I read your editorial ‘My Eight Years of Afternoon Voice’ dated August 08 with great interest. I am pleasantly surprised that there are still people and organisations in the fiercely competitive field of the nation’s media that do not expect formal qualifications from their potential employees. You give an opportunity to work with your English daily to those possessing a natural flair for writing and a great passion for reporting. Thus they get paid for being trained. I am sure that your reporters, after a couple of years, will proudly say that they were trained at the Afternoon Voice. You are indeed a dream employer.
Most of today’s media organisations, however, will not agree with you, and consider hiring an untrained person for a reporter’s job a great risk. However, it does not seem to bother you at all, as you have chosen an untrodden path, and is writing a new chapter in the journalism of India’s commercial capital. Please accept my heartiest congratulations. You entrust the new people with great responsibilities, and they, in return, do not fail you, as is evident from the contents I have been going through avidly for the past couple of days. You must take immense pride in the fact that you have got some of the best brains of the city’s journalism on your team. Their style of writing reflects that they are meant for reporting. The daily that you bring out is not intimidating. It is free from high sounding words, journalistic jargon and, above all, reader-friendly. It goes to show you as a brilliant teacher of art of reporting.
It is pleasing that you firmly believe in the dignity of labour, for even a peon, who is, sadly considered insignificant in an office, gets a mention by you. You do not indeed take the hardwork of an office boy for granted. Being grateful to him for serving tea and water highlights your sense of equality. It is clear that all the people who contribute their bit by bringing out such a fine daily as Afternoon Voice are hugely respectful to each other. It is a positive sign for a bright future of an organisation.
I send good wishes to your entire team from the desert city of Bikaner.
Samiul Hassan Quadri
(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
