My Internship at ATN Bangla

My Practical Experiences and My Class room education

bini08 — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 16:57:51 +0000

My internship in the ATN Bangla NCA department let me know that there is a vast difference between classroom learning and the practical field. I have been to face lots of difficulty in my field assignment. But my education in relation to media and communication has assisted me a lot.

There are a lot of similarities between my subject and the news department. Last semester I did CMN 402 Electronic Journalism. There I learnt about news, making package, giving PTC, OOV, how to form sync etc. I also gained knowledge of the camera mood, how to write script etc. News department has some own language, which I learnt from CMN 402.It was easy for me to work at ATN Bangla because I know everything.

In the documentary that I did for CMN 404 Documentary Video Production I gave my voice. When I gave my voice the first time I did slip-up 2/3 times but lastly everything went efficiently. So in ATN Bangla I gave my voice for the news of “Gramgonjer Khobor”. I narrated the news confidently. And they also become very happy.

And I also learnt how to write a script, make a report, to do editing from CMN 204 Principles of Journalism and CMN 308 Reporting and Editing.

Despite learning these things there is a big different between study and work. When I do work I get to know that I have to face a lot of problems. But since I studied the classroom subjects very well I did not have to face that many problems.

MCR

bini08 — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 17:17:48 +0000

Master Control Room or MCR not only works with the news also with all additional presentation of the station. This is the sector from where final fire goes on air. The continuous, jerk-less television appearance we get at the home is only possible because of the efficiency of this department. They send all the required pictures of ATN Bangla like, the station logo, scrolling headlines, coming up, you are watching, commercial, serials all in sequence. MCR controls the PCR, gives countdown to get ready, starts the news production. By receiving signal from the PCR indicating the finishing line of any block of production, the MCR people start playing commercials. Again after the break they pass signal to start again news. MCR people pay special attention always and should be very much dutiful.

CR

bini08 — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 16:54:45 +0000

CR stands for Control Room. This is the room from where the News Producers direct the whole presentation. Each assistant grabs his or her chair to help out the whole procedure. When the producer, following the rundown alerts about when and which video should be played, one assistant gives countdown to the presenter to start or to hold. Another assistant always remains prepared to play the suitable video from the cassette or giving ingests Ids when the presenter stops for the video or sync.

Control room

The Sound engineer works with sound machine. From this room producers maintain communication with their special equipments like Digital Production Switcher, Mixing Console with the presenter, newsroom, ingest, panels etc.

News studio

In front of the production people there are 4 monitors to show different status of three cameras, stings, packages, OOV, IV, Aston, off air, on air, news room etc.

Total work reaches the success with a hard to believe team attempt. It is remarkable how speedily things are happing at that time to keep up with the real time. The speedy situation becomes cool when the news ends. One cannot imagine the condition of the production people when news starts, who did not go through this.

ENG Cameraman and Video Editors

bini08 — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 17:17:06 +0000

ENG stands for Electronic News Gathering.

The ENG cameramen are also known as NCA cameramen and they are treated as photojournalists. Like the Video Editors who work with the news, they should have little knowledge about journalism. Consequently these two types of people are also newspersons, through they are not reporters or editors. Sometime a senior cameraman can provide a better output then a young reporter, while a full of news video editor could make significant cut-paste-edit of a story.

News Studio

bini08 — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 17:33:51 +0000

ATN Bangla presents news using three studio cameras combined the auto-scripts (a mirror icon of the text of the stories, controlled from CR, which gives the cue to the presenter).

Auto scripts

The superior news presentation is delivered from this studio, in a splendid display where a Plasma TV serves as a background image.News presenters take their seat about 10/12 minutes before the news on track, put the Talkback (a earphone to hear the instructions of the producer) at his/her ear, set the Microphones at right place. The attractive thing is that the studio uses calm lights, which can be controlled by the software and a manual tool. Like it could be automatic that how may seconds later the light goes on after the camera is on or when and which light will be dark to emphasis the importance of the news

Prime news studio

Hourly bulettines studio

News Presenter

bini08 — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 17:09:25 +0000

There is another roster for the news anchor. While news presenter is a part of the news production team, the producer basically directs him/her. But I found most of the presenters are not doing only the news presentation job, in many cases they get involved with full time job in other offices.

