Brian Conley's News & Notes

First a caveat, this is in no way a scientific or well-researched commentary on the state of the Indian media. This is a post based on what I’ve heard from Indians, Indian media professionals, and what I’ve experienced firsthand after living in India for one month.

During my first week here I met VK Shashikumar from newsX and we discussed the state of Indian media, as well as how the national “stringer network” works with most national TV news outlets. First of all, his contention, supported by several other Indians I’ve met, is that some 70-75% of the news cycle is dedicated to Delhi/northern India-centric stories.

The stories that are not Delhi-centric are provided via a stringer network throughout India. The reality of this network is that it is primarily Brahmins, which means the majority of India is not represented properly, due to the caste/class system in India. Furthermore, these stringers are tasked primarily with selling subscriptions and advertising, which is clearly a conflict of interest with their role as “independent journalist.”

It is in this climate that Video Volunteers will endeavor to create a network of “community producers” activists turned journalists who will be producing stories from their communities about life in India. The focus will be on life and issues that affect these communities directly, but with an attempt to frame the content for an international audience.

I feel we can say that Vividh will be the first “truly” national news agency because our focus is on telling the stories of *all* Indians, not only the privileged Indians, Brahmins, or Indians considered to be important or whose stories are easy to sell advertisements against. If we can produce stories from a local context, that have watchability, I think our success is assured.

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.

I’m living in Goa now, as you already know if you read my earlier post about my unfortunate accident in Calangute. I live about 3 kilometers from the Video Volunteers office, where I’m coordinating a new Community Journalism program for them this year. I don’t have a car yet, and I may be too much of a hazard to myself and fellow drivers on a scooter. So given that, I walk to work, and nearly end up walking home as well every day.

Motorbikes are a common method of travel for many in Goa, so its possible I’ll decide to trade up from my trusty Keens to something a little more Bladerunner meets MadMax.

Public, consider yourself warned.

Part of what makes the commute so great is the scenery. For the time being the weather is always delightful, not too hot in the morning and pleasantly cool in the evenings.

If I didn’t walk I’d have to pay through the nose for taxis, even without my recent history with the Goan Taxi Mafia, I’d not be likely to take that option. I’ve recently heard that the public bus may be an option, but then I’d get dropped at the beach and have to walk away from the beach in order to get to the office. I’d likely never make it.

Further, I like to walk, and since I’ve thus far spent most of everyday at work hunched over my laptop, clicking and typing away, I’m sure I could use the exercise. So far the commute has tended to be fairly uneventful, aside from the occasional need to dodge a speeding tour bus, or evade the droppings of wayward cattle. I hope it stays that way, although by the time the monsoons arrive, I’ll hopefully have purchased a car and found another way to get my daily exercise!

I’ve added a couple more photos below, to provide a broader feel for what the scenery is like here:

These locations are two interesting landmarks on the walk between Arpora and Baga Bridge, which is exactly where Video Volunteers is located.

The image to the left shows a large store that sells Buddhist art objects and furniture. They rarely, if ever, appear to have customers, and its been posited by some of my colleagues that it may be a front.

To the right you’ll see the entrance to Mackie’s Saturday Nite Bazaar, the epicenter of social life in Arpora/Baga on a Saturday night. Those in the know prefer to head to the Anjuna Saturday night market, I’ve not made it there yet.

Last, but not least, on the road between Nagowa and Baga is the often seen, Temple Elephant, making an appearance for the tourists, offering photos in exchange for a small donation. You’ll note the elephant on the left, I’m on the right, once again on my way to work.

I’m sure most everyone from the “developed world” or the so-called “West” who might be reading this has had some experience with a car accident, whether someone backing into them, or running another car off the road(i won’t tell you which one I am…).  Here in India things are resolved a bit differently—->

Yes, that is a tire driving over my foot. That was the first moment I noticed the red Swift taxi outside of the collective din on the street outside Norm’s in Calangute. I was pissed. This <expletive-deleted> had just driven into me in his hurry to get through the crowded traffic, driven over me, and then continued on.

