Engagement with the audience

IWAS asked to answer some survey questions on how I rate a journalism module and was also asked to give some suggestions.

I was made to peek into their curriculum, and everything snapped in place.

Before that, I was told by another person that I think differently from other editors in the group as my default perspective is consistently as the reader, the audience, the customer.

Now back to the survey and my suggestion, what struck me most was how focused the curriculum was on the writing skills, there was no mention about engagement and interrelationship with the selected audience, the terrain, the people.

Thus, a disconnect. When focus is on skills, we create a bunch who compete based on skills, even a few who turn braggart because of certified performance in the classroom setting. But if there is the constant and persistent reference to the consumer, we are nurtured in a vacuum. In designing for a client, we were taught first to make an interrelationship diagram of how the client intends to use the structure he wants designed. Thus, while there are standards in design, these adapt to the client. After that is the terrain. How does the property look like? Especially in irregular terrain, the solution is not always to cut and flatten the slope. In fact, the beauty is in working with the existing terrain, with a few cuts and fills, but only where necessary. The skill and art if the designer emerges when he's able to design the structure that satisfies and impresses the client.

What did that teach me? Engagement with the client.

Journalism, like any career, is a... career. It's a job. We have clients. That means, we are not living in a vacuum where we only engage with the truth in a noble profession.

As I told a foreign media worker once, "What we have is a job that isn't more important than any other job. When I'm stricken with a disease, I have absolutely no need for journalist, I will need a doctor."

Thinking that way, a journalist will come to realize that there are many instances, really, when we are not necessary. Thus, the greater need to engage and be engaged.