Did you ever think ancient Sanskrit texts would be used in modern urban planning? That the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway is “the first in Asia and only the second in the world to feature animal overpasses to facilitate unrestricted movement of wildlife”? Or that Indians are increasingly hooked on opioid painkillers that may replace heroin as the most common addiction in the country?
These are some of the gems you discover when reading stories on governance and social sector at ThePrint—stories that are often overlooked, sadly, amid the daily hurly-burly of political and security news.
If you think about it, you’d agree that this is a pity: policy and implementation have more public relevance than politicians’ statements.
Consider governments’ role during the Covid pandemic in ensuring vaccination, medical supplies and treatment. Their success or failure put the public health system under scrutiny.
Or take the current impasse between the Centre and the farmers over MSP and agricultural policies that few of us fully understand but don’t always receive the attention they deserve.
So, this month. I decided to look at ThePrint’s efforts to report on governance and social sector, and see how we have performed.
Also read: ThePrint’s Delhi team is its heart but state reporters are its arteries—Chennai to Chandigarh
Pursuing topics of public importance
Honestly? There’s been a concerted effort to give these subjects due importance. However, these are early days. We have correspondents covering different ministries and developments. However, disentangling the vast, complex world of governance, interwoven between the Centre and the states, is challenging.
We’re talking about ministries, departments, institutions handling policies on infrastructure, health, education, women and child welfare, rural and urban development, water resources, environment, etc. This also means tracking Centre-state responsibilities, budgets, public-private partnerships, guidelines, ongoing projects and research…the list is limitless.
It’s a huge undertaking and ThePrint clearly has some way to go. While governance has been a key area of interest, it tended to overlap with politics.
About a year ago, a separate team of reporters was asked to focus on governance and social issues.
Once that happened, “the coverage was more focused, streamlined and stories on policy, infrastructure, health stood out,” said Moushumi Das Gupta, Deputy Editor in charge of the governance vertical.
Nisheeth Upadhyay, Editor, News Operations, agrees. “This move ensures a dedicated effort to pursue topics of public importance such as infrastructure, health, public transport, policymaking, etc. It creates space for what is called enterprise journalism. We deliberate and commission stories from ministries that often become conversation starters,” he said.
Don’t agree? Do read or at least speed read some stories below: each one has “public importance” and is more informative than routine political bickering that grab the headlines.
Drug regulator tightens sampling norms to test quality of medicines & cosmetics reaching market
30 years of law to empower municipalities: Why agencies remain ‘toothless’ & mayors ‘weak’
Both BJP & AAP promised ‘jahan jhuggi, wahan makan’, but Delhi slum redevelopment sees slow take-off
Why govt plan to develop areas, create walkable communities near transit stations isn’t taking off
Lockheed Martin, Safran to Eurofins & Amazon, why industry giants just can’t get enough of Telangana
Centre blames Telangana for ‘defective’ Kaleshwaram project but central agencies gave clearances too
Yes, but do readers want to read such stuff? Just how curious are you about dams? Or any nearby slums, other than finding them a public nuisance?
Sumi Sukanya Datta and Risha Chitlangia, Senior Assistant Editors at ThePrint, admit that capturing the public’s interest—and retaining it long enough for them to read stories about administrative procedures, policies, schemes—is a huge ask.
“Many of these story topics impact our lives, but readers don’t find them interesting,” said Datta whose stories on health and the pharmaceutical industry you must have read. “You have to write in an engaging style to make them curious.”
But, “…how do you convince an urban reader to read about MNREGA or rural development? I think about that all the time,” said Chitlangia, ThePrint’s go-to for the rural and social sectors.
That’s the dilemma. At the mere mention of panchayati raj or zila parishad, eyes glaze over, people nod off.
Also read: ‘Please help me’ — readers write to ThePrint. Their way of expressing confidence in us
How to draw the reader in
This is not a new issue or the fault of today’s news audience—the button-happy mobile phone-surfer.
When I was a young journalist assigned to The Indian Express bureau in the early 1990s, colleagues wished me luck and hoped I would get “good ministries” to cover. Later, I realised you were pitied if you ended up with agriculture, rural development, water resources, or labour and employment on your plate. When I was given Information and Broadcasting, correspondents on those beats looked at me with envy.
Health and education sectors have always been written about but newspapers would consign news about what was disparagingly called the ‘development’ sector to single column or to briefs on the business and economy pages. Meanwhile, India’s cricket team made it to page 1!
Skip forward to today: politics, foreign affairs, security, and economy are considered plum assignments for journalists—and viewer/reader friendly.
