A small newspaper of 1945 vintage keeps journalism alive: in Meghalaya

Shillong landscape

From my base in Guwahati I make the road trip to Shillong in Meghalaya. The road is pretty good but the multiple hairpin bends negotiated at 90 km/h by my taxi driver unsettles me though I have had an early breakfast and am a roadie-journalist for ages.

It takes about 90 minutes to reach the fringes of Shillong but another 30 minutes to get to the city centre - the narrow roads which also take lorry traffic can only let vehicles crawl their way. So I stare at the little hawker-shops, all of wood and at every corner, fresh pork meat is being sold.

Patricia Mukhim is the editor of the 1945-founded 'Shillong Times' and she has invited me to her home for a quick conversation.

Editor of Shillong Times, Patricia Mukhim

Patricia and her newspaper were in the news recently in a rare case in which the Meghalaya High Court slapped a severe fine and a punishment on her; the contempt of court case was slapped because the newspaper reported on a pile of benefits and add-ons that the judges of this court had sought post-retirement, including fancy smartphones for them and their wives. Thankfully, the Supreme Court has given this feisty journalist some relief now.

In her wonderfully-designed house just outside the busy city centre, Patricia tells me that her journalism takes off from the spirit of the newspaper's owner and former editor who allows her the freedom to do what is right, even though the man is now a politician. She admits that the pulls and pressures on journalists in a small state are many and hard but she has managed to deal with them well.

But Patricia has a bigger challenge - the dearth of skilled, trained journalists tells on the quality of journalism that local newspapers offer. "Those who apply for a job are keen only to work at the Desk. They do not want to go out and report because they feel it is tough," she tells me. So she now manages with only two reporters and an enterprising deputy, Jose who often travels the state to file long stories.

Communication lines are much better now and WhatsApp is seen as a useful tool to file stories and send pictures.

However, the website of 'Shillong Times' which was launched some two years ago is primitive, to say the least.

"We just don't get people to work for us," Patricia throws up her hands. And tells me of the political and economic-social trends in Meghalaya this past year.

"I once saw a TV advert on turmeric powder sold by a Tamil Nadu agency and I said - Now here in Meghalaya we have the finest turmeric and all we need is good marketing to help our farmers."

The WhatsApp Stringer: in Nalbari, Assam

Road from highway to Nalbari town

This assignment was worked out to converse with journalists in cities, towns and in the districts. Though I can meet only a few in every state that I visit, even these meetings can reveal much.

From Guwahati (in Assam) I take a taxi and head to Nalbari, some 70-plus kms to the east. Minutes outside the state's capital, we are on a giant bridge across the mighty Brahmaputra river flowing southwards, with some barges on it this morning.

Alongside, the hilly terrain runs a vast camp of the Indian Army and beyond, the quiet rural landscape.

We turn left off the highway, into Nalbari and on the one kilometer stretch, I notice at least five large billboards with prime minister Narendra Modi beaming at you. Electric rickshaws alone are allowed to ply inside the town, its main road abuzz this morning.

I have made contact with Manoj Sarma of 'Dainik Asom' daily and he asks me to be at the gate of the collectorate. Out of the crowd emerge two men and you know they are hackers!

Mazid (left) and Sarma at a restaurant: the WhatsApp page active on their smartphones

We adjourn to a popular restaurant because Manoj and his community of stringer journalists work from home and the local Press Club has got a new address at the city square but the place isn't ready yet - the doors, windows and all else are being fitted now.

Sarma is keen to take me down the past - to a local reporter's work life in the outbacks. "We used to write our reports on paper and fax them. But getting the line connected took over 30 minutes. Then we used couriers to send reports ( to Guwahati) or send them and photos by bus. In the 80s, the phone lines were bad so it was a struggle to report breaking news."

Abdul Mazid joins us at the table here; he strings for a couple of dailies ( 'Dainik Agradoot' and 'Eastern Chronicle') and runs his own printing press. Everybody who works as a Stringer in the districts here is either running a business or selling insurance or engaged in retail business.

Sarma and Mazid now own laptops and since the lines are good, filing from home is easy. "But most of us simply file from our phones if the news is a few lines and if photos have to be sent. All by WhatsApp, " Sarma tell us as chai is ordered and two more Stringers join us.

A newspaper shop in Nalbari, and the clutch of dailies of the day

Nalbari has about 20 media people; with some 14 working for newspapers and the rest for TV channels. Across this district, Sarma estimates that over 100 Stringers provide news to their clients.

