Koraput: “In a world without newspapers, how would we know if today is not tomorrow? Newspapers give us an idea about the country and abroad. Newspaper is the reflection of the time and the retrospective snapshot of a date.” Professor Himanshu Shekhar Mohapatra said this in his talk on the 2nd day of a 3-day workshop on Media Writing organised by the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication of the Central University of Odisha.
The workshop started with the introduction of resource person Professor Mohapatra, an eminent academic & journalist, who retired from Utkal University and is currently the Visiting Professor of English Department at the Central University of Odisha.
Dr Sourav Gupta, the HoD of the JMC Department, welcomed Professor Mohapatra and explained that the aim of the workshop was to enrich the writing abilities and language skills of the students. Dr Gupta thanked Professor Chakradhar Tripathi, Hon’ble Vice Chancellor of CUO for associating stalwart academics like Prof Mohapatra with CUO.
Prof Mahapatra started his workshop by analyzing a feature by eminent journalist Santosh Desai. He explained the aims of journalism & structure of newspapers. He referred to historical events like Basic English Movement in the west. He taught the students how to write news by using common people’s language i.e simple and easy-to-read language.
He said, “ News is like the lifeblood of a newspaper, its editorial is the head and feature stories are its soul.” He cited examples from Baburnama and Don Quixote to establish his concepts.
Dr Pradosh Kumar Rath concluded the workshop with the Vote of Thanks by thanking Prof Mohapatra, HoD Dr Gupta, faculty members, students and research scholars for attending the workshop. Faculty members of the department Ms Talat Jahan Begum, Dr Sony Parhi and Telaram Meher were present during the workshop.
