A look at the book “Media Prose Workshop”/ A Light for Media People
Fars News Agency – Art and Media Group: As a journalist, I have thought many times about what kind of prose should be used when writing news, reports, notes, etc., so that the audience stays with the author until the end of the text. How should media prose be? What is the difference between standard language and media language? Is the media language the language of speech and conversation or standard language? In fact, the main question is, what kind of prose should the “journalist” use to write the news, so that the audience can communicate with it better?
There may be this misunderstanding among some people that media prose is scattered prose and full of various problems; But in fact, the prose of the media, as some people think, is not made-up and full of structural mistakes.
Media prose is the communication language of the modern world, which every civilization needs to survive in today’s world. It is true that there are slippages in the use of media prose by our press, but this does not mean that some people completely negate media prose as a standard prose genre and try to eliminate it.
It is true that the haste to publish news as quickly as possible sometimes causes some typographical, spelling, grammatical and writing errors in the prose of the media, and again it is true that the lack of experienced editors in many press sometimes challenges the prose of the media, but this It does not mean to completely negate media prose and consider it far from the rules and styles of the Persian language and completely vague and inadequate. Therefore, it is the duty of every journalist to constantly try to make the prose of the media free of slips, errors and mistakes.
Due to these concerns, during recent searches, I came across a book that was recently published. The title of the book is “Media Prose Workshop” and it was published by Astinaf Publications. It was written by “Majid Rezazi” and it is undoubtedly one of the most interesting and important sources that have been published about “media prose”. It is a very objective book and a workshop that is focused on the personal experience of the author and a detailed examination of the current state of the country’s media.
About the author of the book
Majid Razzazi, the author of the book “Media Prose Workshop”, has been working in the media field for many years and has been active in the press editorial office for many years as a reporter, reporter, service secretary and member of the editorial board, as well as years of experience sitting behind media management desks and continuously participating in teams He judges press festivals and also teaches many press formats.
According to Majid Rezazi’s friends and colleagues, his activities have been accompanied by great enthusiasm and enthusiasm over the years, and it seems that this is the reason why the works of these efforts have been noticed by the audience and approved by the colleagues of this reporter. On the other hand, Razazi’s fondness for Persian language and literature, which was also related to his university education, has provided an opportunity to combine classical knowledge and learning with professional work in this field.
A decade of “media prose” pathology
During the recent decades, all Majid Rezazi’s activities have been focused on the pathology of news, reports and published media content in the context of media publishing. In other words, Razazi’s professional work is tied to this issue, and now, after many years, he has published a book about the pathology of “media prose” that he has lived with for a lifetime. This is why the book “Media Prose Workshop” is so objective, experimental and based on lived experience. The first difference between this book and similar works is at this point. It seems that the author of the book “Media Prose Workshop” has internalized the theoretical and theoretical discussions and addressed the subject in practice and objectified.
What is referred to as media prose in this book refers to the prose of written media, and since the field of media has greatly expanded today and includes digital media (radio and television) as well as internet media (virtual space), Regarding media prose in each of these two categories, especially in the virtual space, the audience and those involved in it are almost as many as the entire literate population of the country, a separate research should be done and separate books should be written.
What is the importance of the book “Media Prose Workshop”?
As it was said, the basis of this book, which distinguishes it from other similar books in this field, is its reliance on mentioning concrete examples from the reliable media of the country regarding language slips and confusions. The existence of hundreds of specific and documented examples of language deviations in news and written media materials, along with the detailed classification of the relevant dilemmas, has turned it into a workshop for learning media language.
In this book, no case of language problems has been investigated without mentioning examples from the country’s official media. This has made this book, in addition to the aspect of the educational workshop, to have the aspect of language criticism of the official media of the country, and its study, in addition to those who are interested in learning the linguistic aspects of the media and guiding them to the categorized axes with an effective workshop method, for experts and It is also useful for those involved in the field of media and those interested in the eloquent Farsi language, and in terms of the pathology of the media language in today’s official media of the country, by mentioning hundreds of documented examples of language slips and confusions in this category of media, it can be considered a reliable source during the 1390s.
