Mary Mrad's India study tour
Ticking clock
Travelling to India as part of the 2018 Foreign Correspondent Study Tour has been an incredibly life changing experience. It changed me as a journalist and as a person by allowing me to explore the demanding nature of journalism directly.
Deadlines are a challenge in any line of journalism but having to write a story in a foreign country only heightens this. I learnt this first hand when we were told we had a couple of hours in a village to find a story.
It wasn’t long before I realised how important confidence and communicating with the villagers was. Being pushed out of my comfort zone gave me the self-awareness to know that I need to be more observant of my environment, there are stories everywhere, you just need to look for them.
I was very excited to travel to India to learn so much about a country which is so culturally rich and diverse
Professional connections
Collaborating with students from the Indian Institute of Journalism & New Media was a great way of giving the confidence to be direct. Their straight to the point approach when making phone calls taught me that I needed to put aside any personal fears to ensure I put 100% into every story I’m working on.
This collaboration with the other students was one of the highlights of the whole trip, I now have lifelong contacts both professionally and on a personal level.
Breaking down barriers
The language barrier was one of the major challenges and makes the job of foreign correspondents very difficult. Developing relationships with locals is essential to overcome this and was the only way I was able to understand and transcribe my interviews.
The job of a journalist is to present the story of the individual or incident, leaving all personal judgements at the door. Through this experience I learnt how to communicate with all types of people and communities with a journalistic mind-set.
The tour was an eye-opening experience as a training journalist, it gave me the opportunity to interact and write about a county I am not familiar with
Growing a skillset
Creating and editing videos was a struggle I faced since I haven’t worked with video journalism previously. Through practicing and spending time researching, I was able to create videos I was happy with. I left the tour with a new skill I can now use in my career as a journalist.
I chose to do a story on the transgender community in Bangalore. Framing the questions was a challenge as it was a sensitive subject area but from my time on the tour I had built up the confidence to be direct and honest with everyone involved.
Looking back
From being on the tour I realised that journalists need to be able to handle stress and multi-task. I have looked at the way modern society now consume news: journalists need to be able to write, take photos and create videos and through this tour I have built on my experience in all of these.
