Newslaundry Interviews

In this age of the internet, there’s little that doesn’t go viral. Including the news. But there’s some confusion as to what is meant by “viral news” and what constitutes “viral content”. More to the point, is there a difference between “news” and “content”? Or are they synonymous?

To discuss the finer points of this question, Roli Pulse, the digital arm of Roli Books, in association with Newslaundry, brought together Sattvik Mishra, CEO of ScoopWhoop; Pragya Tiwari, journalist and policy consultant; Andre Borges, content creator at Pocket Aces; and Abhinandan Sekhri, co-founder of Newslaundry. 

“I think news has largely been dictated by a bunch of editors who sit in a room and decide what news should look like,” Sattvik says, and emphasises the importance of presentation and diversity in making something go viral. 

Pragya says, “There is a massive disconnect between the people who are thinking about marketing and people who are thinking about editorial.”

Andre chips in, “Content creation and journalism, for me, don’t have to be two different things.”

Abhinandan responds, “I don’t see how a commercial proposition can be made on that because then there is no incentive to spend on ground reportage where traffic is your only metric.”

Listen.

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Sanjay Jha is a politician, writer, and columnist. He was sacked as a spokesman of the Congress, apparently over a pair of articles in the Times of India where he criticised the party’s “leadership vacuum”, the lack of “internal democratic process that listens to individual voices” and inability to get “up and running with any sense of urgency” in the wake of electoral defeats.

Jha sits down with Abhinandan Sekhri to talk about his politics, what is ailing the Congress, and, of course, his sacking.

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Swara Bhasker is one of India’s most outspoken celebrities, regularly lending her voice to progressive causes and public protests. This has made the actor known for her performances in Tanu Weds Manu, Anaarkali of Aarah, and Rasbhari one of the big bugbears of Hindu nationalist TV news anchors and social media trolls.

Swara speaks with Meghnad S about nepotism in Bollywood, the audience’s role in creating and sustaining the film industry’s star system, and the rise of streaming platforms. She also speaks about her “activism” while describing herself as “an armchair activist”.

To watch the full unedited interview, subscribe to Newslaundry.com

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Tired of loud frothy-mouth, potty-mouth debates on primetime TV? Tired of sad character-limited fights on Twitter where you don't really learn anything? 

We have something that might excite you. Newslaundry presents a new podcast: NL vs NL. 

Let's make debates great again!

In this episode of NL vs NL, Shubh Soni and Newslaundry subscriber Dhiraj Bhandari debate whether countries should be allowed to claim territory in space.

Dhiraj thinks they should, Shubh disagrees.

Listen and tell us who you agree or disagree with, and why. 

Write to us at [email protected], or reach out to Dhiraj and Shubh.

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In May, we released an NL Sena, “The New New Delhi”, a deep dive into the Narendra Modi government’s much-touted project to redesign Central Vista, the heart of the national capital. Reporter Hameeda Syed also analysed just why the government was pushing forward with the project even as the Covid-19 pandemic was ravaging the poor.

In this edition of Session with Sena, Hameeda, along with Newslaundry’s Chitranshu Tewari, talks about the story with the subscribers who made it possible with their contributions. This Sena story was supported by over 50 of our readers, including Sangeeta Thotakura, Shreekant Gupta, Zameer Ansari, Sree Harsha R, Vidhu Saxena, Dhiraj Kumar, and other NL Sena members.

Hameeda says the Centre went ahead with the project “without talking about it to experts”, and that the project “came as a shock” to them. A subscriber, Dhiraj, asks about reporting during the midst of a pandemic, and whether it made being on the ground more difficult. Hameeda says it was a problem, since it was visually important to “map all the developments” happening with the project.

Subscriber Rupa Banerjee asks about the aftermath of the project. “The aftermath has already happened,” Hameeda says, adding that the Supreme Court had refused to stay the redevelopment plan. “Even though there is a lockdown, I feel there should be some resistance towards the project.”

Tune in.

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Tired of loud frothy-mouth, potty-mouth debates on primetime TV? Tired of sad character-limited fights on Twitter where you don't really learn anything? 