Kamlesh Sarma who works for 'Asomiya Pratidin' here says they click pictures or record interviews to store as evidence - evidence to use if stories are challenged. And those challenges come from this town and from people who are written about.

"At election time we send two or three stories every day and if there is an event or a rally, we send photos. Our newspapers use them in the local editions. But our big grouse is on payment. Even the MNREGA payment made to people who work for the state is higher than what we sometimes get," says one of them.

Town square, with the Press Club on the top floor of the central building

Sarma and his colleagues take me to a bookstore when I ask to buy all the local dailies of the day. They then insist that I take the two storeys to their under-construction Press Club. They shoot a photo of myself in their group.

The next morning, in Guwahati I find that photo and a 4 line news story in one of the dailies.

I have made local news!

The Old Lady of Guwahati grapples with new tech: 'Assam Tribune' experience

Office of Assam Tribune, Guwahati

I am scheduled to meet the executive editor of Assam's oldest English newspaper, The Assam Tribune.

Started in 1939, The Assam Tribune had the cake and ate it heartily for many decades until the promoters of  dailies in Kolkata decided to increase their footprint. The Telegraph started an edition here and thereafter, the Times of India. The Old Lady of Guwahati got some rude shocks, woke up to increasing competition, rejigged its content and promotionals and survived the challenges from many ends.

Today, the Tribune runs two editions - in Guwahati and in Dibrugarh.

Page One of the Assam Tribune

Much of what the mainline newspapers have been publishing on the elections on the north-east has been primarily because of the consistent and high-profile campaigns that the BJP has been making in this region.

And the BJP has not been shy from making its intent known - get a bigger footprint here.

On Guwahati's main road, the shopping hub, the image of Narendra Modi beams down from multi-storeyed complexes. Save for the odd mini-vans of the BJP and of the Congress which blasts recorded slogans, the election buzz is low profile.

It is well past 8 p.m. when I walk into the office of the Assam Tribune. In the corridors, the staff are crowding at notice boards and are animated. I learn that the results of the elections of the Staff Union have been announced.

Executive executive Prasanta J. Baruah  says he will be with me once he sees off some key stories.

So I catch up with Ramanuj Dutta Choudhury, Deputy Editor in his cabin. When he learns that I am from Chennai, Ramanuj says he just stopped his subscription of the Kolkata edition of  'The Hindu' because it was giving him too much of news from Kolkata city when his expectation was for news from the state and region.

Deputy Editor Ramanuj at his desk

Noticing that he is scrolling the website of his newspaper ( www.assamtribune.com), I ask him to tell me about their online experience. He does not have a long story. The website is a simple, old generation one, with National news dominating the top, links to videos sourced from different places and a generous roundup of local news that does not get great play on the home page. There are a few local adverts.

Ramanuj says the Tribune's E-paper generates good traffic. And he lets me know that in recent months, a good percentage of traffic is from China! But he does not know why.

With such basic online operations, the Tribune is yet to move to a multi-media, tech-driven News Room. And hence, its reporters are not GenNext hackers.

Executive editor Baruah admits the Tribune has much to do to be in line with the technology age of journalism. He takes me down to the times when the Tribune seemed complacent because it was the No.1 newspaper of Assam and assumed that local editions started by The Telegraph and Times of India, from their bases in Kolkata would not affect them much. They did, so the Tribune woke up, ran a tough phase in changed content and marketing and circulation and saw through the competition.

Newspapers like the Tribune in Assam face a big human resource problem. There aren't skilled, educated youth who fit the bill. So, publishing a daily is a challenge by itself.

In Assam: Why 'Asomiya Pratidin' is not excited about investing in its web operations

Promo for a local news website in Guwahati

I am taking a morning flight from Hyderabad to Guwahati. And there is a long queue leading to the aircraft on the tarmac. Most are young people.

"Going home?" I ask the man in front of me.

He nods.

"Do you work here in Hyderabad?," I prod.

"Yes"

I want to ask him more questions but he doesn't seem keen and turns away.

The local office of the Congress party

Later, I get to know that the Guwahati planes are fairly packed because hundreds and hundreds of young people seek employment in the cities of Hyderabad and Bengaluru - in construction, hospitality and in the service sectors.

"If they get paid some 250 rupees here they earn at least 600 in cities outside," says the Ola taxi driver who takes me to the city centre inching his way on a busy road that runs alongside the giant Brahmaputra river.

