If journos were teachers students would flunk

Newspapers often make innocent readers feel inferior. It embarrasses many readers that they are never enough aware to figure newspaper writing. If any such innocent readers are reading this blog, feel very relieved from, like, right now. You are not at fault. It’s not your job as readers to make sense of complicated newswriting. It’s the job of the news guys to write simply and to be understood.

In my second post Friday I asked if you knew the concept of First Reader. The concept of First Reader is simple: Always believe you have at least one reader who has never heard your story’s subject. So you need to write also for someone who is reading the subject the first time. This is truer for TV news writers. This way you avoid presumptions that 94.7% Indian journalists make all the time.

Remember: never presume your reader knows all the information you’ve got. Even if you’ve been writing the same subject for days, there’s still a First Reader every new day. In any case, readers don’t remember details and background even if they’ve read about it every day for weeks.

Some examples of NONSENSE PRESUMPTIONS in this morning’s Delhi newspapers –

Hindustan Times P2 – After receiving much flak for its inability to secure a conviction in the Priyadarshini Mattoo case, the Central Bureau of Investigation has turned to technology to integrate its investigation and prosecution units. CBI will float a tender later this week, asking private consortiums to help it upgrade its systems, including its scientific investigation set-up.

In fact, the full story is total crap. I’ll write a separate post on it today. For now, notice how the introduction presumes that --
(1) all readers know and remember some Priyadarshini Mattoo case that the CBI has failed to "secure a conviction" in it,
(2) all readers know the CBI has investigation and prosecution units,
(3) all readers know that the “integration”, whatever it means, between these two units is not great, and
(4) all readers know that the CBI has a scientific investigation set-up.
By the way, the story gives no specific examples of how inferior technology has hurt CBI’s work, nor specific examples of how technology will improve it!
I will dissect this story in my next post.

The Times of India P8 – CPN Maoist leader Baburam Bhattarai has said it is very “unfortunate that the Seven-Party Alliance has betrayed the 12-point agreement with Maoists and agreed with the king’s announcement of restoration of Parliament of 2002”.
Bhattarai confirmed to TOI that though CPM leader Sitaram Yechury was in touch with the Maoist leaders, “there can be no going back from 12-point agreement. Otherwise, our struggle will continue. We are at war.”

Like hell, this too is total crap! I’m gonna bust this one as well. For now, let’s just run through the presumptions. This story presumes that:
(1) all readers know there’s something called CPN Maoism,
(2) all readers know there’s someone called Baburam Bhattarai who is a CPN Maoist leader,
(3) all readers know there’s something called a Seven-Party alliance,
(4) all readers know that this CPN Maoist leader had an agreement with this Seven-Party Alliance,
(5) all readers know that this agreement between the CPN Maoist leader and the Seven-Party alliance had 12 points,
(6) all readers know that there was a Parliament in 2002, and
(7) all readers know that CPM leader Sitaram Yechury is in touch with the Maoists and why he is in touch with the Maoists.
The story is headlined “SPA betrayed deal: Maoists”! It presumes all readers know SPA! (The only SPA I know is the School of Planning & Architecture that stands close to Delhi’s police headquarters.)
Worst, this five-paragraph story doesn't at all include the word Nepal except in Bhattarai's quote in the third paragraph! So it presumes that all readers know it's talking about Nepal!!!

In truth, this is a decent story that could go on page 1. Nepal’s Maoists had until now supported the opposition parties that have forced the king to give up power. Now they are angry with the opposition parties in their country, who have accepted their king’s offer to take power. This may threaten peace that just yesterday seemed very near.
But get those details in my dissection, later.

Last but not the least, the great Indian journalist, N. Ram, the proprietor-editor of The Hindu, writing in his illustrious newspaper P1 this morning:

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh reiterated the Indian government’s stand on the Iranian nuclear issue that “maximum possible scope should be given to dialogue, discussion, rather than to coercive methods.”
He told The Hindu, in response to a question, on board the special Air India flight taking us from Berlin to Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, that he found large-scale support, including in Germany, for such a view.
Asked for an update on how he saw the situation developing on the Iranian nuclear issue, Dr. Singh told me:
“I don’t know the stage of negotiations between the P-5 and Iran but I do know where we stand. And our stand is that Iran is a signatory to the NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty); and as a signatory to the NPT, it must have all the rights for the peaceful uses of atomic energy. And simultaneously, it must honour all the obligations that go with being a member of the NPT regime…”

What on earth is the Iranian nuclear issue? Coercive methods? Who is using them on whom? P5? Peaceful uses of atomic energy? And, Mr. Ram, what are the “obligations that go with being a member of the NPT regime”, whatever that means?
Mr. Ram clearly fancies he has a role in the story. Sadly, that happens with many journalists who find eminence for any reason, birth or labour. Mr. Ram's this story is among the crappiest I've ready today. It needs a full autopsy and I hope not to disappoint you.