Reporter At-Large

Reporter At-Large
Type of site	Non-profit
Available in	English
Registration	Funded and managed by Turiya Foundation

Reporter At-Large is an independent, non-profit media platform founded by Soma Basu, an award-winning Indian journalist, who has been covering issues of environmental justice and human rights in the subcontinent for over a decade. The platform is run by a team of editors, reporters, video and multimedia journalists, photographers, artists and social media experts. The team consists of nine permanent members and a battery of Indian and international journalists who do not wish to be named for security and other reasons.

How Was It Formed[edit]

The website was created in October 2017 with the award money she received from Kurt Schork Memorial Fund^[1] when her story^[2]^[3] - on the harrowing ordeal of Nepali women trafficked and forced into supplying skin to India’s cosmetic surgery industry - was awarded the 2017 Kurt Schork Memorial (local category)^[4].

The award money helped her establish a network of reporters whose stories are pushed aside in newsrooms because of non-journalistic reasons, such as political or internal pressure. It aims at breaking the hegemony of politically-polarised mainstream media establishments.

She also founded Turiya Foundation^[5], registered in West Bengal, India, extends training to print journalists who are losing out in the race with digital journalism and will train journalists from rural and tribal areas to diversify the elitist media discourse in India. Turiya Foundation was registered on March 6, 2018. Reporter At-Large is funded and managed by Turiya Foundation.

Reporter At-Large is formed by a group of disgruntled reporters who want to write about things that are not driven by the market or businesses. Reporter At-Large encourages reporters who want to do good journalism; the journalism that their professors have taught them. The journalism that makes them feel proud of themselves, that brings transformation, that brings impact in people’s lives and not just big corporates and politicians. Reporter At-Large experiments with modern tools and explores how storytelling can be improved. It wants to reclaim journalism from the hands of corporate-controlled media. It is and will always be free, fair and fearless.

About Reporter At-Large[edit]

"The year 2015 changed a lot of things and it continues to go worse. Not just the political change but also newsroom dynamics. The news establishments are gradually turning into factories. They want to produce reporters who write the same, look the same, speak the same and think the same. The reporters are not even allowed to go out to the field as freely as they used to earlier (of course there are exceptions, thank god). They are supposed to ‘aggregate’ stories (which basically translate to lifting news from other websites and rewriting them). Armed with their expensive mobile phones, bought with monthly instalment schemes, they are supposed to become multimedia journalists. In the name of multimedia journalism, they copy what the ‘west’ is doing. Their pay remains the same. There is absolutely no innovation, no scope to experiment. It has become all about survival now. I keep hearing about the industry from my journalist friends who are very successful. They are working in prominent media establishments. They are breaking good stories but all of them, hide despair in their heart. They are not free to write what they should be writing about. We are called ‘presstitutes’ nowadays. But, some of these ‘presstitutes’ we know have taken a considerable risk for themselves and their families for a 500-1000 word story on page 4-5. These foot soldiers exist. No matter how much the government wants you to believe that they don’t or ensure that they don’t. These foot soldiers are called presstitutes while the owners of these media houses, rich industry barons, who formulate the policies to be followed by the reporters, continue to forge an alliance with the people in power. We did not become a reporter because it was ‘glamorous’ or a ‘fashionable’ career option or because we could not be anything else. We became a reporter because we wanted to give voice to people who are too far to be noticed. We became a reporter because we feel alive when we are on the field doing the legwork. Because we get the most peaceful sleep at the end of the day knowing our byline made a difference. We are looking for reporters who don’t suck up to people, don’t patronize bosses and don’t write on something which they know will further a specific political or business agenda. We are looking for people who are not scared of legal notices. We are looking for reporters who were vindicated by their seniors or bosses for not towing the line. We are looking for people who, just like us, are misfits in today’s newsrooms. Come forward if you think your articles are not being published because of political reasons, because of petty office politics, because you ran into personal troubles. This is NOT a citizen journalism website. This is a community of experienced reporters who know, feel, breathe journalism but unfortunately, their stories are not given space. We were not given space so we decided to create our own. Nothing can stop us from writing. Nothing can stop you from writing. Come and join us as a friend and a fellow warrior. Let us together destabilize the power structures within the media industry and elsewhere. Let us break the hegemony where institution matters more than peoples’ voices." - From the about page of Reporter At-Large^[6].

References[edit]