There is little evidence that the Lok Sabha election in on save for a stray van fitted with Congress party flags that races past us.

I have an appointment with Partha Goswami, the young, experienced News Editor of Asomiya Pratidin.

The newspaper, whose office is located off the busy G. S. Road now has four editions - in Guwahati, Dibrugarh, Bongaigaon and in Lakhimpur and claims to be the largest circulated Assamese daily.

 Goswami tells me that it has been a tradition in the News Room to send senior journalists to any big news event that breaks out anywhere in India.

"We sent our man to your Chennai when Jayalalithaa ( Tamil Nadu's iconic chief minister passed away," he says.

 Asomiya was started as a weekly, then became a daily and thence, the desk posted the E-paper online. A TV channel, 'Pratidin Time' was started later and finally, a portal was launched.

The daily has a bunch of reporters across Assam as well as stringers who relay the news from the outbacks.

All the reporters have the language software loaded on their smartphones which allows them to sign into WhatsApp to send snappy reports and photos.

Recent investments has been on the TV channel. That is a given since like in many Indian states, viewership of TV is high and the advertising bucks go there.

Goswami gives me the impression that 'Asomiya' has still not invested resources and money in its website. His reasoning is that the uneven economic development in Assam keeps people engaged in looking for employment and making ends meet. 

"In such  scenario, people really don't spend lots of time online to be updated on news on Assam," says Goswami.

But just metres away from his office, on the busy G. S. Road a few bus stands flaunt recent ad promos of a private news website, which promises wide coverage of the Lok Sabha elections.
Clearly, independent news entrepreneurs are clicking where the media gaps are in this state. 

A BJP campaign office comes up outside a new shopping complex on Guwahati's main road

Fakes news, 24x7 television. Impact on a Telugu newspaper

Congress campaign on the highway outside Hyderabad city

We raced across town, trying to beat the traffic of the post 5.30 pm peak time of Hyderabad.' Andhra Jyothi', a leading Telugu daily was my destination and its editorial office is located in the upmarket Jubilee Hills area. 

If large billboards of Chandrababu Naidu greeted us in Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh, the visage of chief minister of Telangana, K. Chandrashekar Rao  who leads the TRS ( Telangana Rashtra Samithi) beams at us at all the road junctions and from the pillars of the city's Metro rail service.

Andhra Jyothi office in Hyderabad

Andhra Jyothi is a leading Telugu newspaper. The group also has a new website ( www.andhrajyothy.com) and a TV channel, called ABN Andhra Jyothi. Its present promoter is a man whose life, some say is a rags-to-riches story while others say he played smart in the state's politics and made hay when the sun shone.  The TV channel has courted many controversies.

Jubilee Hills is the address of the rich and famous, and of lifestyle stores of top brands. At the multi-storeyed building of Andhra Jyothi, Floor One has large cabin spaces created across a very large hall and in one corner, inside a cabin is the newspaper's editor, Dr. K. Srinivas. With him is a News Feature Editor: they suspend their conversation when I enter.

Editor of Andhra Jyothi, Dr K. Srinivas

There seems to have been a heated editorial meet earlier that evening. Because Andhra Jyothi got suckered into publishing a 'fake' report. And Srinivas is not holding back in sharing with me the huge lapse.

It was a Sunday. A report floating on social media - it wrapped the results of what claimed to be a poll survey in Andhra Pradesh. And it indicated that the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) led by Chandrababu Naidu was climbing up in the ratings against his challenger, Jaganmohan Reddy. Now this result went against the buzz that was floating in that state - that Jaganmohan's party was drawing the most attention across the state.

The Delhi desk of Andhra Jyothi came across this piece of 'news' early on Sunday. That the so-called results were published on the letter-head of  CSDS-Lok Niti, a social science research institute based in Delhi made an impression on the newspaper's journalists. 

One of them tried to call the agency to confirm the 'news' but being a Sunday, could not complete what is the ABC of a newsperson. The desk seems to have had a chat with the newspaper's Hyderabad desk and since it was a lean Sunday team at work, the 'news' was not relayed to a senior editor.

The 'news' was filed from Delhi and front-paged.  The agency that was credited with the survey called the editor's office, saying it had not put out the results of any survey and that the letter-head circulating on social media had been 'faked'.

