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[Music] welcome mr vasquez happy to have you with us uh for the interest of our viewers please help us please let them know who you are and introduce yourself here my uh windows larger group of people who actually trying to understand climate change and report on it and try and tell stories and put out information which is relevant and which is uh able to teach people more about climate change and all of these conversations other than that other than climate change i think i also report on the intersection of how it interacts with land uh society and uh environment so the intersections are also very important so that's my primary uh role as our journalist but other than that obviously uh i also work with a lot of people a lot of civil society organizations to sort of help them uh with the information that i have the information that i can access as a journalist to be able to drive their uh campaigns forward or to just like inform their campaigns in any manner i can so yeah you can say that i'm just like more than journalists you can say that i'm a climate communicator is at the core for investment as much as i know how do you think uh data adds value to these journalism stories and why why why is data not used for every story that is available on there okay so let's just let me just say it how it is data is a very important part of a story but most of the time it may not be the story so uh it's all data is people basically it's always about people and what data actually does in most of our stories is to give you a context that you know uh whatever you are going through or whatever is happening with you around you in your society is not an isolated incident uh it it's it's you know happening across is a perspective the data might provide or it's not happening across is a perspective that data might provide and the larger conversation about you know uh when you're trying to identify a social problem and trying to tackle it data always uh helps you to see through the debris of information to reach a conclusion where it might just you know provide you with a solution that you're trying to find through your journalism so it's mostly about giving clarity and context uh that we use data for it it does uh form the core of our work but uh i think uh ground reporting being on the field speaking to people is also very much a priority for us journalists right and uh i believe with ground reporting and data being at being the two pillars of it has been sourcing and making sure that you pick up the right sources and quote the right sources it is also extremely important for someone like you why do you think that this practice is somehow fading away in today's news media industry in india if so why it's so uh i think it's because it so i've also worked with the newspapers before before becoming a digital or a multimedia journalist i think it started with the space crunch problem in newspapers because when you are trying to provide attribution to a data point it will take at least two to three lines for you to be able to say uh what's the data about where did it come from what was the date where can i find it or where can the reader find it if he she wants to find it provide all of this context and attribution to that data point you'll have to write two lines and you'll mostly you mostly only have three paragraphs of four paragraphs in a daily newspaper we are trying to report an issue on an issue uh i think it started from there and eventually became a practice and i also know i've had conversations and i also know a couple of journalists who only do it because do not add confusion uh you know to the theme that they're trying to the story that they're trying to tell about although in my personal view i do think that you attributing your data you telling where did you get this data from and giving an extra link along with the full name of the report or the source of the report does not meddle with your storytelling but for to some it does so they might just you know want a reader to trust them that wherever they've gotten the data from is correct and they've verified it it works for some people for us at india spend i think the core is that you know you can't put out any data without the attribution without making sure that it's coming from the right sources by light sources i mean the so you when you work with data long enough you know the what are the most trusted sources why are they good or if there are any problems with them and it's most of the time as journalists because we know we some of some data scientists later become journalists so they have the bandwidth and the expertise to verify a data point and you know just like call it out if it's wrong on the methodology part but a journal like a like a journalist which is commonly trying to use data to provide larger bigger context for them it might not be possible to verify your data but i think in that case uh the good practice that you can do is to just like put the data out attribution out let others use that data interact with that data and also put the methodology out if you see if you think that there is some problem in the method methodology you cannot put a finger on it's always a good practice to put that methodology in the copy tell the reader that you know this data has been collected by so and so sources with uh with this much of a sample size from these in these regions and then you can also always reach out to independent experts who data scientists data experts and give them the source let them also analyze the data for you seek their help they will also be able to tell you if you know uh they will help you they'll be helping you to verify that data so i think as a journalist journalist sloan has has always been a postman put your like take a letter from somebody and deliver it deliver it to somebody else uh but now we are going through a time where it can't be limited to that you uh you know what the the famous the conversation that we keep doing that about objectivity so objectivity does not necessarily mean that i can provide space to in my copies right so it's also my job