Welcome to IDEAMOOCS on Architectural Journalism. As the name suggests, the subject marries two highly creative professions, architecture and, journalism. As students of architecture, you have gathered a fair amount of knowledge about architecture and what it entails. In this IDEAMOOC on the Basics of Journalism, we will understand what journalism is and how to employ the rules of journalistic writing to architecture.
Let us begin with the most important element of journalism – NEWS.
It is rather interesting to understand the etymology of the word ‘news’. It is popularly known as an acronym of North, East, West and, South. But it is just a happy coincidence. If we try to trace the origin of the English word news, we can go back up to the Middle English period around the 14th century when news was used as plural for the word ‘new’ or ‘new thing’. The French word was nouvelles and the Germans called it neues. Slavic languages also show a similar development of the word. The Czech and Slovak word is noviny, Polish Nowiny, Bulgarian novini and Russian novosti. Closer home, in Marathi it is navin Sanskrit it is nutan, Hindi naya, Gujarati navu, Bengali natun and so on.
Evidence suggests that all the cultures around the world always shared stories and interesting new information. Anthropologists have also documented the practice of questioning travellers for news from the lands that they travelled. News and information found important were quickly repeated and spread by word of mouth over large geographical regions. Even when the printing press finally arrived in Europe, most news for the general public still travelled orally via the monks, Friars and traders.
A person who documents the happenings and events for public consumption is a journalist. And this activity is called journalism. Journalism comes from the word journal, which in turn has evolved from a Latin word diurnalis meaning of that day. Acta diurna in ancient Rome was some sort of government gazette, containing an official narrative of noteworthy events in Rome. This was put up usually in the centre of the town on a pillar or a wall where people could gather to read. The word du jour means day, and all the day’s events were recorded and written and later printed. This was called the journal. The word ‘journalism’ comes from this.
This must have given you a good idea about the work of a journalist. Journalism is gathering, organising and distribution of news. It can include small news items, stories, features and commentary on a wide range of subjects. Interestingly, journalism as a profession was not held in esteem or regard. In fact, it was thought of as a practice of those who avoided ‘real’ work. Over time, however, journalism grew in leaps and bounds, with in-depth reporting on politics, economics, sports, social events, science, arts, and so on. Publications soon began to hire good writers to compose a good column for their journals. These people travelled to different places to gather information to write about. Wars, elections, sporting events, art and cultural festivals, music, science began to lure the journalists with newsworthy stories. Soon, journalists began to specialise in a couple of areas that they were interested in or understood and wrote about them. Still, it was difficult for journalists to write about subjects like medicine, science or architecture without having a thorough understanding of the subject. Professionals with a flair for writing soon began to contribute to the journals and periodicals with articles about their profession.
The earliest surviving written work on the subject of architecture is De Architectura by the Roman architect Vitruvius in the early 1st century CE. According to Vitruvius, a good building should satisfy the three principles of Firmitas, Utilitas, Venustas, which is translated as Strength, Utility and Beauty. Vitruvius was perhaps the earliest commentator on the art of building.
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