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!