INDIA: This episode of 360-degrees Live Show is an interview of Samar Raj and Tanya Yadav, the core team of Bolta Hindustan.
Bolta Hindustan is a digital news portal in Hindi from New Delhi, known for addressing the issues of the masses in simple language.
What led Samar and Tanya to enter the media space?
“There was no motive behind becoming a journalist in my personal life. I was in fact studying science, then circumstances led me to take up journalism for graduation. I also thought of dropping it midway but during the course, I became intrigued to know about society, India or about happenings around the globe,” said Tanya about her motive to enter the field of journalism.
"Through journalism, I got to know better about the issues of patriarchy or the caste system, so I felt connected to people and the need to address these issues," said Tanya.
Speaking of his journey, Samar said, “In 2014, India saw multiple changes, not only with respect to governance, but also media and universities. There was a lot of government interference in media, judiciary and universities. So back then at Delhi University, we were trying to convince the media to cover our issues, but they seemed interested only in communal debates which occupy a whole lot of space in TV channels. That’s when I decided to enter the media space and bring a change.”
We realized that to connect to the masses, we need to go beyond English, because rural communities do not widely understand English. So at Bolta Hindustan we started communicating in Hindi or local languages which made it easy for people to connect to us, the duo said.
“In India the mainstream media is not for the masses as it claims so, so that’s what we are trying to do – speak for the masses,” said Tanya.
Ignorance of real issues by the mainstream media led the two to Bolta Hindustan. “We raised the issues of Dalit tribals or the LGBTQ community here, and being a digital news platform, we are constantly interacting with the audience, moreover in simple language,” Samar stated.
Future of journalism with internet
Digital platforms are the future for news consumption and interaction. Today even TV channels are forced to increase their interactivity with the audience on digital platforms. Easy accessibility, affordability of digital media, or the interactivity and representation of real issues makes the people count on platforms like ours.
Already existing news organizations are more hierarchical in their structure compared to new media. We are trying to break this with digital media, and people are also welcoming this idea, as it makes representing the voice of common people accessible for them. People and communities are being heard and their issues are being addressed with digital news platforms.
Watch the whole interview:
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