A review of NL Hafta by Kashyap, Wilson and others

Hi Team NL,
Been a listener for over a year now and signed up the day Abhinandan announced that he won’t be referring to us freeloaders as Mufatkhors. 

Suggestions: NL Sena + Subscription model

I am not certain as to how many people find appeal in the labels that have been attached to the subscription model or to the tags attached to the varying amounts in NL Sena. To attach incentives such as a mug, a cover for FB, virtual badge and shoutouts might downplay the whole purpose of setting up funding for such important stories and coverage. If anything offer them on signing out via a follow up email. 

This applies more in your case as people are often hesitant to highlight their contribution to charitable causes and a large majority of them take a lot more satisfaction in quiet contributions. 

It is better explained in a book by Daniel Pink called Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us and To Sell is Human. There might be plenty of insights for Team NL into the way the existing generation and society thinks and functions, especially when applied to supporting causes, volunteering and contributing time, money or effort. 

Pretty much that you might be doing yourself more harm than good with the incentives and names/labels attached. And, can downplay the stunning work that you do with your podcasts and features. 

The identity that you have created for yourselves, an independent news org, is terrific and I am certain it is growing thanks to the more organic and human factors that you uphold. 

I am a professional football coach and have worked at all levels of elite youth football in the country for the last 12 years and I can tell you that understanding motivation, art of coaching, being a better person to create better people has been the biggest U-turn that my professional development has taken which was all about win at all costs, ruthless preparation, science based, etc etc. 

I reckon it takes about ten years to learn that but a people-first approach to create buy-in, convincing people to do something they don’t want to initially was learnt by applying the content of such books and countless others. 

Podcasts

Meghnad’s How to Citizen was a huge hit-and-miss, which I know is on IVM, but reveals just how disgruntled I am with my own generation and their inability to bring consistency in content, which I attribute purely to experience.

This is where Hafta and Charcha have carved a niche for themselves, largely thanks to the guests and panel of people who have defected and represent the purists and principled few in your industry. That said, I think everyone has spoken about repeating certain guests and bringing through variety on the show. 

The other motivation to subscribe was to get hold of episode no 200 thanks to Manu Joseph being present on the panel. Voices like his and I forget one more but you kept referring to him as Dada (ABP), Hartosh, Madhu Trehan (whose irregular presence makes her a novelty of sorts) and maybe have more people call in from different cities. 

There are plenty of intelligent and insightful voices all over the country who might roll their eyes at some of the statements made on Hafta. Can’t please everyone and maybe this intervention of tapping into all your contacts to contribute their views might help a lot. 

Awful and Awesome is brilliant and don’t lose Rajyasree Sen. The episodes where she went missing killed the vibe of the podcast probably because the guests that filled in were a bit all over the place in balancing their critique, humour, opinion etc while the flow between Abhinandan and Sen is a lot more reliable. 

I consume a lot of podcasts in general and if the show notes can share a direct link to different segments of the debates it will improve user experience. I have attached a screenshot. 

The songs features are great. 

TV Newsance

Consistency in meeting upload expectations of viewers will be the only suggestion for a great production. Missing it one week here and there without any notice can throw off people and affect the NL brand’s accountability. Much like how this week’s Charcha has not come up.  

Common connection (just for you all)

Over the years in the small world of Indian football, I have gained the reputation of speaking truth to power and down playing all of the hysteria, delusion, optimism that surrounds the future of the game and eternal questions about when will we qualify for the World Cup. Popular for being unpopular. 

I have researched and presented the last 30 years of Indian football in the context of Asian football and World Cup pathways to highlight just how far back in the stone ages we are. It involves going through piles of archives, interviews, watching games and travelling all over the world to understand the game and deepen my speciality in player development. All this is often outdone by a glitz-infused event.

I found a world of appeal in the work that you do in dealing with the smokescreen that your fellow professionals in the news industry create. A deep analytical understanding of how politics, business and society work is what is needed today. And, while the buy-in might be limited, I hope you continue to sustain your tag of purists just like how I intend to do the same with my profession. 

All the best! 

