Journalism's proud moment

Paul Krugman has won the Nobel Prize for economics. That's good news for Princeton University, where he teaches, but it's even better news for journalism because he's famous the world over as a columnist.

It is not every day that newspaper columnists are feted for their intellectual accomplishments. Krugman writes two columns a week for The New York Times, and is syndicated in many newspapers in India. That makes him the most prolific economics columnist in the world.

How many academics take the trouble to write columns? How many can quickly analyse developments as they unfold, and do it in a style that will not put off the non-specialist reader? University professors are too busy with their teaching and research to want to connect with a larger audience. Some are daunted by newspaper deadlines, some are lazy, and quite a few just can't write plain English.

Krugman has managed his dual role with great distinction: he writes for newspapers and simultaneously lectures on international affairs at the university. There's plenty academics and journalists can learn from him, and they can do it in the confidence that they might some day be considered for what many consider the highest honour in the world.

But to cut to reality... It would be foolish to compare Krugman to the average reporter who won't even revise his copy. The average journalist has earned the reputation of being a simpleton who cannot understand anything more complex than crime and municipal news. The idea that journalism and erudition can go together looks outlandish not just to outsiders, but even to some journalists! But that's not entirely the journalist's fault.

When Justice Manisana headed a board to fix wages for journalists, many newspaper managements, anxious not to pay bigger salaries, told him reporters and sub-editors ought to be compared with bank clerks, not college lecturers. People who ought to have known better expected little more than stenographer services from journalists. That was in the 1990s. Today, most journalists work on contract, and get higher salaries than those recommended by government wage boards.

Job seekers and interns at newspaper offices are unfamiliar with basic reporting and editing despite their spending years studying journalism. India has more colleges and institutes offering journalism than ever before, but something is seriously amiss: they just aren't imparting the right skills. To state the obvious, reporting and editing are the primary skills for any kind of journalism, all else is secondary. The exams ask students to define 'investigative journalism', 'caption', and 'headline'. Answering such questions is not the same as being able to deliver an investigative report, or write a caption and headline!

Reporting requires street-smartness and the ability to collate information from diverse sources. Editing requires an understanding of language and context. Print journalism calls for an advanced skill that is mostly overlooked: making copy simple, stylish and pleasurable to read. Ultimately, journalism is the art of making the complex comprehensible to everyone.

I recently leafed through the syllabus of a master's course in communication, and was surprised to find a module on how to cover international affairs. Ideally, if these courses were working, we would have had many Paul Krugmans in our midst!