BEING A JOURNALIST:

If you are someone who love to learn through travelling, meet new people and visit unique places; journalism is something that you should seriously consider as one of your career choices.

But, with everything in life, there is other side of the coin that you need to deal with. Journalism is a rat race and a demanding job that makes work-life balance bit of a struggle.

If you are considering this career, you should be a strong, confident individual who has the mental maturity to accept, learn and move on when you are given negative feedback/criticism.

I think a journalism degree would add credibility to become a journalist, but most news agencies apart from a few reputed organisations do not consider it as mandatory (I’m probably the prime example). Some of the other key skills that I found essential for a journalist are:

• Thirst for knowledge
• Stay updated all the time
• Curiosity and constant questioning quality
• Zeal to provide excellent stories with breaking news
• Excellent writing/articulating skills which brings the story to life
• Love to travel and interact with various strata/personalities of people
• Flexible to work beyond scheduled office hours
• Smart decision making and quick execution of work to cover the latest news.

A DAY IN MY WORK LIFE:

I am a Business Journalist usually covering technology. I do not have a set pattern, but I interact a lot with people from the electronic industry. Other activities include:-

• attending a lot of seminars, conferences, meetings, new launches and press meets.
• collect all the information available and compile stories from a business perspective.
• writing stories for my magazine every month. I also do some add-ons for magazines.

ABOUT ME

I’m Baishakhi Dutta hailing from the city of Joy- Kolkata. I possess a Bachelors and a Masters in Modern History of India and the World. I’ve been working as a Business journalist (for over 3 years) in New Delhi. To know more about me, my work and to follow me please head to my blog.

HOW IT ALL STARTED FOR ME AS A JOURNALIST

During my early teens, I wanted to be an archaeologist. Later I realised educating myself in Archaeology was an expensive affair and time consuming. The graduation degree itself takes 4-years, to which I had to add on a few more years of masters degree to completely educate  myself in archaeology. My family and I eventually dropped the idea, as it was not feasible for me.

Always talk to the right audience about any issues or problems. Never shy away. You don’t need to work on every single advice. But you never know when you get that right piece of advice, that would change your life.