to verify first and then put out the information is verified so i think that's a that's a role that every all of us will have to take and we don't have to do it ourselves we can always reach out to people quote them in our stories put their names out um so be true to your readers be true to your copies and just like write it all out i think that's the biggest service that we can do in in terms of conversation and data data is used in journalism and in general uh for your credibility right so do you think uh data when data and sources when added to a story does it desensitize or de-glamorize a particular piece depends on who's reading it okay uh so there is a leadership for people who just want to just want to read data they uh and we've have we've always had as journalists we've always interacted with these kind of people we had these people coming to us telling us that you know what we don't care about your observation your analysis just give us the data tell us the main point we we're educated enough to make sense of that but i mean it's for them to uh be able to make sense of it but there are like other section of our leadership which is which wants to which wants us to give them a context because the context is always important yeah i mean i was watching this netflix series where this character gives a dialogue that you know universal laws are for la context is for kings now by this code they meant that you know you you laws will tell you black and white but if in mind you'll probably try and look beyond it and find the context in laws so similarly for data as well when you that putting that context is journalists uh job and we should always be able to provide it although data stories and data stories are not something which is glamorized and which is not sensationalized or not but that is something which is happening with a lot of stories which are put out both in newspapers and broadcasters and especially on online media for that matter do you think that is leading to sidelining of the important issues or maybe sidelining of stories which should make headlines better not later not not being able to um see that struggle i think is not limited to or specific to data journalism yeah i think this has been a struggle for journalism in general uh with regard to most of the important topics that should be spoken about but not even space because something sensational something political something finds a space because it has a better leadership value um so i don't think it's the data which is making a story boring and thereby leading uh it to not find space i think it's general it's in general the issue you can write uh about you can use the data to write a very uh catchy story on crime or on um or just like on anything that you know i anything eye grabbing and it will so i think the data is not the problem it's the it has always been the historical problem of what people find interesting to read and what exactly are they reading and what should they be reading the distinction between this is the answer to your question actually it's not i think about data it's more or less about what people should read and what they're reading it's about what tv should show and what is it what is it showing right now right so do you think that journalists in general hold this power where they decide what people should see and are they utilizing this power well or are they putting out product products and content which people want to see but is probably not that what they should see i think a lot of filteration is happening i think the filteration is sometimes conscious and most of the times it's conditioned um at the end of the day we all i mean we are passionate about whatever we are writing about but uh most of us come from very humble families and we don't have questions to you know uh some some days say that uh if the organization or if somebody or uh some outlet is not letting us write about uh that should be written about we will leave our jobs you know what so uh at the end of the day we all are just also trying to save our jobs and i'm not saying that organizations tend to organization are dictating what to write and what not to write although it is also happening in some places but it's mostly about the silent process in newsrooms where the things that you shouldn't be writing on are discouraged and the way these stories are discouraged uh and the process that goes behind this discouragement and behaving to like it it's about how silently indirectly i can make you feel that if you write about this thing it won't get published it won't space and how we without realizing fall for it we start writing things that are and we know that our editor will approve you know in a heartbeat and will go with our byline rather than writing about things that should be written about and fighting for them with our haters a vibrant newsroom is always chaotic it cannot be it cannot uh sound like look like a look like another corporate office where no discussion is happening and everybody's following instructions uh so i think it's a very silent process how it's conditioned in your brain that you know this is something that you can write about this is something that you cannot write about you're allowed to be you you're allowed to take the liberty with your copy this much and this is a line which needs to be drawn and and most of the time um i also think that it's like all these editors who's conditioning it in your brain are not evil they do not want you to write about these things everybody uh have their own experiences and i think uh their experience drives their understanding and they want you to work in cognizance with their understanding of the topic which i think shouldn't happen which i do think a good editor who's leading a team should always be open to the thought to their thought process or to their knowledge or to their style of work be challenged from anybody uh because at the end of the day again we all are journalists uh we're not there was a reason why we did not choose corporate jobs and we chose journalism over anything else there was a reason why we wanted to write about a certain topic that