Outmoded or Valid: Centres and Margins in the Age of Digital Journalism

--Amit Baruah, Vivekananda Kendra Auditorium, Uzanbazar, Guwahati, October 18 at the invitation of the Munin Barkataki Memorial Trust

It is indeed an honour for me to be invited to deliver this lecture to mark the centennary celebrations of Munin Barkotoki. As his interests demonstrate, Munin Barkotoki has had a cross-cutting influence on journalism, the arts and literature. I am grateful to the organisers for having me here today.

In July 1986, soon after graduating from Delhi University I took a job as a trainee sub-editor in The Indian Express. To qualify, I had to sit for an English language and general knowledge test to get the position.

For one year, my princely stipend was a sum of 600 Rupees.

Working in the basement of The Indian Express office in Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg was both fun and a place of great learning.

All my training came from my seniors. It was on-the-job training in the truest sense possible

Coming to office when the rest of the world was leaving and seeing the ink on your fingers as you picked up the newspaper well after midnight were unforgettable affairs.

The clackety-clack of the teleprinter machine brought the news of the world to you.

It was still a time when stringers, or part-time correspondents, sent the news by telegram.

The News Editor, or the Director-General of the newsroom, had enormous clout and reporters made it a point to remain on the good side of the News Editor.

You might, rightly, ask why am I telling you all this.

Well, its because I want to share with you the dramatic and far-reaching changes that technology has brought to my journalistic work, how my reader accesses news and to the organisations that have employed me.

In 1988, I joined the Delhi edition of The Hindu as a staff reporter. When I walked into the fourth floor office of The Hindu in IENS building as it was then known, I set my eyes on a computer for the first time ever.

Since then it has been a roller-coaster ride with one constant change.

The fax machine was the most modern of communication devices at the time. It was a time when the Delhi police had a constable come and deliver the crime briefs of the day to newspaper offices.

In many ways, it was a simple and less-complicated world.

However, the pressure to do high-quality journalism, break stories and provide incisive analysis and opinion was ever-present even then.

There seemed to be a stronger belief then that an informed India would also be a more equal, less-discriminatory and participative India.

The Internet may have been imagined in the West, but it took me until 1990 when I saw you could send an email with the press of a computer key during a visit to Cambridge in the United Kingdom.

It was fascinating.

But I am digressing.

So back to the point and the present.

Today, at the press of a thumb and a finger, you can write, deliver and publish on your mobile device.

Everyone can be and is a journalist, the reporter has no exclusive privilege to breaking the news or even analysis.

When Osama bin Laden was taken out by the Americans through a pre-dawn raid in Abbottabad in Pakistan, the first information came not from a reporter but from the twitter account of a techie who happened to be up late.

Thats how much the Internet has changed everything.

Social media is a great equalizer.

Even large legacy organisations must turn to User Generated Content to stay relevant and tell all aspects of the story.

The pace of change is too much even for seasoned media practitioners. Every day there is something new to learn, something more to read and some new technology to master.

Its a constant and ever-flowing opportunity to be informed and educated, to be entertained and enthralled.

Staying in touch and following the latest on social media can be quite exhausting and time-consuming.

For journalists, their personal Twitter feed is the ultimate news agency, where you can control and moderate what you want and edit and remove what you dont.

And heres the good news.

Its available to all.

Its no longer the privilege of those sitting in Guwahati, Delhi, London or New York.

Its available in Dahod and Dhubri, in Bongaigaon and Bangalore, in Majuli and Mangalore.

The margins have been eroded and the Centre no longer holds.

Journalists at the margins are still paid less, but at long last they have the opportunity of being informed just like their counterparts in big cities and towns.

Needless to say, thats if you are not experiencing a power cut.

Collated information once available only in libraries and in newspaper offices is accessible at the click of a button.

You have only yourself to blame if you are less informed or even ignorant.

It is this power of information that is available to evenly skill journalists both at the Centre or at the margins.

There is no story that is less important to the audience and there is no barometer to measure relevance and importance.

In my experience, many journalists at the margins are willing to work harder and spend more time in newsgathering than those working at the Centre.

In fact, digital access questions the very notion of the Centre and the Periphery in journalism.

This access is an equalizing force, which if applied sensibly, has the power to make power centres listen carefully to voices emanating form different parts of India.

However, this is not to suggest that opportunity is equal.

Access to decent salaries that would give both stability and comfort to journalists working away from big cities and towns is still a question that calls for an answer.

Just before the Asian Games happened in 1982, the first television transmitter came up in Guwahati. I

It was Mrs. Indira Gandhis dream to beam spectacle into homes in Guwahati.

My father, the late U.L. Baruah, who worked for 38 years in All India Radio, told me, Now, neglected Assam will see how people in Delhi are enjoying.

Three decades later, the scene has changed.

Assam can still see what Delhi is doing or enjoys, but equally Delhi can see the state of Guwahati.

Whether it is enjoyable is a separate issue.

But I will leave for the question and answer session the issue of whether Delhi is interested in Guwahati or Itanagar or indeed in Bastar or Agartala.

Thank you very much.