CWG: A CLOSE VIEW “Tale of a Budding Journalist”

Dhananjaya Senapati

New-Delhi:  “It is just like a dream come true to work with an international news agency as a reporter for the XIX CWG-2010”, was a joyful proclamation given by Dhananjay Senapati an Audio Visual Communication student of NISCORT. Even, after the completion of his contract to the Games News Service (GNS) an Australia based news agency, he still feels it like a day dream, not sure of what he did was actually a reality.

It all begun just with a simple test to qualify and submit a CV to the agency, and then the final processing at Press Club of India; later the conformation news of selection to be a member of an international crew, among the 130 reporters out of the 57 from India for the Infostrada.com. Doubt was ruling although; but the hope was high to meet the unseen challenges.  On September 24, all the fellow reporters were gathered at the Main Media Centre (MMC) at Pragati Maidan to undergo a practical session prior to the event. Here, the respective posts and venues were allotted at our disposal; I landed up in Indira Gandhi Stadium as Pigeon-hole Coordinator, where Thomas Schoneiel a German reporter was the coordinator for the wrestling event. The entire task was to cover the press conferences, interviews with the winners, flash-quote reporting and handing over all the data to the Central Editorial Team; who, then publish it in Info System for the dissemination to the media.

Dhanajaya Senapati

In the beginning it all looked like mess, going around, to collect results, schedule, daily review and preview, press conference highlights, flash quote, media communication, official communication, session review and preview, entry list, statistic data and print result distribution (PRD), and copying it all to master folder and assist the journalists by handing them the data. Thanks to Hairul Sukaime, the general manager GNS, whose constant boosting, support and guidance made me feel comfortable and relax to keep pace with my job. My event was scheduled from 9am to 7pm from October 5 to October 10. It was a discipline to be in the venue at the event site before 90 minutes of the event and same way vacate the site after 90 minutes from the competition of the event. I did not know the abcd of wrestling, but it is interesting and I can study the game since I had a close view of this in this CWG. The metro travel and the bus service by the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) were absolutely free, that took to the event venue. It was also enjoyable to share food and snacks along with national and international repute journalists in media langue.

I am happy that I have been a part of this historic event. Once again, I am thankful to GNS and its team who trusted me and made me feel as a member to them. Given a chance, I would surely look forward to work with the same group who taught me to do a right job exactly and unbiasly and provided an international platform to develop my profile. I wish all the best to GNS and everybody related to this. May God bless all.