you're writing on today so and in the process i think we all are human we sometimes we going through over or our own things and we sometimes lose the sight of it that you know uh yeah so i think it's very silent and most of the time right unconscious right so for the next question how do you think social media has played a role both in news media and in the traditional media the pros the cons like what are your thoughts on social media coming in and uh taking over journalism or news delivery for that matter well i can only comment uh what i think about what social media has done for us journalists it has made us slaves to our own profiles it has it made all of us turn ourselves into products where we're constantly trying to sell ourselves and sometimes with our work sometimes with our opinions and and then later on we find it difficult to realize that those opinions on your social media are fine but they can't creep into your copies which they eventually start doing because again we're only human what if we have strong opinions about something it will reach our copies um and that's fine uh those copies also find leadership but ethically that's not what we should have been doing but again as i said it's a changing time like we journalism will always reflect reflect the times we're living in it can't happen in isolation uh what a practice like law practicing law there are rules but those those rules are being broken by people you're reporting on you will sometimes also have to break some rules so all i'm trying to say that so it will always be a reflection of the society you're living in the time you're living in your reaction journalists reaction to stories and how they cover those stories so i guess uh i think that the only drawback that i see is that a lot of journalists uh feeling this pressure of selling themselves on social media um a that b i also think that because a lot of digital platforms won't want to excel on social media they have this policy of inviting opinions from already from people who are already influential on these social media platforms and sometimes uh not only like they do not only get space to write on things but they also get jobs as journalists but they have not put in those years of learning about the practice um what is what can what we can't do um and that's fine i think anybody can become a journalist it's not like a rocket science but i do think that when somebody uh from social media space reaches the newsroom and starts writing stories on things that they were already putting out their opinions on social media and that is why they became famous uh sort of the the end product and the impact it has sort of meddles with the uh overall respect that journalism has uh i mean with its credibility right credibility is in question a lot so and do you think that uh question and credibility comes in because they have not been trained as a journalist or uh is it because they have some other means and motives and that is why they're not just credible to begin with i mean it's it's very interpersonal nobody can answer this question actually it's uh very personal i mean you could be motivated yeah to a propaganda and i may not be or i may be motivated towards a certain line of thought so it's very individualistic but i do feel that you know this constant pressure of holding a view on social media for journalists and finding a space for themselves and actually the process of organizations finding journalists important if they have a good reach on social media yeah this this developing evolving ecosystem is becoming very problematic for newsrooms right and what do you think is the main problem that is coming out of this is it leading to uh destruction of the smaller media houses or maybe is it leading to better journalists not getting the limelight what is the main problem coming out of this i think it's what you said and like much more like sometimes i mean a good reporter always finds its voice but sometimes it can happen that you know somebody would feel neglected in their own organizations because they don't have a good reach and because digital organizations are also very small yeah they're very interpersonal they're not like huge conglomerate journalism houses where like 100 people are working on a floor and not all of them know each other yeah so it can lead to a lot of interpersonal uh problems and and and and thereby you know uh taking these like reaching the these problems also reach the work and yeah so so i don't i still don't think that i'm not thought about it enough but this is the whatever i've told you something that i see in front of me unfolding uh across me across organizations do you think this also brings about polarization in the presentation of facts uh because i personally believe that media right now is highly polarized and as you said media is a reflection of the times that we live in so do you think this polarization is being caused because of because of social media and what can be a solution to this i think uh so and of course not to discredit all the good that it also does to the society but yeah talking about challenges just played a giant role in polarizing and how the information is put out is again polarized and your whatever you just said is absolutely correct because uh everybody is trying to uh reach to larger number of people and tell them their story their original story so and this fight is being like it's it's happening daily over twitter like we always find there are these organizations that always will put out and you will say something and then they will put out the different version of it and they would say that you know you reported it from a bias and you just now put it out from how it is so that kind of uh this thing has started happening over twitter a lot this did not used to happen earlier because even if three reporter reporting uh on the same story uh it was always said that you know everybody every reporter will might that i mean their stories might match in the about the in-depth details but they're all adding something to the to the topic but right now this trend about uh organizations putting out stories with