How we're helping local reporters turn important stories into national news | Gangadhar Patil

I'm a journalist. And I know how frustrating it gets when most of your stories go unnoticed.

I felt it when I worked as a local reporter in my hometown Belgaum, in India. I thought maybe joining a national newspaper would help.

So I went through professional training and worked with India's three national newspapers. During my five-year stint, I used to travel for my stories. It was in early 2012 I traveled 1,000 miles from Mumbai to a coastal village in south India. I was there to do a story on environmental risk of a nuclear power plant. When I spoke to a local activist, he said the story of hundreds of villagers protesting against a nuclear power plant was reported by local media six months before national TV channels picked it up. I had similar experiences when I traveled for other stories. It confirmed my belief that a local reporter knows a story much before it is picked up by national media. But like me, they did not have a platform to share them. According to a 2011 media study, only two percent of India's mainstream media coverage is about rural issues. Even though almost 70 percent of India's population, 1.3 billion population, live in villages. This is disturbing for a democratic country like India, where transparency is key to ensure justice to everyone, especially the poor. I was convinced that there's a need to build a platform to bring out this important story at the national level. So I quit my job with "Economic Times" in December 2014. For the next six months, I freelanced and also built a database of 20,000 local reporters across India. During that time, I saw editors who were looking for more and more contributors as news organizations cut down cost by getting rid of hundreds of full-time reporters. I saw an opportunity to highlight these important stories if I can train these local reporters and connect them with the mainstream media. And that is exactly what we are doing. Our tech platform, for the first time, discovers a local reporter, grooms them, and helps them write for national and international publications. A team of experienced editors works closely with these local reporters on each and every story filed by them. This process not only helps the local reporters learn reporting skills but also gives credibility to their stories. In June 2017, one of our local reporters, Saurabh Sharma, won an international award from the European Commission for his story on the hardships faced by young girls living on the street. We're also trying to correct market for these local reporters, by paying them three times more than the existing rates. Better pay and recognition is giving them confidence to dig deeper and expose corruption in the system and society. We recently reported a story from Northeast India where children have to cross a river in a huge cooking pot, risking their life every day, because there's no bridge, there's no boat. The story was picked up by mainstream media and it caught the attention of a local elected representative who promised to build a bridge. In the last three years of our operations, we have reported more than 2,500 such stories. To publish them for a wider reach and impact, we have partnered with 16 leading media houses, who are happy to take them, as it brings their cost down, by not editing or managing reporters. Today, we have more than 1,200 reporters in our network, covering stories like the nuclear power plant, from places that are either ignored by mainstream media or never covered. In the next five years, we plan to have one reporter in each of the 5,500 subdistricts in India, covering the entire nation, to ensure that none of these important stories go unnoticed. Next time you see a story from the countryside, please do not ignore it. Do read and share them, they might be breaking stories. This way, we can ensure none of the important stories go unnoticed. Thank you. (Applause)