Can classrooms emulate the same intensity as newsrooms?

You can never be too prepared for a field like journalism. 

The day-to-day learning and research is a forever commitment. Not to mention, journalism is quite crucial. To cope with the vastness and the ever dynamic world, digital media is especially striving to meet the expectations of the audience or working to 'wow' them. 

But that makes you wonder – are schools falling behind in capturing the zeal of journalism's inner and intense workings? Or is the necessary framework actually at play to help establish a student into a potential journalist? 

A private university level education in journalism – be it just a course or an entire major – does, in fact, teach you the fundamentals. 

The course that my alma mater North South University (NSU) offers, ENG457, teaches a wide range of topics based on print, online and broadcast journalism.

But there is a stark difference between covering assignments, learning through lecture notes, reading up on events and actually covering it, all while catering to the people. This is something that can only be learned on the field. 

Nevertheless, what I picked up through ENG457 has been a tool to mechanise and capitalise in the newsroom.

Fall 2020: A computer for a classroom

Studying journalism over online classes at NSU during the pandemic was an undeniably challenging experience. It was just me in my study space, and my teacher and classmates on a screen across Google Meet. 

But the course outlined by NSU was incredibly engaging and even enlightening. It challenged us, showed us the scopes of journalism and its pitfalls, such as our lessons on libel, the DSA (now CSA), misinformation and disinformation, fact-checking, among various other concerns. 

I also credit my teacher who had shed light on these concerns and more through active participation of all students. 

We had two course books: An Introduction to Journalism by Carole Flemming, Emma Hemmigway, Gillian Moore and David Welford and Shortcuts to Journalism: The Basics of Print, Online and Broadcast Reporting by Elisabeth Schmidt, Markus Tirok, and Marcus Bösch.

As part of the quizzes, midterms and final exams, we worked on write-ups concerning an array of issues.

Writing a news report on Shirley Jackson's short story "The Lottery"; interviewing a rickshaw puller on how he'd being pulling his weight during the lockdowns amid the pandemic; imagining we're at that conference by Shashi Tharoor and covering it watching a YouTube video; writing that op-ed on deaths by suicide of famous people, such as Sushant Singh Rajput and Chester Bennington; a timely feature article interviewing teachers about their struggles and woes of endless hours and connecting with students in a virtual classroom, a first in recent history; doing a podcast for finals on the glaring issue of rape from research off media reports.

Such was the scope of my education and more, which prompted me to eventually take on journalism as a profession. Little did I know, I had only touched the tip of the iceberg. 

Classroom was fun, but catching my beat in the newsroom was a far greater challenge. 

Reality is much more gruesome and dire

It has to do with actual reports on rape victims, seeing gory images of beheaded, slaughtered or dismembered bodies, covering major events like the Bangabazar fire, various accidents, the Ukraine-Russia war, and now the Hamas-Israel war. 

Oftentimes, our reporters are in the morgues as the victims' names are being confirmed so we can list them in the story we are filing. 

As of writing this article, I have covered a nationwide rally by the leading political parties where images and reports of various injuries and footage of a policeman being beaten to death surfaced. 

Viewer discretion is a caution for the readers, but journalists have no choice but to bear the brunt of such imagery on a daily basis. 

Can a classroom really ever prepare you for the mental toll that at times comes with the job? 

The appeal to connect is a nerve-wracking challenge when you must present and persuade the facts to your readers.

What was once just a chapter on issues like libel or DSA (now CSA) is an actual concern. 

It is not all dark and glum, though.

It was not until I stepped into a newsroom that I knew there are also those moments of the utter thrill of breaking a story, being the first to shed light on a subject and sharing information that can help or regulate or bring forth a motion. 

Such a line of work is not an easy feat.

It takes you for everything you have got – your intelligence, empathy, integrity, drive, capacity, even emotions. 

And that is the rarest of sparks only a newsroom can light up, that is, if you love a good challenge.