Mass Communication: Press Conference and Reporting

Press Conference

Press conference is a proper way of gathering people especially a group of journalists in which somebody informs about their official statement or opinions. It is also the way of answering questions to a group of journalists. Press conference are often organized by an organization or an individual person in order to obtain maximum positive publicity, goodwill, popularity or even to clear the issues that are of public interests. The organizers often have some information or stories that are to be shared; containing news value. They organize such conference in order to inform the public. On such conference only the invited journalists are considered to questioned the organizers at the first part of a conference and in the second part of a conference, there begins a question-answers session the process in which journalists have to ask and the organizer have to answer. It is entirely based on the publicity objective.

There is a certain occasion in which leading figures organizes the press conference. They are related to different fields such as industry, science, entertainment or a sport who wishes to inform the media about the latest progress of the events or issues. These conferences are mostly covered by those reporters who are sending by the news editor. And the reporter has to attend the conference and hear the statement as per the instruction of the news editor.

Moreover, press conferences are believed to be organized in order to hide some flaws, mistakes, and weakness or to make a clarification or to publicize certain product or project. As we know that journalism is a business in which one prints what you don’t want to; otherwise rest is done for publicity. Therefore reporter must be clever enough to grab the opportunity to look at the issues critically rather on depending what they say only. A journalist should have pre-knowledge about the institution and individual who organize the press conference.

Reasons for attending Press Conference

• It is a major source of collecting pre-expected news story in an easy way.
• It is an opportunity to meet up the several personalities on a particular subject at the same place.
• Reporters can ask questions or take interview of persons that and provide another news story.
• It might be the golden opportunity for the journalists through whom they can get a press release, photos of news value and other information.

Reporting

Reporting is the art, skill the business the profession of collecting information from different sources. Reporting tries to visit the field in order to cover the information that carries the news value. S/he must need to have the pre-knowledge about the events that are going to happened. S/he needs to consult with the chief reporter for further action. The content of the story must have the fact and truth so in order make it more believable reporter can even take the interview of the authorities or witness of the events. After taking the interview he oe she must verify the news source and events and then they can deliver it to the newsroom for editing.

While doing the process of reporting one must pay attention on the principle of accuracy so that the content of information carries the truth and objectivity. The news source, as well as concerned authority, must be credible and factual. The major principles of reporting are accuracy, balance; credibility (ABC) and every reporter must keep it on their mind while reporting about particular events. In print, journalism reporting is done through writing news whereas in broadcast journalism it is done through recording voice.

The major tasks of the reporter are to collect, select and to deliver the information. Without collecting information reporting is not possible. News information is gathered at first and then it is passed it to the newsroom under the supervision of chief reporter. The reporter may also have to face the risk while gathering information as they have to visit the field no matter how the situation is. News should be always unexpected and new with the proper verification of source. The collected news is being selected as well as edited in the newsroom. They are edited as per the concerned authority of different beat like politics, environment, sports, etc. In this task news, editor and sub-editor play the special roles and are called the true reporter in a sense.

Types of Reporting

Investigative Reporting

Investigative Reporting is a situation reporting rather than an event reporting. Such reporting focuses on long-term efforts to deal with corruption, misconduct, especially by a government or public institution. The investigation might vary with press investigation than police or court investigation. However, the major tools of investigative reporting are as press freedom, civil rights and the right to information.

Investigative journalism is more popular in the newspaper journalism as it was first developed in the newspaper. It is a kind of reporting that has to be carrying out with reportorial zeal, skill, courage and imagination. Such kind of investigative reporting is done in the critical and powerful issues. In modern days investigative reporting is even flourishing in broadcast media where they got a big team of an investigative reporter. It is a kind of in-depth means of reporting that plays a role in bringing bigger change in the society and their people. It explores the hidden issues to the public. It is long term process of exposing news story. Such reporting must need adequate time, a cooperation of management, clear direction from sincere editors and positive support of public and private source. It is a tough job of reporting on television rather than in other media due to its visual nature. Such investigative information or stories must be written in a straight manner rather than in any pressure or out bursts. It differs from another way of writing because it is interpretive in style.

Therefore, the reliable investigation has potential to bring credibility to the public opinion, beliefs, and documents, such as tax record, court decision and other. Through this, they detect the wrong doing and provide ways for correcting it so it is considered as a way to serve the public interests.