But stories on governance can be equally thoughtful, if you give yourself a chance: read the stories at ThePrint and you realise that you learn, learn, learn. About GIS, parallel diaphragms and how there’s a new HIV drug for children…
Ignorance is an obstacle here: Most of us would be hard-pressed to tell you what ‘Geographic Information System’ (GIS) means, let alone understand that it helps enormously in better city planning.
Similarly, how many of us understand that a “parallel diaphragm wall” doesn’t refer to the dome-shaped muscle inside your body but to “the core of the main dam built to restrict seepage from upstream to downstream…”?
And how many of us are aware of national guidelines for rabies prevention and treatment—or the three stages of treatment based on different degrees of bites?
This is an occupational hazard—jargon, complex technical details and a great deal of data are required to explain the ‘what,why and how’ of such issues. “We try to write as lucidly as possible,” said Upadhyay.
Moushumi Das Gupta admits that making a story “appealing” is difficult. “When we don’t do routine stories, we pick up stories of national interest that we think click with the audience. We don’t restrict ourselves to just figures and technicalities although we have to talk about them too,” she said.
For instance, a story on Telangana’s Musi River redevelopment plans draws readers in with a nugget of history:
“The first time there was talk of beautifying the Musi riverfront was over a hundred years ago in 1908, after a devastating flood had ravaged Hyderabad.”
There’s this story by Risha Chitlangia, which has reader connect, and this one, which has the difficult job of interesting the audience in dry topics like master plans, tribal entrepreneurship or housing schemes.
She said the trick was to focus on “the way it impacts our lives and how well you tell the stories. Stories on the metro or highways get a good response.”
What often helps hook readers is the approach, or angle, to the story. Thus, Sumi Sukanya Datta’s story on rabies prevention and treatment protocols grew out of news about people being attacked by a stray dog. Her beat – health – has the advantage of great reader interest. “Heart attacks never fail to have an audience,” she says. Lifestyle health stories, such as this one on Maggi ketchup and Bournvita, are a big hit.
But almost anything to do with health works—and they’re all important: which of the following, wouldn’t you read?
Primary dengue infections as likely to turn severe or fatal as secondary, landmark study says
Indian pharma firm’s first-of-its-kind AIDS drug for children gets FDA approval
Can diabetes be ‘reversed’ and who is the ideal candidate? What doctors, health-tech firms say
Cervarix to Cervavac: A look at cervical cancer vaccines available in India & how much they cost
Primary dengue infections as likely to turn severe or fatal as secondary, landmark study says
Another hallmark of ThePrint’s stories is depth: admittedly, these stories are longer than the average news story—sometimes over 1,000 words long. Don’t turn away—the depth is an advantage as it allows the writer to explain and simplify in detail, issues which would be mere jargon in a brief story.
For example, here is a topical story from last summer on monsoon flooding in Delhi.
Also read: Meet ThePrint journalists who don’t use words. Their art speaks—charts, graphs, illustrations
Keeping up with the contacts
Information is not easy to come by for these types of stories. Since governance relies on interaction with the officials at the Centre or at the state level, reporters have to spend time in ministries and with bureaucrats. “During Covid, officials were more open, they needed to share information,” said Datta. “Now, it depends more on you keeping up [with] your contacts.”
The health sector involves “keeping up” with a lot of contacts: health officials, government hospital administration, doctors, the pharmaceutical industry. You also track research voluminously. “A lot of stories come out of international sources, so I read continuously,” Datta added. She also makes it a point to speak to doctors and experts outside of Delhi—she says Shekhar Gupta, Editor-in-Chief, ThePrint, told her to widen the scope of her inquiries. Does this help reach more readers? She thinks so.
Sanya Dhingra, Assistant Editor, who returned to ThePrint last year, finds the officials now more “accessible” to ThePrint. “They are more receptive and know ThePrint, so this is not a problem.”
She should know. Earlier at ThePrint, Dhingra wrote about the bureaucracy. Recently too, she tried her hand at a story that had wide interest. Contrary to popular perception that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has Gujarat cadre bureaucrats in all key central ministries, Dhingra found there’s only one Gujarat IAS/IPS officer currently serving as Secretary, Government of India. “Such stories come out of pattern recognition—you have to track trends, transfers, and appointments frequently,” she said.
Besides talking to officials, the correspondents say they talk to activists in these fields who are only too happy to share information.
Risha Chitlangia has found another angle that works for her—trace stories from the states. “In states like Chhattisgarh or Jharkhand, people talk more,” she said. She found writing stories about tribal-related issues easier than others. “Officials here are willing to talk—and I get a good response to stories.”
So there you are: when I began to read ThePrint’s stories for this assignment, I had a stifled yawn: will I be able to read through them, I worried. After reading more than 60 stories, I have changed my mind: once I began to read, I found myself thoroughly engaged—and better informed.
(Edited by Prashant)