There were many red faces at Monday's editorial meeting. And to rub it in, a rival Telugu newspaper 'shamed' Andhra Jyothi for publishing fake news, hinting that the daily was trying to mop up support for the TDP.

"Technology has made us vulnerable," Srinivas tells me. "The character of news reporting and publishing has changed a lot and elections shows this up."

Srinivas wears the look and talks like an academic. Behind him are shelves stocked with books, his table loaded with books, magazines, newspapers and files. He takes me through the evolution of journalism since the 80s.  To emphasise the changing character of print journalism.

"I came into journalism when reports were sent and received on teleprinters. We had only two editions ( Hyderabad and Vijaywada). And we depended on two news agencies, UNI and PTI and if it ( news) was from the PTI, we trusted the news. Today, the character of journalism has changed."

Today, news flows from the 1200 mandals of Telangana and AP. "With smartphones and social media news travels thick and fast and the sources are many so credibility is at stake," Srinivas says.

Screen shot of Andhra Jyothi's website

24-hours television is also impacting print journalists. Elections generate not only live coverage of public meetings and rallies but controversies, allegations and colored gossip every hour and most channels put these out as quick as they can.

"Our journalists get excited with what comes on TV. We have to keep tempering them," says Srinivas.

What Srinivas does not elaborate on is the content of his group's own TV channel, which has been into controversies following sting operations and the highly pro-TDP stance that it takes; all of which is acknowledged by people across this state.

Clearly, 24-hour TV programming is heated up at elections time. And it is the biggest influencer on reportage by print journalists - the stringers, the reporters and the desk.

Hyderabad blues; drawing a blank at Eenadu

Billboard of the TRS party at a busy intersection in Hyderabad.

Hyderabad does not seem to have peak hours. Because the roads are choc-a-bloc through the day and late into the night.

From my base in Lakdi-ka-Pul I am hoping to get calls from the Desk of three news organizations. (Being on an assignment where I travel to cities and towns, make blind calls to newspapers and am open to conversations with whoever has the time that day, I celebrate any interviews that come my way).

I am keen to meet up with the head of the Internet Division of Eenadu here in Hyderabad.  Started in 1974 by businessman Ramoji Rao, Eenadu revolutionized the world of Indian journalism by designing and publishing editions for all the districts of the former Andhra region and took it deeper - to the mandal level - when the then chief minister N T Rama Rao rejigged the state's administrative model.

I recall a talk that Eenadu's senior executive gave at a national media conference, as he made a presentation on the founding ideas and early success of this Telugu newspaper. He flashed an image on the screen of a small advert with a visual of a cow.

"We have fixed, standard designs when we market in the cattle market zones of the state," he said. "A space for a photo of the client's cattle and dummy lines where the client's message is written. The client gets to see the advert up front, the photo of the cattle is shot on the spot and the deal is done."

Eenadu not only circulated deep, and continues to do so. It also tapped a huge, untapped advertising market and reaped huge rewards. 

Eenadu is now a huge media business - films, studios, TV, internet, multi-media . . .

Today in Hyderabad, I was keen to listen to Eenadu's experience of leveraging New Media in its newspapers. A senior journalist promised to talk informally but later, refused to answer my calls to confirm our meeting. He then put me on to the HR department. HR asked me to e-mail my questions, which I did. 24 hours later I received a reply. Eenadu was not keen to provide details.

I was not surprised.

Tweeting Battleground Vijayawada: The New Indian Express scenario

We race to Vijayawada in the afternoon. A line of giant hoardings hold up images of Chandrababu Naidu, chief minister of Andhra Pradesh and leader of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP). Daytime temperature is hovering close to 40 degrees.

Kalyan Chakravarthy, resident editor of 'The New Indian Express' newspaper is willing to meet up but finds that he may have little time since he is traveling out. He puts me on to his deputy, Hareesh. 

As we drive through the evening peak hour traffic, a small band of BJP supporters drum up some attention for their candidate here. I take a few photos. The candidate stops, smiles and wishes us with folded hands. It is the first time in some days that I have come face to face with a candidate this election season.

Hareesh has just ended his daily evening meet up with his Desk when I pop into the conference hall of the Express. Hareesh seems to be the go-to person at election time. 'Indian Express' has sent him to regional Desks from Hyderabad when the fever rises. His last stint was at Tirupati in 2014; and now he has been posted to Vijayawada.

"If, once journalists could watch live telecasting of the campaign meetings of party leaders and report, today the communication is via Twitter and WhatsApp," Hareesh tells me.

