Nitin Sethi Hey friends. Have a short story to tell. About journalism. A dream. Some thoughts. And a plan. Will you please stay with me till the end? I urge you to.
1. We won Asian College of Journalism's award for Investigative journalism this year. It was for the Electoral Bonds series that ran eventually into 10 parts, 7 languages and 11 publications. I purposefully use 'we'. It took a whole village of people to get the series out. 2. Since the news of the award, so many of you have showered your wishes, affection and blessings. We are overwhelmed. Swamped with love, if I may say so. Thank you so much. Forgive me for not being able to respond to each one of you personally. THANK YOU all. 3. The Electoral Bonds series was based largely on the efforts of Commodore Lokesh Batra who worked unrelentingly to bring out documents through RTI. Anjali Bhardwaj_ too had simultaneously got some of these and other unique docs out. Venkatesh Nayak of CHRI and Saurav Das of NCPRI dug out yet more. They deserve the award more than us hacks. 4. But we do believe there is more to celebrate than just this series. The award is for a larger idea. Of a kind of journalism, which our experiences tell us, has become terribly difficult to do. Of renewing the space for rigorous, fearless and evidence-based journalism. 5. This idea has brought some like-minded journalists together to form The Reporters' Collective. An idea to help each other do journalism which scrutinises governance and public policy with rigour and write on it with evidence and understanding. You can follow us @Reporters_co 6. The series was special for us. For the first time many publications across several languages collaborated to put out a story that unflinchingly told the truth and did so with hard evidence after months of research. 7. HuffPost India was the lead publisher. The editors Aman Sethi and Sharanya Hrishikesh lifted the stories with their brilliance. You can read the entire series here: https://www.huffingtonpost.in/news/paisapolitics/ 8. It was the collective of our co-publishers in other languages that gave life to the series. Our initial partners were Newslaundry Azhimukham Savukku Dharitri This collaboration across languages further nurtured the idea of the Collective. Thank you all. 9. Then the list grew. Of publications and languages that we found partners in We want to thank them: Prajavani Kannada Arunachaltimes Imphal Free Press Assam Times Deccan Herald Max Maharashtra News Meter 4th Pillars They gave more muscle to the collective. 10. With them, Kumar Sambhav Shrivastava published an explosive series on Cemtre's plans for a 360 degree surveillance system mapping all 1.4 billion Indian citizens. This is the kind of journalism we are all so hungry to do more of. You can read it here: https://www.huffingtonpost.in/entry/aadhaar-national-social-registry-database-modi_in_5e6f4d3cc5b6dda30fcd3462 11. By then the #Covid19 pandemic had gripped the country. 12. Responding to the crisis, we published 2 series on Centre’s response to the pandemic. We revealed material facts that the government had hidden from citizens. The team of journalists who produced this series included Mridula Chari, Kumar Sambhav Shrivastava, @Hridayesh Joshi Ankur Paliwal & I 13. Article 14 was the lead publisher for these stories. Editor Samar Halarnkar and his team worked assiduously to bring out a tough set of stories. Thakur Foundation came forward to fund the long-gestation period of research. You can read them here: https://www.article-14.com/post/no-action-taken-frustration-in-national-covid-19-task-force 14. The series was published in 11 languages and 11 publications. We also collaborated with the excellent team at Suno India to podcast it in English. Listen to it: https://www.sunoindia.in/the-suno-india-show/covid-19-fiasco-is-the-government-ignoring-icmr-recommendations-on-lifting-the-lockdown/ 15. We simultaneously produced this series in video format from our own resources. @hridayeshjoshi’s labour along with Amrit Raj. You can see these and keep a track of our future multimedia work at www.youtube.com/thereporterscollective 16. Why the collective? What does it do? You may ask. In the last many years when institutions of journalism weakened we instead found so many people in and outside the journalistic fraternity helping us to do better. Informally and unacknowledged. 17. At times with ideas. On occasions by just standing alongside. Sometimes by playing the devil’s advocate. At times with material help. So often to compensate for the weak institutional support. (On a personl note: Akoi Jam does this and more all the time for me). 18. We wanted to formally acknowledge. This is what it takes today to produce deep-dive journalism in these trying times: A whole village. And, then some more. Let me give you a few examples. 19. The collective’s collaborations came through with kind souls like Krishna prasad Paranjoy Guha Thakurta Nikhil Wagle, Josy Joseph Office of Tathagata Satpathy Amey Tirodkar and Sugata Srinivasaraju aiding us. Several others would rather not be named but they built bridges for us to cross over. 20. For our recent work on #Covid19 lawyer Shreya Shrivastava's research and expertise gave us a solid base to build our reportage on. At initial stages of research Anoo Bhuyan, a stellar public health journalist, shared her knowledge to put us on the right track. 21. I have always depended on (ex)colleagues and friends. For example Udit Misra & Ishan Bakshi regularly critique my work, argue out ideas. Kumar Sambhav Shrivastava edits/mentors my stories (He is of course the heart of the collective now). At times, we disagree. Heck, that is why we are there for each other. 22. So many people, friends and strangers have helped us through a tumultuous 8-9 months. We cannot thank them enough. And, we won't stop troubling them 🙂. You know who you all are. 23. Looking ahead. We will strengthen and expand the work at The Reporters' Collective @reporters_co. We are in the process of giving a form to the collective. Build an anchor and community for the work the collective produces. We will come back on this soon. Watch this space 24. Till then, share your love and wishes. Guide us along. Support us. Thank you. For all the wishes. (And, for the patience with which you read till here). END. -- Peace Is Doable -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/greenyouth/CACEsOZjbyrgVDPaseYYF%2BkwO%3DeP5SZxfNe-PNZXwUJwdKNpPKg%40mail.gmail.com.
