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.