Indian Express' Hareesh

There has been a dramatic change in how political party leaders communicate. "Chandra Babu Naidu ( TDP leader) is on Twitter throughout his campaign. So we keep one eye on it," says Hareesh.

What Hareesh and his Indian Express colleagues don't trust are the endless stream of messaging that fills their WhatsApp accounts. "If there is some stuff that we feel is newsworthy then we cross check the veracity and try and get to the source," he says.

Hareesh says social media communication has almost killed the classic on-field assignments that reporters were given or looked forward to. 

"Yes, one can get the gist of the speech of a leader or watch a public meeting at our own desk but nothing beats the field assignment, especially at election time," he tells me.

The Express is encouraging its reporters to tweet snappy news and videos too and the response from readers is 'good'.

However, New Media is yet to enthuse the above-50 group of journalists here. They are tech-challenged.

In Ongole, the Sakshi newspaper works up its Stringers across the district

We hit the highway from Nellore even as the morning traffic in the town got thicker. Every half a kilometer, you spot a factory or a mill or a cluster of workshops on either side of the highway.

Our destination is Ongole, the headquarters of Prakasam district.

On the fringe of the town, we catch a mini-van in campaign mode, its loud speaker blaring slogans in Telugu. In the heart of Ongole, at a traffic intersection we spot a massive statue, fully covered, its hand pointing to a sign board that urges people to vote.

This practice of covering statues of political leaders is new. We saw this happen in Chennai. It is followed here - is this yet another rule of the Election Commission?

I have an appointment with the Bureau Chief of the Telugu newspaper, 'Sakshi'. This newspaper does not hide its colors or hold back its sympathies. It is the newspaper of the YSR Congress Party  of young politician Jaganmohan Reddy, son of a well known and popular Congress leader and chief minister of the then united Andhra Pragesh, Y. S. Rajashekara Reddy who lost his life in an air crash.

Jagan Reddy has kept alive his political fortunes with all kinds of campaigns, traversing the corners of this coastal state.

There is a double poll to be held here. People will vote for the state Assembly elections and they will also elect members of Parliament. Jagan's rival is the old warhorse Chandrababu Naidu of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP).

The buzz is that Jaganmohan's party is leading in the popularity race as of now.

File photo of Telugu newspapers seen in Ongole

In a quiet street of Ongole, Sakshi's office is located on the first floor of a bungalow. The morning meeting of Stringers and Bureau Heads is in session in one room; the door of the Bureau Head is closed after I am shown a seat in the Reporters' Room. Journalism is highly competitive in the Andhra region. And that competitiveness runs deep, even to the mandal level.

I pass time by running through a file of the tabloid section of the local edition of Sakshi. Some 50% of the 16 pages carry news and pictures on the elections. News in the mandals. A few pages feature tutorials on science - these are aimed at high school students who are taking their finale exams. I realise that the Sakshi group also has an educational business arm.

Prakasam district is one of Andhra's less shining district. Droughts have driven farmers to crisis after crisis, farm labour migrate far out and sharp businessmen make the best of the granite resources here.

Sakshi, like all leading Telugu newspapers has built a network of journalists who must cover right down to the local regions. Each of the 46 mandals has a Sakshi stringer ( a part timer) and there are 10 stringers in Ongole town, this being the district headquarters. This big team report to the Bureau Head and to the Edition Head.

Chendu, Sakshi's Bureau Head calls me in after a marathon meeting in a closed room. And he gives me the background to the genesis and growth of mandal-level journalism that has given rise to Stringers-based journalism.

When the charismatic actor-politician N. T. Rama Rao came to power in A. P. on the back of a massive popular vote for regional pride, he re-jigged the administrative set-up, giving importance even to the mandals.

"This gave rise to a new breed of local politicians and political activity and indirectly led to newspaper's appointing Stringer's to cover local news," explains Chendu. "Smartphones and social media platforms has helped their communication a lot."

Stringers use their handphones to click pictures, record long speeches ( to cull key points to use in their copy) and when it comes to a sharp deadline, they file stories in Telugu from the news spots via WhatsApp.

"We have many centers across the district where there are personal computers for the Stringers to use," explains Chendu. "The facilities are provided to ensure news flows seamlessly, especially at times like elections."

What Chendu does not tell me is that all these part-timers get paid a paltry sum of money for their efforts.

