SGT University mass comm dean delivers an online lecture to Rohtak varsity future journalists

Swati Thakur

Gurugram, February 4

Prof. Sushil Manav, Dean, Faculty of Mass Communication and Media Technology, SGT University, delivered an online lecture on “Evolution of Reporting and Skillset for Reporters” to students of Journalism and Mass Communication at Maharishi Dayanand University, Rohtak on Friday. During this guest lecture, Prof. Manav interacted with the students of Maharishi Dayanand University and shared his experience throughout his 35 years’ journey in the field of journalism.

During this program, Associate Prof. Tejee Isha, From the Faculty of Mass Communication and Media Technology, SGT University joined the program and shared the links of Prof. Manav’s news stories on the WebEx.

Prof. Rajbir Singh, Vice-Chancellor Maharishi Dayanand University

said that he has an association of over 30 years with him and he knew Prof. Manav from the time he was a reporter at Fatehabad. His university initiated the process of organizing a series of Capacity Building and Curriculum Enrichment Lecture Series cum Workshop and this was the second in the series.

While Prof. Harish Kumar, Head of, Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, Maharishi Dayanand University welcomed Prof. Manav on this lecture and said that the students of the University will excessively benefit from his lecture.

Sunit Mukherjee, Director Public Relations, Maharishi Dayanand University, Rohtak said that Prof. Manav has a rich experience of over 35 years working with leading newspapers of the country. He retired as Chief of Bureau for Haryana with The Tribune, Chandigarh, in August 2021. He penned several thousand news stories that have been published in The Tribune, The Times of India, Millennium Post, and some vernacular dailies. He has been writing about politics, social issues, agriculture, governance, crime, and a host of other issues. Many deprived people got justice from the authorities after Prof. Manav highlighted the case in his news stories.

While interacting with students Prof. Manav also shared his experience as to how sometimes stories of a great human interest come out unexpectedly while doing a normal news story.

He said that whatever you do, throw yourself into it. Throw your head, heart, and hands into it. Look at your job not as a job but as a calling, as a passion. Don’t care about the hours of work or about the hardships, because once you take your job as a passion, everything you do becomes a joy.

While shedding some light on the tricks and tips for a reporter he said, “when a reporter writes an investigative story or a story in which there are allegations against one or the other individual, one of the bigger challenges for a reporter is to write the story in a manner that there are no legal implications in the future. People aggrieved by your stories can sue you for civil and criminal defamation and can also approach The Press Council of India against your newspaper. For this, it is very important that whenever you publish any story that has allegations against anyone, make sure that you also publish the person’s version in it. Political stories are often considered a tricky affair in reporting because the stakes are very high for politicians and if you are seen a little subjective in your story, one or the other will definitely get annoyed. It is particularly difficult during elections. One has to maintain an equidistance through my objectivity in the reporting.”

At the end of the program, students asked many questions to Prof. Sushil Manav and he cleared all the doubts of the future journalists. (End).