a motivation to discredit another organization stories is something very terrible it's it's only it's not helping anybody it's only uh taking journalism to a hole where it just might not be able to come back from for some people i mean it can just like however have a very drastic impact on some readers i mean they would just like stop trusting you all together and it hasn't started happening no yes uh we know these people who say that you know i don't trust news anymore um yeah and then they go on their whatsapps and forward messages that's a different topic for different times how do uh a smaller organization like yours look at the internet and also uh i know that you are not but maybe you have friends who are independent journalists how do they look at internet and how do they look at the social media do they look at it as a boon or do they look at it as a curse i think for all of us we are our digital platform so for all of us uh social media and this digital platform is job uh is like whatever we want to want like aspiring to achieve can only be achieved through this medium so that's the platform forms the core of our work uh how we're using it is something that can be debated or debated upon not like me like how in general the media the digital people people who working on the digital platforms journalists are using it can be inevitable yeah i think for everybody it's a so really it provides a brilliant opportunity to connect to put out stories uh rapidly to uh to reach a larger audience uh so i think the goods are there the the the good points that you can count on about how digital platforms and social media is helping your list are a lot um and then also it's always the you know the coin always has two sides so but i think uh you can't skipping it running from it is the problem that we're facing right now uh because if there is some problem with how some journalists or some people or some platforms are using social media they've come from our own ecosystem uh they've been our colleagues they've been our friends these organizations people running this organization have also run other organizations which were very respectable at some point so it's always and it's also about business so i think selling hate on social media is also a good business because uh it's getting you reach it's getting your money so if you look at it from uh so if you don't look at it from a social scientist perspective any business and man but the moment you put on that ethical lens that should you be doing it as journalists as a journalism platform that is where the distinction lies if if all the citizens of the world started paying for journalism would uh hate and propaganda in the media stop it will okay it will and uh and my views can be debated but i do feel when the audience when the readers start paying for the journalism that they want to read they will make the media independent and and and i i say that because i have not seen the bad sides of it so far i've only seen the good sides i've only seen organizations becoming independent and being able to put out brilliant journalism because readers are paying for that journalism so uh yeah i think it's the answer to your question is yes absolutely right but to this as you said it can be debated and i would just quickly want to put out two uh counters here one that would making journalism a paid product reduce its demo uh democracy if i can use the word i don't know if that's the right one and or make it less democratic and second if everyone's is paying for journalism that doesn't mean that a journalist still can't put out hate or maybe creep as you said hey selling hate is a good business maybe there comes up a new media house which the entire purpose is to sell hate and it has a lot of subscribers and they are selling subscribers they are selling whatever they want in the product so is that really solving the problem of propaganda and hate in the online space or even for that matter cool um so i think um uh you might be correct that there will always be some platforms uh which will use this model to be able to keep themselves running but these will always be spaces funded by funded by audience or readers who want to you know read and foster that hate and uh for better for the lack of a better word i would just say that it's just like it's they're very limited in number um the the examples that i am talking about let's say washington post or new york times or um even back here news laundry a lot of platforms that are you know receive funding from people and people are paying for their journalism have time and again proven uh that you know their journalism and the credibility that they're trying to provide and they can provide if readers fund their organization will always be more the chances of so when you say that if people are buying news or funding the news they want to read it it does not take away the democracy it only makes it more democratic in my view because uh if you're saying so you know what so are we saying that the society our view of the society that we live in is uh correct no i think if but if we allow people to tell their reality and let them shape our understanding um i think that will be a more democratic process than what we have right now where these conglomerates are funded by large corporates and yeah i mean and yeah let me just uh also to your point that the and you're saying and you are also absolutely correct i'm not saying that you know there it will absolutely solve the problem and there will be like not a smidgen of hate left if uh people start paying for their journalism uh that's not the case all i'm trying to say is because let's just assume that you know uh people also send these uh like they're representative to assemblies and parliaments no so they are paying through their individual vote to sponsor somebody to send to a you know an organization or an institution from where they expect those people to work for them correct that is the process of democracy yeah and by like asking people to pay for the news that they want to read so that we are not funded by a government who might have a bias we're not funded by large