How is the book “Media Prose Workshop” structured?
In general, the book “Media Prose Workshop” is arranged in two chapters including “Professional View” and “Language View”. In the chapter of professional perspective, attention is paid to the specialized issues of news editing from the perspective of media prose, and in the chapter of linguistic perspective, issues in the field of rules and norms of the Persian language have been reviewed with regard to media prose.
In the first chapter of the book, under the professional view, there are sections such as: what is media prose, a defense of media prose, the characteristics of media prose, challenging the fixed rules of media prose, and in the second chapter, the linguistic point of view, sections such as linguistic anomalies in media prose, examples of slips An essay has been written in media prose and language recommendations.
Topics such as the importance of “shortness of sentences” in media prose, “respect for eloquence”, “foreign vocabulary”, “unfamiliar change in the meaning of words”, “ambiguous headlines and leads”, “not observing the conceptual connection between lead and headline”, “important points in Writing headlines”, “Lack of knowledge of language rules”, “Clumsy translation, the bane of journalistic prose”, “Writing “is” after words ending with “A”, “Incorrectly writing “to”, “Dangling “Yai”, ” Improper use of Hamza”, “Is it or is it?”, “Improper source”, “Incorrect use of inappropriate conjunctions, prepositions, connected pronouns”, and… Also, at the end of the book, “Persian Literary Language Academy” also tells the audience Provided.
A book in praise of the Persian language
In addition to being an educational book for media people and journalists, this book also has a critical view of the current state of the country’s media, but more importantly, perhaps it can be said that it is a book in “praise of the Persian language”. Dealing with the importance of “language” at a time when all the famous philosophers of the world (both analytical philosophers and continental philosophers) have focused on the issue of “language” and even the most important of them consider the boundaries of language to be the boundaries of the world or even “language” They consider it to be the house of existence, it shows awareness and correct understanding of time and era.
In the introduction of the book, it is stated: “Language is considered the greatest cultural asset of any society, and any effort to preserve and improve it is a huge responsibility for all members of society. This effort includes a wide field from accuracy in speaking and writing to specialized pathology of language, which naturally also includes people from alleys and markets to language experts in various fields.
In the field of media, language is without a doubt the most important work tool for media people, and accuracy in how to use it is considered one of its professional necessities.
Like any other work tool, if the media people are unable to use the language in the best possible way in the media field, for any reason, whether they are not familiar with the known rules and frameworks of the language or do not have enough skills and experience in using it, in the work They will not be successful. Many colleagues who, after working in the journalism profession for years and spending years behind the editorial desk, do not feel the expected professional growth in themselves, is an undeniable proof of this claim.
But even knowing the language rules and frameworks and having skills and experience in using them alone cannot guarantee the success of people in the media profession; Because the use of language tools in the field of media, apart from these, requires precision, taste and special talent of journalism. In some cases, taste and talent cannot even replace some of the other prerequisites mentioned before.
Perhaps people who entered the field of media without familiarity with linguistic rules and frameworks and only with the help of God-given taste and talent, from completely unrelated academic fields, and in a short time, they shone so brightly that their names remained in the oral history of contemporary Iranian press.
Media prose book by Majid Razazi
In the final analysis, the book “Media Prose Workshop” is a practical and guide book and can be very useful for any media and journalist, but besides these positive features, the only weak point of the book is its visual form. In today’s world, the image of the book is very important; What kind of cover design the book has, what font has been used for the title of the book, the type of pagination and how the font of the text is formatted and… these points are very important to attract the audience while being simple.
Obviously, topics like this can help books to be seen better. It seems that the publisher and author of the book “Media Prose Workshop” paid less attention to these issues. While if it is paid attention to, it will raise the quality of the book hundreds of times. In other words, it is not suitable for such a content that does not have a defensible form.
The last word is that this book can be a light for media people, both for experienced people and for young people who want to enter the media field. A brilliant book that is the product of forty years of experience and continuous practical work in the field of media.
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