At Sakshi's Ongole headquarters some 12 sub-editors keep track of all the Stringers as their copy e-mailed to this centre in Ongole flows in post early afternoon. 

"Our circulation is up by 20,000 copies since elections were announced," Chendu tells me. 

"So people want to read the news even though economic conditions are bad here?", I ask.

"They do," says Chendu.

This 'PC is the regional news nerve centre

E-paper version of Andhra Jyothi newspaper; the tabloid section for a region

We went looking for Andhra Jyothi newspaper's Nellore PC Head. Nagaraju.

Located in a  colony behind the RTC bus station, in an independent house that wasn't well lit, we were greeted by one of the stringers of this Telugu newspaper. He took us to Nagaraju, who we had seen having a smoke in the verandah just minutes earlier.

One look and I knew Nagaraju had had yet another long, tough day. And it wasn't really over although it was 9.15 p.m.

On his desk was a computer's monitor and keyboard, with wires running on to another desk where a CPU, its panels removed.

"So what does PC stand for," I ask.

"It has been called PC for ages and I don't know why," Nagaraju tells me.

Nagaraju is a veteran journalist. Under him are some 10 stringers who feed him news of Nellore town. Some 100-plus stringers ( all part timers) cover the 46 mandals covered by the Nellore edition of Andhra Jyothi. 

These stories feed the tabloid section of the daily. And since it is election time, every bit of any significant political development at the deepest end of the region gets reported.

PC offices are spread across the region, each headed by a full-time journalist. Stringers attached to each centre file copy from these offices. 

Currently, if they are covering campaigns or public meetings at night, the stringers have three tech options to use to beat deadline.

1. File copy on WhatsApp - a software that all stringers possess on their phones allows them to type in Telugu.

2. Dictate copy into the phone and let a software produce the copy which needs some correction/editing.

3. Call the operator at the PC centre, dictate news copy to him.

Andhra Jyothi's Nagaraju showing the Telugu report filed via WhatsApp

Copy filed to the various PCs, is vetted and then sent to the Desk at the edition centre.

Nagaraju says his challenge today is to caution young stringers on fake or manipulated news and videos. ( This election season, there are lots of 'manipulated' videos/visuals).

He clicks on his handphone and plays a 20-second video clip. Its shows Varaprasada, the candidate of Gudur Assembly constituency who is on a street, talking animatedly with a few people, even as he waves his hands and often raises his voice.

"This video clip was on social media this morning, claiming that the candidate was drunk and shouting at people on the street," explains Nagaraju.

That video clip then got on to many local news channels, which had exclusive election coverage bulletins. It was now news.

Nagaraju says he wanted to cross check; so he called his stringer in the area where the 'incident' took place, to get to the facts. People at the spot told the stringer that the candidate was not drunk but seemed frustrated and agitated and that explained his behaviour.

"I reported the story of the video clip and also mentioned the facts in the report we just filed," said Nagaraju.

Correspondent of English Daily Speaks. Still in Nellore.

The Kolkata - Kanyakumari highway gets hugely busy after dusk. Trucks, private buses and cars clog the road and most drive at top speed. Nellore town is just off this highway.

We cross the busy road and head to the town's fringe, to the local office of Deccan Chronicle, a longstanding English newspaper with multi editions.

The only correspondent here, Pathri Rajasekhar had suggested that I come by after 8 p.m. because his editors would sit on his head to get his day's copy.

DC, as this newspaper is know around here has a sprawling office - its printing press on the ground floor and offices on the first.

A few admin and advertising executives were still at their desks and the photographer was leaving office after submitting pictures of the day.

Rajasekhar walked to the reception desk, his eyes scanning the messages on his WhatsApp page on his handphone.

"At régional levels all journalists here are part of many WhatsApp groups, " he told me. "Groups of the political parties, of candidates and our local journalists."

Besides, people also send many messages which they believe the media may be interested in.

"So while we constantly have to check messages we also have to trash many of them."

Rajasekhar sticks to the old ways of filing stories - from his PC at his desk in the office. Rarely does he file stories using his hand device. Nor does he shoot visuals.

"Unless there is a news break at the midnight hour, I file from office," he told me.

On the road. In Nellore, coastal Andhra Pradesh

On Friday, March 29 we drive down from Chennai northwards. Our intention was to cover coastal Andhra Pradesh where the TDP party led by Chandra Babu Naidu runs the government.

Our first destination was Nellore.