corporates who might have a bias is only making the news democratic who is reading news yeah we are creating this news for people no so people for paying for their news it's only like making it more democratic and democracy has its problem but you know we'll deal with it when we [Music] journalism does that make it elitist because the poor might not have the money to pay for the peace and that leaves them with maybe poor quality journalism or no journalism at their disposal at all do you think that happening i don't think that i i think it i think the ecosystem will always be a combination of uh models okay i don't think we can uh imagine a utopian journalism model where everybody all the readers are paying for the journalism um like so i think it will always be a combination of models if if you're being realistic but i do feel that whenever and wherever good journalism happens it always reaches it always spills uh through and it reaches the larger public uh because i have spoken to a lot of people uh in my hometown in my village and they were aware of all the scam or not like let's not say um let's not put about talk about a specific incident all the investigations that happen here in delhi by these brilliant journalists uh reaches people it because it it you can't stop information from reaching people you can only try and you know filter it but that's the that's you know that's the strength of this medium you can't stop it right and uh perfect segue into our next question which is uh which says that the internet has removed these filters right there is an information overload where people are not drinking from the glass but are drinking from a water hose every day there's so much information out there do you think uh this removal like of course this removal of filter has left your information overload do you think this should be regulated there should be because it's become really difficult to segregate the good from the bad and to properly label what we should and what we shouldn't consume do you think there should be some regulation at some level i don't think i don't think there should be any regulation i don't think um there uh i don't think when you talk of journalism in society journalism is uh journalism discusses society basically and i don't think there should be any filter between that discussion and i don't think anybody should interfere with that discussion yes it will have its bad uh it it's it's bads but the society always had its bads and it has always you know derived its ways of dealing with it and so i that's that won't be a good uh a good future where somebody's you know filtering the information that you should be seeking or that or that should appear in front of you uh because that is how you control uh that is how you control the narrative and i don't want anybody to be controlling the narrative i don't want anybody to be filtering the any information that appears on my timeline i should be able to make that distinction i should be the judge it should it should be my distinction my right to decide whether i want to uh like read some information or not i want to see some information on my timeline or not i should all always just be given the tools to stop that information if i want to that's all i need nobody else should filter journalism nobody else should filter conversations debates not it shouldn't be filtered it's it's it's not a good state to be if things uh started getting filtered because exactly what your question your question actually is reflects what is happening right now the problem never comes when a lot of discussion is happening in the society in a democracy the problem comes when you start filtering it and one side start to look appear you know more righteous broader more powerful it's never that it's always a balance when you start messing with the balance that is where uh things get screwed a little so i don't think that filter any kind of filteration should happen right of course but of course and so what do you think are a few steps that viewers should take to self-filter the content that they get and stay away from maybe fake news propaganda hate or whatever is the main problem for them so i think uh it always it again depends on people on what they want to read i mean we all know uh people who um i would like to for example my flatmate and i can have two different preferences my flatmate might want to reach op india for fact checks and i might want to reach our own organization fact checker dot in or let's just say alt news for fact checking right so i can't now it i can try and ask the person to see my view time convinced why you should go on world news but if the person is inclined towards reading of news i can't question that i will have to accept it because obviously it's not like the platforms don't exist in isolation no people are reading them people are appreciating the content that they're putting out so uh choosing so that's the funny way earlier when you when somebody said that we're going to fact check it you trusted the person to fact check it like uh you you trusted the end result of that fact check nowadays it like the things are fact checked from the political ideologies you follow that's not a good way to factor facts i mean that is why we at india spend really rely on data whenever we fact-check things because that data is uh and because that data has certain uh depth certain respect and most of the time even if even if the data is showing that any claim is incorrect the data is also from the government no it's it's government's data it's government's own data um so i mean yeah i think that's one way to do it but i think all the other models are also like functioning and they're obviously finding audience and that is why they're existing right so very there is no solution to this it's a very interpersonal uh this thing i mean because i follow climate change energy environment you will scroll my feed and and because social media also does that right now sort of only shows you things that you directly you usually interact with it only shows you posts from friends you usually interact with yes thereby limiting your