Letter By Prakash Iyer
Hi NL team,
Been a subscriber for 3+ years now, love your work.
The discussion on NRC had too much of repeat of whatever people with no skin in the game often
have to say about such things, be it how counter terrorism works or police work or refugee crisis.
You all feel strongly about the people who would get displaced. Its done in a wrong/brutal way etc.
Can one journalist worth their salt come up with a policy or suggestion what or how it should be
done? Analyse other countries who faced similar situation and what they did? My guess is they want
nothing to be done NOW, fix everything else, start from scratch,maintain docs and then solve such
issues. Well the journalists clearly dont have to face the ramifications of demography change in their
own neighborhoods so its just too easy to be that bleeding heart liberal. Or does that level of work,
coming up with a draft policy, need more subscribers? No doubt parties are playing politics, no
surprise there.Jo ho raha hai wo galat hai, kya karen ye bhi to batao, kuch nahi karna hai then state
that as well. Whenever I consume such analysis I wonder why dont journalists, who clearly hv
truckloads of opinions, dont share their opinion on what to do? Only in such tricky cases they dont
share, something banal and easy like who should be FTII head, they all share that.
——————————————-
Letter By Prakash Iyer
Hi NL team,
Subscriber for 3+ years, love your work.
In hafta 154, argument over FoE under modi and nehru referring descended into a level where it
wasnt really a discussion. Wardhan was asked if there were 4 editors who were fired during congress
time, wasnt Arun Shourie pushed out of indian express purely due to how that paper took on
Ambani and Rajiv Gandhi? Why didnt Madhu mention that, she often harks back to that time. Or
during emergency only Goenka stood up to govt, everyone else was behaving not too different from
Goswami of today. It seems the objection towards the current chamchas is purely due to aesthetics.
The way some left leaning journos covered congress, maybe their chamchagiri was not aesthetically
unpleasant, whereas a Goswami does seem crass. Could that be the reason? And both sides (anand
wardhan vs the rest), and wherever this discussion happens, are not willing to acknowledge hard
facts. Under modi some channels/print have become chamchas and under congress or back in days
of Nehru also media was suppressed in some way or the other. To the side that feels the nehru
argument is stupid whataboutery, I want to ask could the difference be just due to a case of 'large
numbers'. Earlier we didnt have as many tv channels or 24X7 media so 4 editors getting fired wd
pretty much end news industry back then, now its not so, there are too many and chamchagiri cant
be expected to be exactly same as it was during UPA, it will "evolve" or devolve or mutate to
something that you might not like.
To wardhan and that side in general, what do they want about how FoE was in UPA or Nehru days?!
Cant correct them, want to inform ppl about it? well write books or whatever. The response to the
current suppression or chamchagiri cannot be that it used to always happen. Its wrong, and if it
wasnt fixed then, well fix it now. Maybe ppl dont know as much about what happened then, but the
conversation of current issues cant be just showing the past, that way nothing gets fixed.
——————————————-
Letter by Rohit Vishal Pandey
NL Subscriber for more than you two years
The letter is 476 words but has an idea, which I wanted to share with Abhinandan on the second day
of Media Rumble.
Hello NL Team,
First of all, I would like to give a hearty congratulations to all of you for pulling off such an event in
the most grandeur manner possible. I was there at the last Media Rumble last year, as well, which
was also a grand success. However, one transformational change in this season was the convergence
of young talent minds, most evident from the quality of questions.
I would restrict my eulogy here and come straight to the point. When I met you on the second day, I
wanted to share an idea, I also tweeted you about the same and you asked me to write to you. So, I
have tried to pen it down for you. The premise here is based on the fact that NL has limited
resources but in order to compete with Big Media, you need extra minds, with little or no
investment.
The last time I wrote, I highlighted the fact that many of the NL subscribers are highly educated and
are willing to contribute in both money and kind. Therefore, to encash on the later, I emphasized on
maintaining a database, depending on their expertise (for example content, design, research, so on
and so forth). I am sure, it must be under process, but my present idea, which I am about to
propose, is more in progression to one of this expertise, which is research.
Research is an important aspect for any news story, be it telling the present social and political
events or taking up issues of the past that might have an impact, direct or indirect, on the present
conditions. It is in this context that I would like to suggest that you can start a pilot project in which
you can provide us (NL volunteers) with any topic to research on and furnish valuable information in
an organized manner.
For instance, let assume that NL wants to start a series on Indian farmers on how the Indian state
has facilitated them after independence. To start with, you can ask chosen NL volunteers to
chronologically arrange all government schemes, along with their important points. All these
information has to be duly referenced only from verifiable sources (not Wikipedia or blogs).
Thereafter, you can cross check it (even for plagiarism) and edit it accordingly to suit your purpose.
In order to keep the volunteers motivated you can also initiate a point system, and at the end of
every month, volunteers with the highest points get gifts. Doing this exercise can help you get a lot
of authentic non-plagiarised content, within a stipulated time frame.
Even though this process might seem very raw and unconversant, but this is what I can think as of
now. I hope it helps as I have tried my level best to explain it benefits. If any better idea comes I will
share it again.
Yours
Rohit Vishal Pandey