MxMIndia

Ranjona Banerji: I have written this content without either an adviser or a mentor. Weep!

"Perhaps content needs to be mentored as it tries to figure what on earth was happening around it. Can you hear the content crying, "No no, I am not a front page story. I am a simple feature. You are confusing me. I am in desperate need of mentoring." The old style evil sub would have just dumped the story or cut it down ruthlessly. The new caring content mentor might take it out for coffee?", writes Ranjona Banerji

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By Ranjona Banerji

 

There have been changes at DNA, the last newspaper that I worked at. Since I quit in 2010, there have been several changes of editors and owners and managements. But the newest changes are intriguing. A news item put out by afaqs says that “Shreyasi Goenka who has been “mentoring the content at DNA will now take over as content advisor and will guide all functions at DNA”.

 

There will also be a new “editor-in-chief”, Rohit Gandhi.

An editor in chief, I understand. It is a job function and a lovely high-flown title.

 

But what is a content advisor? Several decades at a newsroom have left me stumped. I asked a few whiskered journalist friends who are even older than me and they were equally clueless. Those younger seemed baffled as well.

 

So what is a “content advisor” to do? Does it mean making a decision like which story is more important than another on a page? Like a news editor in the olden days? Or is it about how a story is written like a sub-editor or a rewrite desk? Or is about which stories make it to the front page like the editor, even, perchance, an editor-in-chief?

 

Or is a content advisor just the new thing in town in newsrooms now dominated by management jargon? A meaningless designation meant to either disrupt or remain cosmetic as a newsroom goes about its business as usual?

 

Are news reports, investigations, features, edits, diary items in a newspaper now to be known as “content”? I think websites use that term but for news websites, it seems likely that they also rely on the old terms.

 

Having been out of a newsroom for almost six years now – yes the same DNA — I find this mildly amusing. However, when you consider the turbulent times that I saw at DNA, perhaps I am less amused. Perhaps content needs to be mentored as it tries to figure what on earth was happening around it. Can you hear the content crying, “No no, I am not a front page story. I am a simple feature. You are confusing me. I am in desperate need of mentoring.”

 

The old style evil sub would have just dumped the story or cut it down ruthlessly. The new caring content mentor might take it out for coffee?

 

**

 

Meanwhile, the news cycle has turned and not surprisingly, the terrible fire at a temple in Kerala is dominating headlines. The water crisis and IPL have not died down completely but nightly outrage has, on television at least. Temples have taken centre stage. The saviour of India Arnab Goswami told us last night that “believe you me”, thanks to Times Now’s campaign and the support of its viewers, women of all ages will now be allowed into the Sabarimala temple, the Haji Ali dargah and so on. I would not bet against him since I don’t have the courage.

 

Newspapers have shifted from anti-IPL outrage to suggesting solutions like other crops instead of sugarcane and pointing to decades of bad irrigation policies. (My father by the way wants to know why no one is considering his ideas of sugarbeet and sometimes throws newspapers around in disgust.) It is not likely that TV will take this up so we have to be satisfied with what we have.

 

I must also apologise for mentioning in my last column that only NDTV bothers to cover droughts and rural issues. TS Sudhir’s Up South show on India Today TV packs a real punch into its half hour with solid journalism and yes, has been covering the problems of farmers and people who do not live in big cities.

 

**

 

The British Royals as in Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, as in Wills and Kate as in son and daughter-in-law of Prince Charles and the late Diana, Princess of Wales are in India. Twitter on Tuesday morning is all abuzz with skirts and suits flying in the breeze and different sorts of “Marilyn Monroe” moments (not singing Happy Birthday Mr President or wanting a diamond ring from Cartier but skirts flying in Seven Year Itch).

 

So there’s this photograph of William, taken from the Twitter page of Buzzfeed’s inimitable Rega Jha, which no one talked about:

 

And this, which many more talked about:

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/kate-middleton-marilyn-monroe-moment-7732766

 

Because maybe sometimes we all need our content to be mentored?

 

Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator. She is also Consulting Editor, MxMIndia. The views expressed here are her own.

 

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