Media, Language and Journalism training

I have been writing about media and language relations quite often. In fact, I draw my inspirations from Marshal MacLuhan who first declared that media is an extension of ourselves which actually means that media is an extension of language. Recently, I participated in a debate about the training of journalism and its relation with languages. Some participant thought that journalism training is language neutral and journalism educators can impart training to individuals who would like to pursue their journalism in different languages. At first sight the argument looks quite all right. In fact analytical skills which make somebody a critical thinker could perhaps be imparted in any language. The theory of communication, newspaper management or the familiarisation with the technologies of media could also be imparted in any language as the medium of instruction. But a closer look at this argument would reveal that there are many flaws in it. I have been imparting Information Technology training, besides that of journalism, to the students of Hindi journalism. I have realised that a trainer trained in English or any other European language would not be able to teach IT to the trainees of Indian Languages. Of many reasons, the most important one is the inclination and interest of the trainer itself. Secondly, the requirement of training people in Indian Languages is drastically different than that of English or any other languages. In a class of twenty trainees it would be practically impossible to address the needs of every trainee, as they would be using different script while using the machine. There are many government and non-government agencies imparting IT training to people as part of the Official Language promotion programme, but it has been seen that very few of them actually train people in using computers in Hindi or their own languages. It is necessary for the trainers to know about the Hindi and Indian Language software and the Indian language Keyboard. The most difficult task of computing in Indian Languages is to use a keyboard and those who have been trained by typist would not be able to use computer as a tool for writing. Now, let’s talk about the skills like writing, editing, reporting. They are all language-related skills and require a deep grounding in the culture of the people who speak the language used by the journalist. Evan a descipline like Communication theory is not language neutral. Ask any professor of Communication to give two lectures on the same theme in two different languages and you will notice the difference.

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