TV journalism is not all about TV.

‘When can we see you on TV’? ‘Can we see you as an anchor on TV’?

These are the questions that I get from people every time I introduce myself as a student of journalism. Now that I am an apprentice with NDTV, questions like these have become more frequent. Initially I used to casually push the question away by giving a callous answer. But guess what? I no longer want to do it.

Most people from a non-media background are under a misconception that broadcast journalism is all about anchoring and reporting. But do people even for a moment think about the amount of work that happens behind the camera? However, I do agree that it is wrong to blame people for their partial knowledge about television news.

A news anchor and a reporter might articulate a story and sometimes do more than that, but the muscle to the story is given by a million other people working behind the camera. Three weeks as an apprentice in NDTV has given me a basic insight into the tactics, efforts and chaos inside a newsroom. Everything that is shown on television looks glamorous and rosy, but it takes a whole bunch of people to make ‘our’ news screens look beautiful. So if any of you think that television journalism is a glamorous field- forget it! It’s definitely not. It has lot more dimensions to it than just glamour.

It takes years and years of experience to become an anchor or even a reporter for that matter. (In a good news channel that is). So to be in front of the camera it involves a whole process of learning, building contacts, getting on to the field and experience everything first hand.

Lastly a sincere request to all- Please Stop assuming that television journalism is all about anchoring and reporting! By doing so you are disregarding the effort of a lot of other people who actually put 'news' together.