Nearly 50 students, who have been learning leadership skills, on Saturday further enhanced them by attending an event called ‘Youth Equine Leadership: Exploring the World of News - Uncover the Magic of Reporting, Development and Publishing’. The programme is pioneered by Vidhushi Karnani. Students and alumni of The Bhavishya-Yaan project, which is run by the Rotary Club of Bombay and looks to plug drop out ratio in municipal schools, learnt about the functioning of a newsroom and how it is led by those working in it.
Tanishaa Mukerji in conversation with Vidhushi Karnani and Abhishek Karnani |
The event was held in collaboration with the Rotary Club of Bombay and The Free Press Journal. It was conducted at The Free Press House, Nariman Point in Mumbai.
“The idea was to go beyond horses in imbibing leadership qualities,” Vidhushi said, as she opened the interactive session. She had earlier imparted training through horse riding training to the students in which they collaborated with horses to acquire leadership skills and fine tune their emotional intelligence while leading them.
Tanishaa Mukerji with the panelists |
The students were given a dig into the various departments of The Free Press Journal and sections within that make a newsroom - city reporting, feature and online. The good that news can bring to the society, how fake news is tackled, the hiccups in running online content, the creative and sports sections, and a tour to various departments within The Free Press House, including the printing press. “It is said the youth of today are leaders of tomorrow. The idea was to have an experiential program where youth can benefit in leadership qualities. In this one, they get to know how news is reported, developed and printed. In fact, they learnt about what actually goes on in a newsroom,” Vidhushi added.
Leadership talk and initiatives were also shared by actress Tanishaa Mukerji who spoke from her personal experience. “Tell me one quality in a leader,” she asked the gathered students who responded “co-ordination”, “setting an example”, “progress”, and “integrity” as some qualities. “To keep trying is the key and that is what I did,” Tanishaa stated. She spoke about her initiatives of planting trees only to realise there was no space and worked towards curbing carbon footprints and making a “carbon neutral India”. “If you try, you are on your path towards leadership,” Tanishaa added.
The students as well as the actress asked scores of questions that ranged from fake news, distinguishing between fake news and a mistake, practical difficulties in a newsroom, struggles of print media in the light of broadcasting and digital media, pressures of TRP, how news is gathered, use of technology to disseminate news, women in the industry and competition within the industry.
They were informed that the enjoyment of reading a paper and holding it, kept the paper industry going. With respect to fake news, students were asked to read the news through apps or online and not rely on ‘WhatsApp University’ or what just floated on social media. Ground reporting was the way to tackle fake news and that is what the papers did.
TRP and competition, certainly were pressure points but The Free Press Journal, they were informed, was the only paper that grew in circulation even after Covid. Use of technology was optimum even in the face of infrastructural hiccups and news reached to lakhs of readers. Women, they were informed, held fort in many departments.
“I look forward to becoming a journalist so this was very helpful. I got to know what all goes into the making of a paper. The design, features, colour combination and the lot of work that goes into it before it is made,” said Mansi Gurav, one of the students. “I like the idea of reaching out to children about leadership. Leaders take responsibility and this makes more people responsible,” Tanishaa concluded.
