Newspaper Making Assignment

By- Prakriti Bhanot

2019: August:

A ‘Newspaper Making Exercise’ was organized on 28 August 2019 in Lady Shri Ram College by Department of Journalism. All forty-one- first-year journalism students were a part of the elucidative practical exercise given by Dr.Vartika Nanda, Head of Department. The exercise was an innovative pedagogical practice, a part of Introduction of Journalism paper that helped promote the involvement of students, improved critical and creative thinking, and contributed to peer-learning.

During the exercise, the class was divided into four groups of approximately ten students in each. Group A was given the theme ‘Good and Positive News’. Group A included Anushree Mukherjee, Prakriti Bhanot, Sanya Arora, Ananya Goel, Harshita Solanki, Himani Jindal, Soumyaa Ratwal, Riya Mohan, Disha, Ishwar, and Utkarsha.  Group B was given the theme ‘Bad News’. Members of Group B are Shreya G., Malak, Muskan Singh, Anjali, Palomi, Deepika, Riya Verma, Hania, Monika, Samridhi and Muskan Verma. Group C had the theme ‘Political News’, its members are Sonal, Surbhi, Arya Krishnan, Soumya Jain, Komal, Pranathi, Parvathy, Apurva, Cheshtha and Agrima. Lastly, Group D was given the theme ‘Social News’ and the members of this group are Akshita Chugh, Drishti, Vasudha, Gaurvi, Nandani, Devika Jain, Nandini Gautam, Sukriti Taneja, Arunima and Shivangi. 

The students were given instructions to design their newspapers keeping in mind the fundamentals of newspaper making. Students commenced the exercise by deciding upon the number of pages for the newspaper, further they thought of suitable names for their respective newspapers pertaining to the theme given to them. They took the help of various newspapers of both Hindi and English language, to collect articles for their newspapers. Further, they classified collected articles into various sections as per the newspaper like National News, Sports News, and Infotainment News, etc. After classification, they had to start composing their newspapers by pasting the cutouts of articles as per the theme on chart papers.

The objective of this exercise was to make students realize the hard work and labor that goes into designing of a newspaper. It was also a way to promote team spirit in the students. This exercise also gave an insight to the students about the inner workings of making a newspaper. An interactive concourse ignited the inquisitiveness of students on newspaper making. All the students participated in this exercise with immense enthusiasm and zeal.

In the end, all the four newspapers were presented in the class by the respective group members. All the four groups narrated their newspaper making experience and provided some great insights about what they learned throughout the activity. A general conclusion that was observed was that finding the bad news was rather easier in the columns of the esteemed dailies, however finding good and positive news was a challenging and tedious task. A group photo of all the students with their newspapers was also clicked in the end. Overall, the students had a lot of fun in the exercise and was also a great learning experience for them which they all took part in wholeheartedly.