Stories, not headlines

Never mind the headlines of the day; or ‘Breaking News’; or ‘First on Channel X or Newspaper Y’ kind of reports… How about some slow news, from the ground? Well, at a time when journalistic success is centred on speed and sensationalism, and headlines are forgotten the moment the next ‘Breaking News’ comes along, three young news websites are offering in-depth alternatives to knee-jerk journalism.

People’s Archive of Rural India (PARI), Peepli, Untold — the oldest, PARI, was launched in December last year; the other two are less than six months old — promise to change, among other things, the way news is carried and also consumed. These free-to-access sites look at issues that are often neglected by mainstream media. And they do it through multiple formats: Articles that are researched over weeks and months, supported by extensive galleries of visuals; detailed infographics; photo documentaries, as well as audio and video files.

These sites also project journalism as storytelling, and their visuals are etched with the stamp of ‘art’. A good example of this is a Peepli photo-documentary on the Dhangars, a nomadic tribe known for its biannual 500-km migration across Central India. Photographer and filmmaker Kalyan Varma, a co-founder of Peepli, travelled with the tribe and their herds of sheep. Apart from images, the Dhangar story also has videos — documenting the constant tussle among the tribesmen over livestock and the preying wolves, as well as the energetic, celebratory dance before they set out on the arduous journey.

Focused on issues that concern the rural Indian, the stories on PARI can be read in multiple languages, thanks to subtitling. Founder-editor P Sainath points out that much of the content in media today comes not from reports made from the ground, but from press releases. Sites like PARI, which has ‘tens of thousands’ of followers, buck this trend.

Meanwhile, as Peepli sees it, a single article, even of 3,000 words or more, cannot give the full story on a complex, multi-layered topic. So its newsfeed draws readers into a prolonged engagement with issues. For instance, its ‘Nature Without Borders’ narrative, which looks at man-nature interface and conflicts across the country, with a current focus on Hassan, Karnataka, already has six articles uploaded over five months.

“We hear random bits of news, as in ‘Tigers are disappearing’ or ‘Elephants rammed into a village hut’. But we don’t get to know all the underlying factors. At Peepli, we follow the issues over months, looking into all contributing factors and possible long-term ramifications,” says Varma, who is closely examining modern civilisation’s interface with wildlife and ecosystems. The Peepli team also includes senior journalist Prem Panicker, photographer-writer Arati Kumar-Rao and Rahul Bhatia, a senior reporter. The site has collected more than 30,000 followers since May.

Garnering more than 60,000 visits since May 28, 2015, Untold is a unique platform for stories, be it about a tribe in northern Karnataka, a Lego temple in Maharashtra, Tibetan monks meeting in Coorg for a worldwide convention, or even an offbeat personal adventure in the Himalayas. “We created Untold on the lines of a storytelling platform, because stories make places. In fact, Untold is just one part of our ambition,” says its young founder, Yashas Mitta.

Who is a journalist?

These sites signal a paradigm shift in the idea of who is a journalist. PARI, which has no full-time employee, works through a core team of 20 members and close to 1,700 volunteers. It welcomes ‘contributions’ from everyone — stories, images, audio and video clips, technical support and help with translation, subtitling and editing.

The core team of Untold has only one person with a background in journalism. The rest are an eclectic bunch (including some who have earned their stripes in adventure sports and outdoor activities) holding other full-time jobs. Sample: Naveed Mulki is writer, runner and photographer; Madhumita Nandi is a photographer; Tom Jose is a designer and programmer; and of course Mitta, who happens to be a designer. “In the digital age of storytelling, all of these elements contribute to the larger picture,” says Mitta, adding that Untold also accepts articles and photos from readers.

Back to roots

Sainath believes that the need of the hour is “reclaiming journalism from corporate domain and getting it back into public hands. This can be done in a 100 different ways, by making journalism an exercise where public participation is maximum”. PARI does not accept corporate or government funding.

Untold’s collective of professionals, who were drawn together by their shared passion for travel and storytelling, continue to hold their jobs. As Untold is under no compulsion to feed the ‘revenue stream’, it directly reflects on its content. “We care deeply about the stories we put up; we are personally connected with the stories,” says Mitta.

As for Peepli, the team hopes to apply for funding from various foundations after stabilising operations. “Half our operating funds come from our pockets, the other half is via a very kind ‘angel investor’ who liked the concept and decided she wanted to help,” says Panicker, Peepli’s series editor.

Keep it low

Panicker believes that both long and short forms of journalism have their place. He finds it ironical that media gurus trash long-form journalism but nevertheless pitch for news websites to have between 150-250 news/entertainment/sport stories uploaded each day. “How do we reconcile with the logic that a reader will not consume one well-told, visually rich story a week, but will consume 100-plus 400-word stories a day? That model stems from being unsure of yourself, of wanting to be all things to all people,” he says.

His colleague Kumar-Rao thinks slow journalism allows her to tell stories of those who are “most dependent on landscapes and those who are the first to be affected by land-use change”. “The idea is to not reduce any story into a snapshot in time, but to document shifting fates in the hope that such stories will, in some small way, make people drafting policy think,” she says. Bhatia, who writes for Peepli on issues related to development and their impact on people, concurs. He says, “I think slow journalism is about experiencing a subject’s life a little more fully.”

There is no fixed upload schedule for any of these sites. Alerts come through Facebook and Twitter, or newsletters. “Indian and international media houses have reached out to us with advice and suggested that they would like to work in partnership with us. And to our surprise, both common readers and, in a couple of cases, businessmen have responded to our stories and asked how they can help,” says Panicker. In fact, a teaching/learning partnership between the Asian College of Journalism, Chennai and Peepli has taken off this month.

None of these sites have engaged in marketing so far. “Reintroducing the art in storytelling across formats has been another big reason for creating Untold, because much of the news stories we come across lack the charm that great content should have,” says Mitta. But what about the need to be financially viable? Varma says, “We know that not all people have an appetite for this sort of news. And we don’t know where we are going to end up; but we know this is how we want to do it.”

(Hema Vijay is a Chennai-based freelance journalist)

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