Many
aspirants ask me what Newspaper should I read and how much time I should dedicate
time to read the newspaper. Although this question is very common, but this is
a oversimplified question for something which is important. Aspirants expect me
to tell one or two newspaper name which they can subscribe and start reading
for Civil service exam so that they can get updated themselves on current
events.
My
father was working in the police department and many years back there was a
situation in which the police caught old of a bunch of Sri lankan people who
were involved either directly or indirectly in one of the most crucial cases in
India. These people are not the actual criminals but they are important
evidences in the case. In order to
protect them, they were kept in an isolated place which no one will suspect.
High profile security provided for those people. My father with his team is
assigned to source them with food and other amenities. They had their own way
of communicating with the central security guards as it is a sensitive
situation. The list of amenities to be sourced to them includes food, water and
other basic refreshing kits and newspaper. Among which sourcing newspaper was a
real challenge.
Now
guess what newspaper they read. They were isolated from the entire world, no
mobile phones, TV etc., the only source through which they can understand on what’s
happening outside world is the newspaper. Did they read a regional newspaper or a leading
English daily or both? May be your mind says they should have read both. But they
did something different, they requested for 13 newspapers of which 5 were
regional dailies, 4 english national newspaper, Other papers included International
papers. Is it possible to read all those newspapers, yes it is. They not only
read the newspaper but they took some notes in paper as well, all complete in
less than 3 hours. Why they didn’t settle with one newspaper, anyhow the same
news is going to be repeated again and again.
One newspaper is enough if you want to just know the news, if you want
to know the cause and effect of the news see the various dimension of happenings
and analyze the situation to take any decision, you can’t settle with one newspaper.
If
you don’t read the newspaper your are un-informed. If you read the newspaper, you are
mis-informed
Mark Twain
Once a Chief
Minister of a specific state was detained in a prison her prison diary states that
she read 8 newspapers in less than 2.5 hours.
Near my home there was a personal
assistant of a political leader who was the chief minister of an Indian state
for more than 4 terms. This person receives more than 15 newspapers at his door
step at morning 5.30. He reports to the party leader at 8.00 am with the
complete notes of all relevant information. The political leader’s agenda is to
have breakfast from 8.00 am to 8.30 am in that time none other than the
personal assistant will be present by his side to convey all the important news
relevant on that day which he synthesized from all the 15 newspaper.
Chief
Editor of one of the most reputed English National Daily is my family friend. I often visit their house
and I have seen him receiving not less than 8 newspapers. He himself is an
editor of a leading national daily what is the purpose of purchasing so many newspapers?
If
you are an intelligent investor you can read either Economic times or Business line,
but if you want to be an intelligent investment advisor you have to read both Economic
times and Business line and all other available material in your field.
Now
tell me what newspaper you should read for Civil Services Examination? The answer
is at least 2 or if you dont have a good reading stamina, at least settle with
one daily news paper complemented with few monthly/fortnightly magazines. Don’t
settle with extracts provided by coaching institutes and other civil service
exam prophets. It is sheer waste of time. To tone your body you have to do the
pushups. To tone up your wisdom you have to read the information from the
source i.e from news papers and PIB websites, not from second, third or fourth
hand information.
The
problem with reading newspaper is most of them don’t know how to read. When to
skeptically scrutinize news and when to skim through and ignore the irrelevant
information. In the following passages I shall give you some tips to quickly
read newspapers without much effort. Although there are various methods, I share
only few workable ones that practically worked for my students.
While reading newspaper or any other
contents both soft and hard copies, a typical reader employs either of two
types of reading. One is skeptical reading and the other is skimming. Skeptical
reader is the one who carefully reads the entire content and tries to check whether
the information is substantiated with facts, numbers, proofs etc.,
Alternatively a skimming reader just sees the message and tries to get as much
information by glancing the information for a while, probably 8 seconds per
information. Most of the newspaper readers just skim through entire newspaper,
and stops only for the articles that is relevant to them. They read the
articles relevant to them skeptically word by word and try’s to check the
validity of the information.
A newspaper is compiled to appeal a
diversified population and we should not assume that we need to read all the
content available in the newspaper. Break the myth that we need to read the
entire newspaper. No it is not required.
Usually a sport oriented person skim
through the entire newspaper and skeptically read the sports page, whereas a
banker or an economist skim through the entire paper and skeptically read through
the Business and Finance page. Similarly, a Civil services candidate shall skim
through the entire newspaper by only reading the headlines of each article.
Stop only in case the article title and image of the article synchronizes with
our exam syllabus/requirement. An idea about what is required for the exam can
be arrived by reading the advertisement copy of the exam and reviewing the
previous year question papers.
Each article in a newspaper is
written in a format called Article triangle.
The first paragraph of all the articles in a newspaper is termed as lead paragraph
that gives all the essential information. Read the lead paragraph to check whether the
content is relevant to the exam. If it is relevant go ahead and read the
content skeptically.
Step 1:
Skim through the entire paper quickly
Step 2:
Filter the articles to be read based on the headlines.
Step 3:
Read the lead paragraph of the chosen articles to identify whether it is worth to
proceed in reading it.
Step 4: Have
a marker or color pen to high light key words and important points.
Step 5: If
required take notes of the key information in your note book.
Step 6: If
there is location mentioned, try to locate the place in Atlas Map.
Step 7:
Google the key words and try to get answer for all the question words ‘why,
what, when, how, who’.
Hope
the above tips would be of help to you. Additionally I have covered similar
information on reading news paper in youtube video which covers all important
factors about civil services exam. The video can be accessed by click the link
All the
best
Kind
Regards
Purush & Team
www.educasium.com
