The Inquirer alumni has interactive session with Team 2013-14

Radhika Khanna (left) with Sukanya Sathyan, an alumni of The Inquirer

Two alumni of the Department of Electronic Media and Mass Communication, Bagalavan Perier and Sukanya Sathyan met The Inquirer Team on 18 December and discussed their experiences of working for The Inquirer from 2009 to 2011. They also shared insights from their professional experiences as a reporter and sub-editor for popular dailies.

 Bagalavan Perrier who currently works as a reporter for The Indian Express, Villupuram, narrated many first hand experiences that he encountered during his assignments. Bagalavan was the only Pondicherry University student selected to work on the shoot of the film Life of Pi. He worked as a set production assistant and also had the opportunity to work closely with Ang Lee during the Pondicherry shoot. He gave some valuable tips that would come handy while reporting events. He also emphasized on the importance of being hard working, developing one’s language skills, time management and submitting the allotted number of stories before the deadline.

Bagalavan Perier shares his thoughts with the 2013-14 team.

 Sukanya Sathyan, sub-editor, The Times of India, Kochi was also an active contributor of The Inquirer as a student. Her photograph on the theme Earth as a Playground was exhibited at the photo exhibition organised by the Department of Electronic Media and Mass Communication in collaboration with Alliance-Francaise Pondicherry. Sukanya shared her experiences working as a sub-editor, and facilitated a session on writing and editing in which she discussed the types of common errors to look out for while editing stories, the structure to follow while editing, inverted pyramid style and headline writing. She stressed on the use of simple language and cross checking one’s own work.

The two hour interactive session was highly useful and informative for The Inquirer team of 2013-14 which had just begun to work on The Inquirer as a part of their web journalism curriculum. 

Dileep P Thekethil

A little more than a month later, on 4 February, another alumnus of The Inquirer returned to Pondicherry University. Dileep P. Thekethil, of The Inquirer team 2011-2012, is a web and social media editor for the website The American Bazaar. With Dileep’s help, the new team discovered the importance of search engine optimization (SEO), editing for web, and the importance of social media in today’s world of journalism. With Dileep’s suggestion and help, the new team of The Inquirer changed the face of the website, coming up with a new look, and a new face for the website. 

Radhika Khanna

Editor-in-chief

The Inquirer