Sport Reporting

It is a kind of reporting on the issues or events of sports, topic and players. All kinds of mass media especially television have the expertise to report on this beat for their target audiences. As today sport is getting popularity for forgetting enmity, maintaining brotherhood, developing fraternity, spreading peace and so on. So, the different media like television, newspaper, and online media have given priority to this beat of journalism. Different sports channels like STAR sport, ESPN, Ten Sport etc are gaining popularity for covering latest sports events. Sport is a beat of immediacy and pressure because sports event occurs late in the day. Sports reporting is, therefore, a complex job for reporters but many journalists are popular because of their works. To become a talented sports journalist’s one must know the rules of the games that they are going to cover. It would be better if they visit the field of sport taking place in order not to miss any important news.

Sports reporting can be only done efficiently if the reporters are well known about the rules and nature of the game, about the sports jargons, history of the games, playing the system and playing clubs. While writing a news report, the reporter should use the simple, dramatic and descriptive language; avoiding the biased, imbalanced, dominating or hypothetical way of writing.

Development Reporting

Development reporting is a beat of journalism through which one can obtain the ways of handling all the development activities with the help of communication. Development itself holds the broad concept of natural environment, social relations, education, production, consumption well being and humanity. So, it can be said that development is transitional from agrarian to an industrial society and row to an information society.

The reporting of development is a technique which varies with the content of nature that might be rural or urban but they should relate the issues or affairs of public. Development reporting should convey the positive information of need-based and it should appeal to the audiences on different issues such as education, awareness and environment. It is a dynamic process which is done to create a sense of participation and mass mobilization through its writing. It shows the way to improve the backbone building. It is genuinely success stories of people who have adopted new technologies, tried new methods in order to improve the society and their standard of living. Development reporting has emerged after the world war for the collection of success stories, a deliverance of it and interpretation of development process. Development reporting prioritizes the development related activities which are full of economic and social change, human dignity, security, politics, agriculture, cottage industry, justice, equality and so on. Rural development reporting is really important in developing countries since it has significance in the development of such undeveloped issues.

However, development reporting is all about disseminating information about resource mobilization, social awareness, empowerment, participation and so on. It helps to make the authority alert about development projects and their impacts on the society or surrounding environment. It fosters the local participation for sustainable development.

Court Reporting

Court reporting is a beat of journalism which is concerned with reporting of litigation and court cases. It is one of the major sources of information to all sorts of cases of public interests that is covered by news media. It is a job of high risk since court reporters are often criticized for their highly publicized cases, criminal traits, government issues, cases of divorces, lawsuits against public and so on.

Court reporting is a whole process of recording history followed by legal proceedings of the events. It plays the role of creating pressure on the government officials to implement the action. Every court reporter must have the collection of documents related to the source of information. As a reporter s/he should not be biased and improvised any sort of legal term for the accuracy. Reporting of the court case is followed by the nature of evidence, the testimony of experts, circumstantial evidence, witness and other judicial notice.

Court journalists refer to the person who is assigned to a document of the whole activities of a court case or a reporter cover case stories for the publication in newspaper and broadcast media. Court reporting is also related to the crime reporting since both are news beat in journalism. Court reporting can be handled by the person who has Bachelors in law. The journalist who covers the best court issues is honored every year.

The court reporter must know the jurisdiction of the court historical background of the particular case, court’s verdict on similar cases and the meaning of the legal terms. Court reporting is moreover about the understanding national, international, legal and court practices.

Crime Reporting

Crime reporting is the most covered beat of journalism after politics. It is a really tough and complicated piece of writings. Every print and broadcast media covers the crime issues every day such as rape, murder, abuse, bribery, rubbery, corruption, smuggling, kidnapping, human trafficking, thief, and dowry so on. When crime reporter is aware of the news story of the crime s/he immediately informs the chief reporter and makes arrangement for reporting. It is also a real job of risk as a reporter must visit the event of crime and collect the information through the interview. S/he also needs to work hard to develop interesting news report.

For crime, reporting reporter must visit police station for regular basis in order to collect information. Police at both local and community level are the great source for the first-hand information about the recent activities of crime and criminals. Similarly, jail court, hospitals, district administration office, revenue office, cross-border areas, public and private offices are the major source of information for crime reporting.

Such reporters should be very alert about the wrong doings and they cannot ignore to such situation. Their work should be accurate and the information should be checked before writing final reports. It should be moral, ethical and legal based. It can also be followed by the specialized reporting when there is the occurrence of series of crimes affecting the whole community. Therefore, crime reporting is a broad field that gives an opportunity to exercise the talents of reporter himself/herself. It is an exciting job that tests reporters’ courage as well as ability to cover a complicated crime case.