How Is Multilingual Freelance Journalism Transforming the Media Landscape in India?
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ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846 How is Multilingual Freelance Journalism Transforming the Media Landscape in India? FRANCIS CODY Francis Cody ([email protected]) is at the Department of Anthropology and the Asian Institute, University of Toronto. Vol. 53, Issue No. 19, 12 May, 2018 The author would like to thank his freelancer friends and colleagues in Chennai for their time and comments on this project, as well as the anonymous referee from EPW for helping to sharpen the arguments presented here. This research was generously funded by a Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada Insight Grant. Changes in the technological landscape and the political economy of news media have opened up new spaces for freelance journalism, particularly in multilingual spaces. Freelance journalists occupy a precarious position due to their place within neo-liberal logics, but at the same time, are less beholden to many of the political, social, and commercial pressures constraining reporting and editing in big media houses. Biographical sketches of three Chennai-based freelancers demonstrate different possibilities of engaging as a freelancer across languages. In an analysis of media and politics, Arvind Rajagopal (2001) compellingly argued that the world of newspaper production and readership in North India could be understood as being composed of “split publics.” He said that while the English language press took a more distanced perspective to news events, especially in events such as the Ram Janmabhoomi campaign, Hindi newspapers focussed on the narrative aspect, whether critical or sympathetic. The difference in reporting styles was said to have resulted from a degree of ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846 proximity to the centres of power in the Indian state. The same could probably be said for journalism in Tamil Nadu, especially regarding issues of regional importance such as the plight of Tamils in the Sri Lankan war. Reporting in the English language was more dispassionate as compared to the emotional texture of reporting in Tamil; the latter also showed more graphic photographs of wartime violence. Rajagopal, of course, takes note of some exceptions in the Hindi and English press. Similar exceptions can be seen in the world of Tamil journalism as well. As heuristically useful as the concept of split publics has been, a great deal has changed in the intervening years, especially in the political economy of journalism. Too strict a separation between English and vernacular journalism might obscure the fact that some of the best reporting happening today inhabits a multilingual space, in between these worlds, and increasingly online. Let us, then, look at some exceptions to this rule of difference by focusing on an emergent genre of freelance journalism that requires fluency across languages. There were always talented scribes who navigated multiple languages and registers in a city like Chennai. Both B Kolappan and A S Panneerselvan from the Hindu come to mind as contemporary examples. The profound churning in the world of news production that has occurred in the wake of liberalisation and the proliferation of new media in recent years, however, might have opened up spaces for freelance journalists to develop new business models, new modes of investigation, and new genres of writing across linguistic thresholds.[1] New freelance journalism invites readers to inhabit social worlds that might otherwise have been unreachable largely because freelancers now have relative freedom in choosing their publication venues and they constantly breach barriers between languages. Freelance journalists occupy a precarious position due to their place within the neo-liberal economic logic and are not always accredited by the state. They are, at the same time, less beholden to many of the political, social, and commercial pressures that constrain reporting and editing in big media houses. There has been a shift in the ecology of journalism in the age of deep digitalisation. Caste and class barriers to entry remain as foundational as ever—Brahmins, for example, maintain inordinate dominance in the upper echelons of the English press and there is a relative paucity of Dalit journalists (Jeffrey 2001; Balasubramaniam 2011). There is, however, a certain fluidity among languages and newly flexible markets in journalist expertise have been brought about by digitalisation. Newspapers are now more likely than before to pay for articles written by freelancers, rather than relying solely on salaried employees for big ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846 stories. This is a space that has only opened up in the past few years at a time when journalists are under renewed threat from those in power. Many mainstream media organisations, both print and televisual, have become more docile than they previously have been (Scroll 2017). Contradictions in the News Media Give Rise to the New Freelancer We have become familiar with the ways in which neo-liberal ideology, economic restructuring, and media-savvy right wing have produced news media that are bound, more than ever, to the interests of both capital- and state-sponsored nationalism. Consider Arnab Goswami’s self-appointed role as the guardian of the nation and how his style of journalism has shaped the quest for television rating points (TRPs) across a swathe of news shows in a number of languages besides English. Indeed, the rise of new corporate monopolies on media and a corresponding degradation of news coverage at a time when the distinction between telecommunications and broadcasting is falling apart has been criticised by scholars (Guha-Thakurta and Chaturvedi 2012; Guha-Thakurta 2014). In an interview with Rajagopal (2017), Paranjoy Guha-Thakurta also noted that with the proliferation of new technologies around the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, “one section had become corrupt and venal and another section of the media had become more active … These two things may appear paradoxical to some but they were happening simultaneously.” As examples of activist media, Guha notes the rise of “sting” reporting and lists journalists associated with Tehelka, such as Aniruddha Bahal, Ashish Khetan, and Rana Ayyub.[2] The rise of digital media has changed the possibilities for reporting, but the contradictory forces underpinning the democratisation of media forms have never been starker. On the one hand, the instruments of news media production have become more widely available and accessible as a result of digitalisation. On the other, corporate power is playing an ever- larger role in shaping the content of mainstream news. Internet and social media access has increased since 2014 through web-enabled phone technology and a commitment to net neutrality, even as Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Limited entered the media world ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846 by acquiring Network 18 Media & Investments Ltd, and its subsidiary TV18 Broadcast Ltd. A new split has thus emerged with the rise of exclusively online journals like Scroll.in, Wire, News Minute, and Quint that have given depth to critical investigative journalism and analysis at a time of lucrative hyper-nationalism and fear in much of the mainstream media, reminding one of the Emergency. This is not just a story of scrappy independent media (much of it is, in fact, funded by philanthropy, corporate and otherwise); it is a commentary about those who provide critical content for an emboldened press that is perhaps less divided along linguistic lines now than it was in the past. The new freelancer is able to survive by writing for multiple venues in a manner that was not possible few years ago. The rise of online journals has opened new venues for publication and also appears to have put pressure on older journals to pay for individual pieces by freelancers. The new online news sites as well as some older players are also becoming more reliant on freelance journalism to establish relevance in a news world saturated with sensation but lacking in investigation. The journalists who have forged this new domain of news come from different backgrounds but share a critical perspective on the limits that come with salaried work, even as the future of their chosen path of precarious freedom remains unclear. In order to get a sense of the people behind the production of this domain, it will be helpful to turn to a few biographical sketches of Chennai-based freelancers that are representative of a phenomenon that is happening across India, although each of their stories demonstrates a different way of engaging as a freelancer across languages. Three Portraits of New Freelancers from Chennai I Many journalists who now write for the new online journals and other publications on a freelance basis began their careers in print or even television. Kavitha Muralidharan, for example, is a journalist from Chennai who began by working in a number of English print publications immediately after college, before she landed a job at the Tamil edition of India Today in 2000. There, she was able to pursue the kind of investigative journalism that she had hoped to do in her earlier jobs. Notably, Muralidharan exposed the institutionalised casteism of a college run by the Shankara Mutt, where Brahmin and non-Brahmin students where taught different curricula. Although she had pursued the investigation for this story along with a colleague from a prominent English language newspaper, her colleague felt that his paper would not want to run the story and that she should go ahead because of the support offered by the Tamil India Today. After working at the Week, where she reported on the war in Sri Lanka, and won the Press Institute of India–International Committee of the Red Cross Award, Muralidharan was eventually asked to take the helm as head of the news department at the newly launched Tamil edition of the Hindu. She hoped to recreate some ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846 of the supportive work environment she appreciated at India Today, where she eventually returned before the Tamil edition of the India Today was closed in early 2015.