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Future-Proofing the Journalists
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Suyashi Smridhi
2:05
Hello and Welcome to a panel discussion on “Future-Proofing the Journalists: Upskilling in the Digital Age and Post Pandemic Age” as part of The Media Rumble.
2:06
Our Panelists today are: Neha Dixit, Indian journalist and author, Sashi Kumar, veteran journalist and Chairman of Media Development Foundation, Rohan Venkataramakrishnan, Associate Editor of Scroll.in, Ritu Kapur, CEO, Quintillion Media and Co-founder of The Quint, Irene Jane Liu: Singapore-based reporter and editor, Anuradha Das Mathur, Founder and Dean of the Vedica Scholars Programme for Women.
2:08
Talking about The Quint, Ritu Kapur says, "From inception we decided that we are going to be innovative. That is why we decided to set up a lab so that everyone can be self-sufficient."
2:10
Rohan Venkatramakrishnan discusses how you don't need a degree in journalism but learn skills on the job itself.
2:12
"The pandemic has made it much harder for journalists. Earlier one could get information around from fellow journalists, either in the newsroom or in the field. You no longer have the opportunity to do it,", adds Venkatramakrishnan.
2:14
Ritu Kapur discusses how the pandemic has made journalism more diverse. "We are a distributed newsroom. Once the pandemic hit, we encouraged everyone to go home and provided them with funds. The advantage is that we are now able to get deeper ground reports from deeper into the country. The diversity of the reporting has been the real silver lining."
2:17
Emphasising how the pandemic has affected women journalists differently than men, Kapur says that women journalists have no office space to escape to, and have additional responsibilities at home to deal with.
2:18
Anuradha Das Mathur addresses the fact that there are many urban educated women in the country. "We are teaching young women how to get jobs, we don't teach them how to keep jobs," she says.
2:22
Summarising how her organisation, Vedica Scholars Programme for Women functions, Mathur adds,"If you don't have managerial skills, it becomes hard for career progression, which gives mandate for managing teams."
2:23
Mathur point out that the relevance of journalism is irrespective of gender. But she also says that years of patriarchy cannot be wished away, and that we will have to acknowledge it.
2:25
In her programme, there are various timeless skills like negotiations, assertiveness and ability we need to think to live in a less patriarchal world while citing the example of a mother in a household, Mathur adds, "We come from a culture where women put them last."
2:32
Neha Dixit: "During the lockdown, for journalists, especially independent journalists, who did not have news gathering resources or money to hire a taxi, things have become difficult."
2:34
As an independent journalist, Dixit asserts that she witnessed more collaborative work emerging from across cities despite movement being restricted.
2:38
Irene Jay Liu starts by saying how the business models of various organisations have been suffering due to the global economy now. "News rooms are feeling the crunch of not only diminished resources, but just news all the time."
2:40
Jay Liu, agreeing with other panelists, says, "balancing child care, family duties with a demanding job is quite a stressful time for journalists ever."
2:41
2:43
Jay Liu feels that information has become extremely important during the pandemic because it is a matter of life and death.
2:46
Encouraged by collaborative work, Jay Liu believes that investigative journalism and cross border reporting have become huge trends, benefiting in the convergence of large data-sets in global investigations.
2:48
Coming to the pandemic, Jay Liu says, "We have seen incredible collaboration in the area of misinformation." She adds, "What is interesting about the global pandemic is that it's a geo-clinical, economic and health story. The misinformation doesn't recognise the boundary or language."
2:50
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Pointing out the need for fact-checking, Jay Liu says that many fact-checking organisations have emerged, working collaboratively across the globe. These have enabled authentic information sharing.
2:54
Jay Liu: "What's encouraging is that there are so many areas of journalism where competition is great, but there are certain areas where collaboration actually helps everyone to save time. And one area we see is debunking of viral misinformation. If one organisation debunks the misinformation, and you trust the organisation, so you can spend time doing something else."
2:55
2:57
According to Jay Liu, for authentic information sharing, there is a need to build trust networks amongst journalists and organisations. However, she feels that building trust is the challenge.
3:00
Jay Liu feels that collaborations need to continue  globally even after a vaccine has been invented.
3:03
"What the pandemic has done is accelerate the process of digital journalism as far as ACJ is concerned, We've had online classes this year," says Sashi Kumar.
3:05
3:06
Kumar discusses how online classes have increased student-teacher engagement and allowed for more flexibility and better assimilation. "We've been in this business for decades, but digital media is evolving. We don't have the benefit of hindsight to determine what it does to the Media Ecology."
3:08
Elaborating on mobile storytelling, VR-AR have been inculcated into ACJ's pedagogy, Kumar says, "The big chunk we're missing is - Has technology led to re-imagine journalism? Is there a need to redesign journalism?"
3:09
Kumar adds that all journalism is now moving towards social journalism. He also points out the need to assimilate millenial language into media communications.
3:10
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Kumar: "One has to recognise the changing shifts, and it is not necessarily a bad thing to bring in diverse points and issues. Over the last two decades, we've had preponderous ratio of women at ACJ. But in the industry, has the glass ceiling broken?"
3:13
Carrying forward Jay Liu's discussion on misinformation, Kumar talks about the mainstream media's role in spreading disinformation.
3:15
Kumar also talks about coverage of gender issues in the media. "There's no real mappping of gender issues in media. We need new language, new force, new reflexivity in new media." He adds about the power of storytelling.
3:16
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