Brian Conley's News & Notes

I came to India with my family just over one month ago, to work on an exciting new program with Video Volunteers. The program, currently being called “Vividh” is a network of locals trained to be “community producers” producing issue-based journalism of a community nature, which will be shared internationally via the internet, and eventually television, and terrestrially via partnerships with Indian TV networks and possibly a variety of other venues still being explored.

Today, at long last, we have announced our list of accepted fellows. We have taken on 36 fellows from all over India, from the extrme south of the country in Tamil Nadu, to the north in Jammu & Kashmir, and covering territory from the east in Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh, to the west in Rajasthan and Gujarat.

In March we will hold a two-week training camp with all of the Community Producers, after which they will begin the process of gathering stories and shooting videos in their communities, we will be building on the previous success of Alive in Baghdad, Alive in Mexico, and, in India, Swajana, producing local stories with the intention of an international audience. I’m working on the design for a new section of the Video Volunteers website that will promote new video daily, as well as create a space for the audience to interact directly with producers in the field who have very low internet connectivity.

Sometimes their posts may be done via phone or email-to-blog. They should also be posting short updates or microblogs via SMS, which will be shared on Twitter, Facebook, and the main site. This is an exciting time for me as we look forward to what’s possible with micro camcorders, sms, and even voice updates. By leveraging technology and training, we should soon have India’s first truly national news agency. I say “truly” because while there are national stringer systems in place, our research has shown that these “stringers” by and large are not focused on story-gathering, nor do their stories represent the majority of the local community.

I’ll write more soon with the impressions and stories of the Indian media scene I’ve gathered over the last month.