Had I known more about Indian traffic courtesy I would have swallowed my indignance and driven on immediately, and quickly. Instead I chased him, as he was in fact pulling off to the side of the road just ahead. With proper first-world indignance I started yelling at him immediately for driving like an ass and crashing into me while I was stopped on the side of the road.

He came at me like a thug and immediately turned off the ignition on my scooter, I went for the key and he pulled it out. Remembering everything I’ve learned the last 5 years around the world, I held on to that key and wouldn’t let go until I’d pried it back out of his hand.

“Why you drive like this? You pay me!”

At this point I was really shocked, and I also began to realize I had certainly gotten in a bit over my head. At the same time I was sure this guy was at fault.

Moments later I was surrounded by a dozen indian guys who apparently had nothing better to do than stand around and watch the spectacle. Looking back I wonder if this wasn’t some kind of reversed social roles post-colonial justice-letting, but in the moment I was only thinking about Robert Fisk’s story of being beaten by a mob in Afghanistan and having to fight his way out.

After I had the keys, the guy grabbed my headphones cord and I told him to let go, the cord snapped, just at the point of the connection to the iPhone in my pocket. I’m lucky to have a wonderful mother-in-law who saw fit to gift me a pair of Bose Mobile-on-Ears, which have a detachable headphone-to-player cord, otherwise I’d quite likely be out a pair of much-too-expensive headphones.

This guy wouldn’t budge. He just kept saying “You give me money!”

Of course at the moment I had maybe 230 rupees, given that I had been on my way to work when a colleague lent me the scooter to try and get a feel for it. Little did I know my first day on a scooter would turn into my first accident on a scooter.

What you have to understand is that all these guys surrounding me are there for the spectacle, and they may or may not know what the situation is. Either way, they’re on the other guys side, not yours.

Moments later I was crashing back into this crowd of guys as the taxi-thug pushed me hard in the chest. I wasn’t having any of it, and apparently he wasn’t either. He wanted me to go to “my hotel” and come back with the money. It was about this time he grabbed the headphones around my neck, which are worth roughly 10 times the amount of money he was trying to extort.

It seemed that he was willing to agree to go with me to “my hotel” which, as I told him repeatedly, didn’t exist because I am working for an Indian trust organization, and my *house* is quite a ways off in Arpora, toward Nagowa. So what you’ll notice if you ever get into a similar situation is that its never just one guy you’ll have to deal with, it’s one guy, plus his “posse.”

So taxi thug got into the car, another guy was driving, and a third guy climbed into the back seat. Apparently none of them spoke passable English, which, in my experience thus far, is a bit strange for Goa. I got in the back, but wouldn’t close the door, I expected if I’ve agreed to go with them on a ride to get the money this guy wanted, he should do me the decency of giving my stuff back.

To recap, at this point he had my headphones, the headphones cable, oh and my sunglasses which he picked up after pushing me down into the scooter. They really have a discourteous way of dealing with people they don’t like/consider fools, however I can’t help wondering if they didn’t learn it from their British and Portuguese colonial forebears…

So, misunderstanding what I wanted apparently, they reshuffled the car and taxi-thug climbed in back with me. Apparently in colloquial Konkani the appropriate reaction at this point, to someone making a reasonable request that you disagree with, is a punch in the head.

Fortunately I was still wearing the scooter helmet. Also fortunately, when taxi-thug jumped out of the car and came around, apparently ready to give me a full-on beating, the crowd came to my aid and talked him down.

To resolve this rather rambling story, let’s just say, I paid the man. Which is lucky for me, as I was informed later by my Indian colleagues, had I been capable of calling the police(I didn’t yet have an operational mobile), I would have only ended up paying “The Man,” and I’d have had to pay him 5 times taxi-thug’s going rate, as a pay-off for violating the “driving without a license” ordinance.

Which is how I learned that in India, if a taxi driver crashes into you, you drive away, very fast, and hope he can’t catch you.

PS. Thanks to Keen’s awesome sandals, my foot survived.

PPS. Any endorsement of a product is mine alone, and not related to sponsorship of any kind.