A LOT HAPPENS IN THE NEWSROOM

Fort Lauderdale:

Five days into the new newsroom of Sun Sentinel -- by far still one of the biggest that I've seen -- I've begun to feel somewhat comfortable with the culture here.

The first small steps have yielded some exciting results and many new friends, but believe me it's one of the craziest times in the history of the US media, and a lot goes on in the newsroom today than the news per se.

Struggling to save their jobs journalists are putting in their best. But my host newspaper, the Sun Sentinel, may not have the same staff at the end of my program than what it has today. It makes me nervous and sad to be in the newsroom trying to learn my way through the work as an intern while several journalists get fired.

But that's the way it is, and it will be.

Notwithstanding the tough financial times out here, the newsroom is still trying to stick to some of its best practices. Journalism to many still remains a prayer.

Sun Sentinel has one of the best research and archive systems - this is one aspect that I would strongly recommend to my home newspaper. This is its spinal cord. And most journalists I spoke to about the online archive and research tool confer that the facility helps build context into a story at the click of the mouse. You can go back over decades to scan through the old issues if your story needs you to go that far in your research. Newspapers invest a lot on this critical department, and it pays off with the content in today's times as well.

I'm reading hundreds of stories on agriculture, particularly sugar, to build a sort of historic context for the issues that are in debate today. Had it not been for this insightful online internal tool, it would have been next to impossible for me to understand and learn so much in so little time. So that's my first take-home!

Then the freedom an individual gets to put his or her point of view or perspective during the daily meetings of the editorial board is very encouraging. You can beg to differ with your boss. And I believe we share this aspect pretty much as well.

But here's a difference: The informal luncheon discussion on writing stories that I attended today. A group of reporters and editors come together once a month and go back to some of the selected stories to critic the writing style and how it could still be better. The stories could be by in house writers/reporters or agency copies filed from any part of the world. It's the best way to brainstorm what you write.

How's the lead? The narrative? The context? The end?

We write words that create impressions among readers about the world that we live in. It's therefore pertinent on our part to use them selectively and judiciously. Friends back home in Nagpur, you've got to get your basics right, baby!

Some of the serious journalists, who sweat their day out researching and digging into their stories about policies and impact they have on commoners, are finding it hard to come to terms with an increasingly trivial stories about celebrities. And that's a similarity we share. The online content is slowly getting number one.

I wonder with the kind of staff and practises they have how could the US media still fail to signal the weaknesses the country's financial system had developed? How could the media collectively fail to report the process that would en snarl the entire world into its fold and hit so hard as to drive hundreds of thousands on the road overnight. Tens of thousands of homes here now bear the notices showing they are either for "sale" or "on rent". Many of them have gone broke with mortgages.

Media here and back home have some answering to do. If they dare do it!