“You should read a lot, so spend your leisure time reading. I have read almost 8,000 books. Reading is the initial step to writing.”
This workshop made me understand how important it is for students to be aware of the full picture before they choose to enroll in any discipline, especially for media students who are dreaming of become an anchor. To be an anchor in the future is a good dream but you need to be aware of the hardships that line the road to the destination. What I learned is that writing is very important in journalism, whether you’re a host, reporter or an anchor. The journey of a journalist starts with writing. To be a good writer, first you must be a good reader.