We have something that might excite you. Newslaundry presents a new podcast: NL vs NL. 

Let's make debates great again!

In this episode of NL vs NL, Newslaundry subscribers Aditya Relangi and Aishwarya Mahesh debate whether public health should be prioritised over personal privacy.

Aditya thinks it should be, Aishwarya disagrees.

Listen and tell us who you agree or disagree with, and why. 

Write to us at [email protected], or reach out to Aditya and Aishwarya.

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Kritika Pandey is a writer and poet. Her short story The Great Indian Tee and Snakes recently won the 2020 Commonwealth Short Story Prize. She has also won the 2020 James W Foley Memorial Award and the 2018 Harvey Swados Fiction Prize. 

Pandey sat down with Abhinandan Sekhri to talk about her life, work and literary journey.

“I was responding to the contemporary sociopolitical upheavals in India,” Kritika says when asked about the inspiration for The Great Indian Tee and Snakes, while pointing out the varied receptions it got from her peers in the United States and back home in Jharkhand. 

She talks about the trade-off involved in keeping the local flavour in a story while ensuring that it has a global appeal. 

She stresses the importance of engaging with people holding different points of view while commenting on the “overwoke” people in the US in the context of the current political situation. She narrates her experience attending the Black Lives Matter protests against the murder of George Flyod, and discusses how the protest cultures in India and the US differ. 

Kritika also talks about experiencing gender discrimination, desi families and validation, what’s next for her, and much more. 

Tune in! 

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On the Global Press Freedom Index, India ranks 142 out of 180 countries. To make sense of why a country that prides itself on being the world’s largest democracy fares so abysmally on press freedom, it’s imperative to locate and speak about the different pressures that journalists are under.

To this end, Roli Pulse, the digital arm of Roli Books, in association with Newslaundry, organised a webinar with Siddharth Varadarajan, editor of the Wire; Naresh Fernandes, editor of Scroll; Dhanya Rajendran, chief editor of the News Minute; and Abhinandan Sekhri, co-founder of Newslaundry.

They discuss the pressures the Indian media faced in the past and how they are different from what it must deal with today. Intimidation, they agree, has become “more systematic” now, and this can only be countered by institutionally empowering journalists.

They also talk about how institutions such as the judiciary have responded to the intimation of the media, recognise the urgent need to have a united press, and acknowledge that press associations currently are inaccessible to most journalists.

Varadarajan shares his experiences dealing with the pressure put by former Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa on the Hindu when he was the daily’s editor. Fernandes examines what it means to be a journalist today when even a Facebook post critical of the establishment attracts heat and even institutional interference. Rajendran expresses her concern about the sphere of hate that has been created in the society and that, in turn, has led to public mistrust of journalists who are critical of majoritarianism.

They also discuss the line that we need to draw under "hate speech", and whether criminalisation is the answer to the problems we face because of it.

Listen!

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Tired of loud frothy-mouth, potty-mouth debates on primetime TV? Tired of sad character-limited fights on Twitter where you don't really learn anything? 

We have something that might excite you. Newslaundry presents a new podcast: NL vs NL. 

Let's make debates great again!

In this episode of NL vs NL, Shardool Katyayan and Parikshit Sanyal of Newslaundry battle it out over the highly contentious question of whether marijuana should be legalised in India?

Shardool thinks it should be, Parikshit disagrees.

Listen and tell us who you agree or disagree with, and why. 

Write to us at [email protected], or reach out to Shardool and Parikshit.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The news media, like most spaces, has a big blindspot when it comes to the representation of women, even as they bear the brunt of the negative impact of the information explosion. How and why is it so? What can be done to rectify the situation. 

To discuss these questions, Chitranshu Tewari spoke with Lakshmi Chaudhry, the founder of Splainer Media and the co-founder of Firstpost. 

She talks about her journey launching Splainer, how news is an exclusionary space for women on both the publication and the reader side, and why news needs to be conceptualised as an experience to begin with. 

She also talks about the overabundance of news causing "news fatigue", and how the comeback of newsletters is a response to this phenomenon.

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Tune in.

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