I have been to Nellore in recent times, accompanying a researcher, D. Hemchandra Rao who studies the Buckingham Canal.

Dusk has fallen as we drive off the busy highway and into the edge of the city.

The correspondent of Deccan Chronicle English newspaper Pathiri Rajasekhar promises to meet me after 8 p.m. He has a couple of stories to file and a deadline to keep.

So we drive to the local Editorial office and printing press centre of a widely circulated Telugu newspaper, Andhra Jyothi.

All around this office are roadside carpenters who make stools, stands and altar stands from ordinary wood. There were some one dozen of them and clearly was a market for these products.

Andhra Jyothi's local manager Harikrishna was friendly. He was keen to talk to us though I asked him if we could meet one of his senior sub-editors. In Andhra Pradesh, the managerial and editorial staff at district levels seem to work closely with the local operations manager being the boss for all things.

Harikrishna, after much coaxing called for Ramakrishna, the Nellore edition in charge and we stood in the drive way to converse. 

Clearly, there was no way I would be allowed to walk up to the Newsroom even for a 15-minute conversation. Ramakrishna held his handphone all the time and often stuck his earphones to take calls. He spoke little and allowed the manager to do all the talking.

Newspapers in this state and in Telangana, the state which was carved out of the larger Andhra Pradesh after a long, fiery agitation and campaign have followed a system which one assumed was rolled out by the Big Daddy, the Eenadu newspaper.

First, cover the news at the village zone level upwards. Pack such news and visuals into tabloid pullouts. Insert those tabloids into district level editions - anywhere between 22 to 26 in all.

With Eenadu being hugely successful with this strategy, other newspapers followed this quickly.

The new form of journalism and production called for new methods of news coverage. 

That is how part-timer reporters came into being with each newspaper having over 1000 / 2000 part timers who fed the multi-editions news of deaths, accidents, water shortages and political fallouts from a cluster of villages or from different zones of a small town.

"If you want to understand how this system works and how the staff use technology you must meet our PC head," suggested manager Harikrishna, realising he had given me close to 30 minutes and his Edition Head was being kept away from the busy desk that night!

A Karnataka Experience; of multi-tasking journalists

In May 2018, I chose to flesh out an assignment for a documentary film.

The south Indian state of Karnataka was going to the polls, holding elections to the state assembly and the election was expected to follow a bitter, competitive one with three political parties - the Congress, Janata Dal (S) and the BJP.

I chose to make the coastal town of Mangaluru ( Mangalore) my base and the focus of my shoot was on How Journalists Cover Local Elections'.

Covering Mangaluru and its suburbs, unto the temple town of Udupi and as far north as Kundapur in Karnataka, this assignment gave me a closer view of Indian journalists at work in this time and age.

Of significance was the multi0-skilling talks many were undertaking.

At a press conference held at the Mangaluru office of the Congress party, no less than ten journalists juggled with their handphones and ear sets and their pens and writing pads.

At least three of them held up a small camera in the left hand and the handphone in the right; in between they kept taking short notes.

To get to at least one experience of this multi-tasking I spent some time with Violet Pereira who with her husband runs a small news/community website. 

Sitting in a 200 sq ft office in a large building owned by the Catholic church, the heritage Milagres  Church located across the busy road, I got to understand how Violet effortlessly juggled between two tech gadgets as she covered the Karnataka elections.

Elsewhere in Mangaluru, in a meeting I had with the then Chief of Bureau of Deccan Herald, a widely circulated English newspapers with its headquarters in Bengaluru, I realised that Dr. Ronald A. Fernandes silll stuck to the classic old method of field reporting - notepad and pen. 

His newspaper did not expect him to also share snappy videos though Deccan Herald had a website. Visuals were sent by the newspaper's full-time photographer.

The documentary has taken time in post production and should be in the public domain in June / July 2019.

Meanwhile, as the run-up to India's Lok Sabha elections got hotter earlier this year I decided to embark on another assignment - a written one.

The theme - How Do India's Print Journalists Leverage New Media at Elections time.

The grand plan is to travel through 9/12 states in various parts of India, talk to journalists who work for newspapers at state capital, district headquarters and mandal/taluk level and document their experiences.

This is a tough task with elections to be held in 7 phases across April and May. It is summertime and criss crossing India does pose some challenges.

Photo: Congress leader Ivan D' Souza addresses the media in Mangaluru. Courtesy: Daijiworld.com