News Prasenter

Only two news presenters are got involved full time job in ATN Bangla. Normally they come to the station hardly one hour before the bulletin and go to makeup. Then they gather the stories and rundown. Some time they do a short rehearsal. Then he/she goes to the studio.

News Producer

bini08 — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 17:29:55 +0000

News Producer is the key person for the duration of the news-when the news goes ON AIR. Usually there is no pressure on a News Producer or his/her team but when the bulletin times come closer, the whole production team remains under tremendous pressure.

Their working area is big. They have to work in co-operation with the newsroom, news studio, panel, graphic, ingest and MCR. Half an hour prior to arrange a news bulletins the producers go for makeing rush to the reporter/newsroom editors for their package/story recorded on the DV cassette or Ids of ingest, appropriate ASTON’s (like-name of the person, who is on the screen), graphics, stings, make clearing the muddled newsroom and so on. At that time the news producer makes him/her self update with the rundown and the stories, which are provided by the Joint news editor. He/she tries to fill up the checklist of LINK, PACKAGE.SYNC, OOV, IV, and SOT as early as possible

News Room Editors

bini08 — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 17:22:19 +0000

Next come news editors and newsroom editor’s work. They edit the composed stories; create theoretical corrections, figurative modify if and when necessary to make the news lively and specific. The Joint News Editors approve things to make the package (complete story with video, ambient, voices, graphic etc). After that the reporters go to the Editing panel through ingest and make his/her package story.

People of different desks (national, international, sports, ticker) also belong to the newsroom editor designation. Essentially all the people are designated as newsroom editor except the Chief News Editor, News editor and joint news editors. There is an Assignment editor who prepares the roster for next day’s assignments mentioning the time, venues, reporters, and cameramen concerned.

The chief news editor finalizes the assignment sheet. Even though he is known as Assignment editor, basically his designation at ATN Bangla is newsroom editor as per the existing NCA strategy.

On the other hand the Joint news editor always updates the Rundown (the order of the news presentation, which must be maintained by the News Producers)

Reporter

bini08 — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 17:53:28 +0000

Beside the desk there are some staff reporters to cover up news from across the country. Actually they are stationed at inside newsroom to write down the stories, and go outside the office as per assignment by the Chief News Editor or Chief News Operator to cover up those stories. Munni Shaha is the Chief News Operator at ATN Bangla NCA department, who assigns the beat for the reporter. There are several newsbeats which are exposed like, Political, Care take Government, High court events, Commerce and Economy issues, X Prime Ministers affairs, Prime Minister Office’s (now Chief Adviser) affairs, Political party (Like BNP, AL beat), Secretariat issues, issues relating crime and so on. In most of the moment a reporter covers same beats for several times or as per the task he/she is given with. There are some special correspondents who are basically senior by experience and suitable for covering certain stories.

A previously assigned reporter goes to the field with a cameraman and he directs the cameraman to shoot the related pictures which matches to his story. Later than collecting the data, truth and in sequence, pictures, SYNC, VOX-POP, etc he/she is back to the station to organize his/her story within few words.

On the other hand a reporter has to remain the time limit in mind and spot to catch subsequently bulletins because incase of electronic media every seconds counts.

ATN Bangla News desk

bini08 — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 17:51:28 +0000

In ATN Bangla NCA department there are four desks, which means four different section or extra focused subsection. The desks are:

1) National Desk

2) International Desk

3) Sports Desk

4) Ticker

National Desk:

The national or country desk deal with the countryside news, mostly the news from district level, union, thana or village level incident. The journalists from countryside send story and video recording by fax and currier. National desk make the news using those materials. Another time these desks do some assigns the local correspondents to cover up any certain happening. National desk is the window for the local people to update to look at them.

International Desk:

This desk effort on international news, mostly the news from outside of the state. Then APTN feed mainly recoded by this desk. Some period BBC News as well recoded by this international desk reporter.

Sports:

Sports desk deal with the sports news from the country as well as international. Some time this desk also asks the International desk to record the feed from BBC News and APTN.

Ticker:

Modern day’s news providing television scroll the headlines, breaking news right to left at the bottom of the TV screen is the Ticker. ATN Bangla scroll news headlines in Bangla and two times in English. To do this job the concerned people are belong to Ticker Desk.