Thirty years back, journalists were mostly stenographers, - TopicsExpress

Thirty years back, journalists were mostly stenographers, collecting press releases and rehashing them. So declared Rajdeep Sardesai, with the air of finality that television news anchors adopt whenever they make any statement Thirty years back, long before sting operations with hidden cameras, a ‘stenographer’ called Ashwini Sarin got himself arrested and spent time in Tihar Jail to write about conditions in the jail. He later masqueraded as someone who wanted to buy a girl and worked for months to uncover a racket in trade of women in the interiors of Madhya Pradesh. Thirty years back, a team of ‘stenographers’ helped Arun Shourie unearth details of how Maharashtra chief minister A. R. Antulay was forcing builders to donate to an Indira Gandhi Pratibha Pratishtan in exchange for cement permits. Thirty years back, ‘stenographers’ like Sheela Barse highlighted the conditions in Indian jails and were responsible for a modicum of prison reforms. thehoot.org/web/Journalism-before-TV-and-Twitter/7398-1-1-10-true.html