Today, it feels as if the role of the reporter on a TV news channel has shrunk compared to the days when we started out. There are, of course, honourable exceptions, reporters who continue to produce high-quality work that makes an impact. But too many of the new crop of reporters deliver just what is expected of them—which is not enough in terms of originality and high standards.

What is expected can, however, be too much in terms of working hours, number of lives or ‘OB’s. But with little reward in terms of the feeling of a responsible and important job well done, burnout is faster for the young reporter today. The initial thrill of coming on air and having access to the powerful can last a while, but is not enough to sustain them for a long career. A young reporter I worked with was very clear when she said, ‘I don’t want to be doing this when I am thirty!’ I had been on the job for more years than she had been alive, but I could understand where she was coming from.

The devaluation of the field reporter has been a huge blow to the television news industry in India. I am talking about the genuine, around-the-year ground reporter—not the times when a Star Anchor makes the effort to come to the ground during election times or for very high-profile news stories—with the backing of a whole production team and their stories guaranteed air time in peak viewing hours. I am talking of the frontline person doing news reporting on the field. The one who is out there in the trenches, talking to the powerful and the helpless in this country of ours.

I believe that a channel where a reporter is professionally respected, and given the logistical and editorial support to do the stories they need to do will be way ahead of others in terms of the quality of its journalism.

Geography also matters. Across channels, Delhi began to play an ever-larger role in editorial decisions. With this change, there was angst in state bureaus over how often they were told by the Delhi news desk what story to do and how to do it—even though the regional reporter was really the one who knew the most about the situation. More and more, Delhi came to be considered the source of all real knowledge about a situation or news story—at least in the eyes of Delhi-based Senior Editors who were making the editorial decisions on how a story should be covered and played on air.

This problem with the centralisation of decision-making and power is of course not restricted to TV news or even the media. It is there wherever there is a head office which calls the shots! National political parties come to mind!

Reporters in the bureau—and state level party leaders—often have big questions when their voices are not heard. Does Delhi really understand the issues going on thousands of kilometres away? Shouldn’t crucial decisions be left to those who know the situation better, from close quarters? Are regional concerns being addressed and are states getting their fair share of resources—whether it is money, equipment, air time or even the hiring of enough people to do the job?

One could feel the drowning of bureau voices at the start of each weekday during the morning concall. These were news meetings held over the phone every morning between Delhi editors and bureau representatives to decide the news that would be covered and get priority that day. Usually, the concalls would not be held on the weekends as the Senior Editors who ran the calls had weekends off. These calls could be very frustrating and demotivating.

Ideas presented by the bureau reporter were often dismissed or overruled in favour of what Delhi-based Senior Editors decided. This contributed to state reporters feeling a lack of autonomy or independence, because the Senior Editors were always the gate keepers and their decision was final.

This calling of the shots started from deciding what story should be reported, how it should be done, and what was finally chosen to go on air and in what form. Getting a story on air in prime time was often one of the toughest battles for a reporter. Today, the edited news story is an endangered species, with prime time giving way to talking heads and live reports. I am talking of a time that ended a few years ago when an evening TV news bulletin carried nicely edited stories from around the country. And a story that stood a better chance of making it on air was obviously one that was done in accordance with the wishes expressed by the Senior Editors.

Now this doesn’t mean that Delhi doesn’t come up with good story ideas or perspectives, or even that bureau reporters are always at the top of their game and know it all. But with the power dynamic tilting so much in favour of Delhi, it muffled the voices of the regional representatives. When a channel runs on the basis of the opinion of a few people—or even only one person—then there is bound to be a decline in the quality of editorial content. It was an ongoing battle, with very few victories for the state reporter. Most ‘outstation’ reporters eventually adapted to the system rather than trying fight back and making the system adapt to them. They would accept being told what was expected of them, and would go ahead and fill in those requirements.

‘Bite collectors’ was the rueful term many regional correspondents began to use to describe the main part of their job. Going round to newsmakers, holding a mike in front of them, recording what they said and sending that on to Delhi for play out and interpretation there.

Regional reporters who had earlier shown enterprise and pride in doing their own unique stories began to be part of pack reporting.

A group of journalists from competing channels would all hang out together, go to shoot the same stories, go to the same newsmakers at the same time. This was a kind of local cooperation so that channel reporters did not miss out on anything that the rival channel had—as they would all have the same thing; the same interview, the same shots. In this way, the reporter would avoid having to face the music for missing anything that another channel had. Sometimes, the responsibility for getting the precious bites was divided—with different channels heading to different newsmakers, recording the bites without the channel logo in the frame and sharing these bites with each other. It was certainly a way to save time and effort, but more than one reporter lost their individuality and edge in this type of pack journalism.

It wasn’t just employees of a channel who began to lose steam.

Even in the best-funded and equipped TV network, reporters and camera teams cannot be everywhere. And this is where the ‘stringer’ plays the vital role: supplying footage and story information from areas away from big cities—which would take time for a channel’s news team to reach. They are invaluable resources for getting the news in from places away from state capitals, often they have the first information and visuals of a story.

The ‘stringer’ also suffers under this Delhi-centric vision. They are not full-time employees of a channel but are paid per story or per input. Often, they are vulnerable to threats and intimidation from the subjects of any adverse story they might do—and most of the time, they do not have the official backing of any channel. Unfortunately, the payments made to stringers seem to have decreased over the years. And as they know that they cannot depend financially on this kind of an arrangement, they are not as responsive to news requests.

Many times, it was just good will that kept the relationship going between the bureau reporter and the stringers in their state. This lack of value given to stringers is a mistake being made by many national channels. They need to have a motivated network on the ground in the more remote areas of our vast country.

Excerpted with permission from Maya Sharma’s Good News, Bad News, Westland Books (2026).