***

Hi NL Team,
My name is Kashyap, it sounds like ketchup. I am used to saying this as it’s tough for people in USA to get my name right first time 🙂

I am a passionate NL subscriber and this is the first time I am writing to you. Just like the characters in Friends, the popular series from early 2000s, you guys have been part of my daily life now and I took up a mission to make all my friends NL subscribers. I’ll call out once my mission is complete. I really admire each one of you and, if I could exaggerate a little, I probably can guess how you all express yourself in any given situation 😉 . Thanks for keeping us informed about current affairs and helping us form right and rational opinions. 

Your tagline claims ‘NL apna hafta kabhi nahi chodte‘ but I don’t see NL Hafta 211. Is it only me or was it never recorded? I don’t see it either on my app or on the web. 

Abhinandan, I thought you were Abhinandan 2.0, who is a nice guy  and never shames his audience nor uses F words. May be the latter is my assumption? I found you uttering F word 23.5 times in Hafta 212. I understand your emotion behind it but my problem with it is, my 6-year-old also listens to Hafta sometimes while I drop him to school on a 12-min drive. If you could consciously keep the count under 5, the probability of him getting to listen to them would be low as he won’t listen to the entire episode anyway. I just made up the number 23.5 😉

Thank you all. Keep up  great work.
Kashyap Vissapragada

***

Hi Hafta team,
Getting right to the point, I think it has to be mentioned that being journalists we would expect all on the panel to know the names of personalities you are going to talk about.

Whether it is not knowing who or what MBS is or not knowing the actual expansion as Anand didn’t, doesn’t inspire confidence in the listeners. While the free flowing nature of the discussion is hugely effective, some of these little things are irritants although minor ones.

It was also a delight (not) to witness Anand’s apparent disdain for Swara Bhaskars of the world. It just proves we all, including Anand, are human. The God-like image impressed upon us of Anand through his well-balanced opinions are slowly crumbling. His dismissal of Arfa’s comments on one of the previous Hafta/Charcha was also a revelation.

Regards,
Wilson Paul

***

Hi NL Hafta producer sahabs,
Please include the ongoing protests in Arunachal Pradesh against the issue of PRC to non-Arunachali tribes in next week’s Hafta. Ours is a peaceful state by and large, so these protests can be said to be unprecedented in terms of violence involved. 

You also have the ever reliable ex-NL Arunabh Saikia as a resource or maybe he can put you in touch with journalists based in Itanagar. Hope you’ll look into it as the protests themselves might not be as novel as the same issue in Assam has been extensively covered. But come on, how many times does Arunachal get to feature in mainstream media in non-China-related issue?

Abhinandan, may I request to skip reading my name out, in case you feel the need to.

Best.

***

Dear Abhinandan,
I am writing in to highlight a flaw in the arguments made by the panel in analysing Maharashtra’s politics. My folks live there so I know a little bit about it.

Maharashtra politics was completely misunderstood by the panel. Every party works with each other at the local body and panchayat elections at all the levels. That’s why Maharashtrians always vote strategically. That’s what Maha politicians have now understood. Nobody takes Sena’s antics seriously. Even when the Assembly elections threw up a 123 seats for BJP, we in Maharashtra, knew they (Sena and BJP) would come together. Even when Sena left the NDA, we knew that come March, they would kiss and make up. 

BJP had to come off its high horse. Amit Shah came down to seal the deal. It wasn’t Fadnavis sealing the deal. That’s important. Shah came to Thackeray. Also, Sena recently won some local body elections. 

I think you guys should track local papers too. I bet there are a lot of idealistic journalists who would write for you on the state of journalism in Maharashtra. This would expand your reach and solve your subscriber problem. All it would take is hiring two people who speak Hindi, Marathi and English. Once a week. 

You could collect data on how local papers cover politicians. I tell you, Marathi politics is beautiful. That’s why we people who live in Maharashtra don’t want to leave. We are content on getting by. We are one-tenth of India’s GDP and the largest state in terms of the same measure. That means more people with higher disposable incomes.

There’s a lot of scope for aggressive expansion. Hope you guys do well during the election coverage. I’ll share more interesting tid-bits  about Maha politics some other time.

Good luck.
Vivek Ananth