interaction to friends you might would have interacted at least once or twice in a year so and that's not a good uh healthy uh this thing for me i came on social media to stay in touch with all the friends all the time i didn't want facebook to tell me that you know what you're done because our interests are tracked and we've shown ads and that is how we buy those products that is how we buy internet as a product uh so uh yeah i mean we can't go into that discussion but i think it's a very interpersonal thing one what people want to see on their platforms you can't control it again i wouldn't want to control somebody who's who follows some different political ideology because when you talk about democracy when you talk about a healthy debate it will always have it will always have all the sides it will always have to be inclusive um yeah but there shouldn't be there shouldn't be space for uh [Music] for things that are you know your uh by virtue they're wrong they they shouldn't be by in being inclusive no one can allow should allow no sector no space no business can allow should allow the things that are wrong by virtue like so that is the only filter that i would want to put [Music] all right so yeah that's mostly my answer all of these questions are very you know it's about what we think of things i mean it's and like people have started different views on all of these questions that you're asking for sure and that is why we chose to interview maybe 10 10 different people so that we get a good mix of what do people actually think about this so the next question will probably uh be a little more general for that matter where why uh like to shorten it to as much as possible why don't media houses have media as a beat where they start scrutinizing other or scrutinizing their peers and uh maybe pinpointing what they did wrong what they did right recognizing what they did good why isn't media a really popular beat in media houses among media houses these kind of platforms started coming like i think about a decade ago if i'm not from around 2011 12 a lot of these platforms came and they said you know we will become the watchdog of the media it was a business space that was open and people grabbed it and i think a lot of those platforms today also report on issues that matter for the society and they're also doing larger journalism but that was the usp they sold ourselves with and it and that was a demand no uh we wanted uh so these so there were these celebrity journalists we also wanted a piece of their life we wanted to know how they they're thinking we wanted to you know peek into their lives into their journalism how they think where did their information come from um how did they report on a certain event how did they break certain story so these were the stories that we wanted to read as journalists as uh budding journalists as students journalism students and it was a market that was open so i think and people just like yeah use that space to uh create a product that found a good audience right and uh one final question which might also which is uh which is highest in the maslow's theory maybe do you think freedom of speech and press still exists in india i think it can i mean how i i see it um like this so whoever is in power or whoever has the power political power uh power of wealth power of social influence that is how i see it uh i see uh i i think that uh yeah this exactly this relationship exists and the closer you are uh to the these places of power uh different kinds uh the less democratic it becomes the less free it becomes and earlier earlier this was this was something that was not appreciated or respected but nowadays proximity to power is appreciated proximity to power is why some people become journalists because they want to gain influence and that's okay i mean that's their own personal outlook as i said every aspect of the society will always have its different sides and good or bad is also our personal uh perception of those realities so yeah i think to answer you know one line i would just say the closer you are to power the chances of you being less free exist right okay uh now i would end this with a rapid fire round of swords where i would like you to answer in one line uh these three questions or these uh yeah uh one um advice to an upcoming journalist someone who has just started be on the field all right do not learn in news rooms learn on the field right um advice to a social media news consumer be cautious of what you're reading okay and finally a request to your peers and colleagues we should all become more inclusive not about we also just should become more inclusive for information for to each other to all the realities of the society right great thank you so much mr party it was a pleasure having you with us amazing insights i've got uh like uh seven eight quotes on which i'm definitely going to quote you and uh i believe it will get uh like these quotes are going to be on some t-shirts someday i am from you like thank you so much i'm glad that i was helpful i was you know when you reached out i was thinking that you know what yeah i'm sort of somebody who's always worked from behind the curtains and i have not like really uh we don't i don't have these interactions where people ask for what i think of the society and journalism and i'm given the opportunity to talk about it so i wasn't very confident about what i would say and i did tell you that you know i have this tendency to rumble and mumble a lot so uh yeah so i just like trying to that's all right and i believe you know the last time it was very good thank you so much and i think happy to have you with us and even for future conversations i'll be definitely open to uh having you around please anytime right cool thank you so much an advice to a social media news consumer limit social media advice to an upcoming journalist go back to the basics remember who you are and finally a request to your colleagues or peers both in india and uh there with you at trading if i did have a little request to um to journalists in general it would be that see both sides of the story even the sides that are ugly