Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Best Citizen Journalist

Amrita TV which has been innovating with new formats and programmes is launching a show which can be considered a unique First in television. This is the reality show, Best Citizen Journalist, which is one more example of the channel’s commitment to find, nurture and develop talent. This programme is not about showcasing professional journalists; it is about nurturing people with aspirations in the field of journalism, who are otherwise in different occupations and vocations. The contestants will be judged by analyzing their ability to gather and present human interest stories along with other specific assignments. Best Citizen Journalist will be telecast five days a week, Monday through Friday at primetime. The new reality TV programme will feature a mix of indoor and outdoor filming with an emphasis on location stories.Guiding our aspirants will be a jury comprising experts in the field with veteran TV journalist and current chairman of Asian College of Journalism, Chennai Mr. Sashi Kumar as Chief of the Jury panel. The panel will also have eminent people from the media.Response to the auditions of Best Citizen Journalist was quite enthusiastic with over 1000 SMS registrations. After a three-tier short listing process which included a camera test, review of topical stories submitted by them ,and an intensive workshop, finally 15 contestants made it to the grade to participate in the show . The 15 participants have completed a grooming session that consisted of the basics involved in news production, editing, visual language creation, and sorting news values.Among the finalists, there is an almost equal number of young men and women hailing from North, Central and South Kerala within the 20 to 30 years age-range.The contestants come from all walks of life: one is a social worker, one is a freelance trainer, another dentist and there is even a practitioner of naturopathic health care