Four years on #newsdesks isn't long enough to be preaching, but one big learning I had at @scroll_in was this: writing the daily news is an art that needs great editorial care. Very few speed #newsdesks truly bother about this, and do a lot of harm. #Media

Here, I explain how.

Sans the "glamour" of reporting, desk writing/ #editing of news is often presented to newbies as the poorer cousin of field work. Websites with sections for fast-paced news tend to think that their words don't matter, their speed and reach do.

#DigitalNews #IndianMedia #newsdesk

For instance, how many news writers care about preventing misinformation by dwelling on simple points like the difference between a "judge's observation" & a "court order"?

Or, the distinction between a proposal, Cabinet approval, Bill, Act, notification, & rules? Look at this:

Thanks to the nuances breaking news desks systematically disregard in news copy (and which @scroll_in taught me to guard against), ask your family and you might hear them talking about an SC order that never was, or a "law" that's not even reached Parliament.

In this thread, I'm compiling more such pointers, #tips, and things to be clear about, and will continue to add later.

All this will come up frequently if you cover general #IndianNews. The cost of being clueless could be misleading or #fakenews, or you embarrassing yourself.

Call it the misfortune, or the thrill, of being on a desk, but you must know all about governance, administration & #politics even better than a beat reporter.

Be on desks for years, but no one will really take time out to teach you these basics, even if it's your daily job.

So, here are some:

1. The distinction between a “judge’s observation” & a “court order”

2. Stages of policy: proposal, Cabinet approval, Bill, Parliamentary procedures, etc, followed by a notification & rules; ordinances, advisories & orders

3. An understanding of political games: how parties can make or break governments (what's legal and what they can do secretly); defection laws; picking a CM who is not a legislator (how else could you do justice to a story like this one?)

4. Scope of powers of different individuals (e.g. would you blindly use a quote from the MHA in a matter related to the MEA's work?)

State/Union/concurrent lists (poor understanding has led to some disastrous news-telling with real consequences during #Covid19; example below)

5. Different wings of the executive (various ministries of the Union and state governments, the bureaucratic structures and hierarchies, the departments within ministries); police hierarchies

6. Administrative divisions: Districts & divisions, district headquarters, urban local bodies, tehsils/talukas, panchayats, etc

7. Parliament proceedings: Sessions, basic jargon, rules and procedures, committees, looking up MP questions; state legislatures

8. Always know which states are the next on the election schedule.

9. Research about party positions in state legislatures gets confusing due to MLA deaths, resignations, bypolls, etc. Figure out ways to ascertain the right numbers. They matter when the political games are on.

10. Laws: learn how to speed-read court judgements (with accuracy). Basic terms (defendant, petitioner, SLP, habeas corpus, appeal, etc), and expressions (observe, reserve, reverse, etc)

More to come...

Thanks for the response to this thread. As promised, adding some more:

11. As @krantinari pointed out, police procedures (complaint, FIR, detention/arrest, chargesheet, judicial/police custody, bail provisions, crime branch/CID/CBI/NIA/ED, etc) https://twitter.com/krantinari/status/1259074085646188550

12. Nuanced understanding of official positions on contested boundaries.

E.g., Desks must know that when describing the capital cities/governments of the two regions in PoK, using just "PoK" is misleading – in fact it legitimises the two local "governments" in the region:

14. I wrote this on the wrong interpretation of various air quality indices a few months back. https://twitter.com/TanaySukumar/status/1190156540948275200

15. Journalists must always understand some basics of numbers, else they can make mistakes like these in such important stories: https://twitter.com/TanaySukumar/status/1110386877364879361

Another one on the understanding of basic use of numbers: https://twitter.com/TanaySukumar/status/1149531918683140097