News anchoring demystified

Television news anchoring has become a sought after career in India particularly after the flood of news channel launches in the past decade that also threw up multiple job opportunities for passionate youths.

While much has been written about journalism in India there has been a crying need to have a book on news anchoring that would not just help media students to understand anchoring but also explain what it takes to build a successfulcareer out of it.

To fill in this need gap, NDTV India news anchor Richa Jain Kalra has penned down a book titled ?The ABC of News Anchoring: A Guide for Aspiring Anchors? that would go a long way to help journalism students gain useful insight on what actually it takes to become a successful news anchor.

The book published by Pearson has a foreword written by NDTV chairman Prannoy Roy. The 130-page book spanning 30 chapters has been divided into four parts. It focuses on various aspects right from basics of anchoring to more nuanced subjects like secrets of being a good anchor.

The book begins with the writer breaking several myths that people have about anchoring and the biggest one of them all is that news anchoring is equivalent to news reading. According to the writer, to become a good anchor it?s paramount to have on-field experience as a reporter.

It then goes on to explain the qualities that an anchor should have while also outlining challenges that come with a career in anchoring. The writer believes having knowledge of current affairs, command over language, impressive personality, and a good voice among others are key to becoming a successful anchor.

In the chapter ?An Anchors Role?, the writer elucidates the entire news process starting with how reporters add flesh to raw news, which finally goes on-air after fine tuning information to a proper script.

The writer also sheds light on the ?breaking news? phenomenon at length in the same chapter with couple of good examples one being the example of former Andhra Pradesh chief minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy?s death when anchors had a tough time managing the story due to lack of authentic information.

She also explains how anchors in a TRP-driven market need to create engagement with viewers by making even mundane news bulletins interesting by putting emotions in words. There are other challenges that anchors have to confront like erratic job timings, lack of holidays and heavy work load.