Think of stringers, and a picture emerges of a nation-wide web of freelance reporters prowling in the bowels of the country, stringing together information for the morning news.

The life of all journalists is imagined as an exciting journey full of adventure and thrilling experiences. However, most of this work is done every day by some journalists who do not enjoy a full-time position or working space, and without perks like healthcare benefits. When payments are made, they are often as low as Rs 250 per article published.

“Stringers remain at the receiving end whether it is a case of an error in their reporting or the wrath of those whose misdeeds get exposed by them. No one comes to their rescue when they are targeted either by the administration, local goons or the police,” Lucknow-based senior journalist Sharat Pradhan told The Citizen.

But Pradhan also has a flip side to the story. He gives the example of a stringer in Mirzapur who was booked and arrested for releasing a video showing children being served roti and salt as a midday meal in a government school.

This stringer could not find two people to stand surety for him to get a bail. When Pradhan’s editor called him from Delhi to ask if he could arrange for someone to take the stringer’s bail, Pradhan offered to do so himself.

He went to the court and carried out the formalities. Pradhan had offered his car as surety for the stringer so that he could get bail. Today the stringer does not take Pradhan’s calls.

For the same reason Pradhan is unable to sell his car and he would like to sort out this problem with the stringer who has been avoiding talking to him. Pradhan has the option to withdraw the car papers but if he does that the bail of the stringer could get cancelled.

It is now three years since Pradhan had helped the stringer to get a bail but at the cost of owning a car that seems no longer to be his own. However, Pradhan has not allowed this incident to dissuade him from helping more stringers who might be in distress.

The plight of most stringers is indeed pitiful. When one of them perishes on the job, he is conveniently forgotten and the family receives no compensation. Most national media houses have hundreds of stringers working for them.

The stringers collect news from different regions of the country just like international news networks rely on stringers to feed them information about what is happening in their part of the world.

The situation for stringers is perhaps worst in Uttar Pradesh (UP), where the regular intimidation and detaining of journalists is the new normal. Uttar Pradesh is notorious for its witch hunt of media houses, and of freelance journalists who dare to expose the wrongdoings of the government.

The sad part is that media houses with plush offices in big cities rarely stand by freelance journalists who get into trouble routinely for ruffling official feathers and for exposing the mismanagement of public affairs.

Pradhan has interacted with a lot of stringers belonging to both the print, and the electronic media. Most of them in the smaller towns and villages of UP have no training in journalism, and their writing skills are atrocious. This is because their educational background is often sub-standard.

“Even though they are the real source of major information, stringers are useful but remain very poorly paid. And that could be the reason for their vulnerability to both greed and fear that kills the true professionalism in many of them,” Pradhan said.

Media houses in metro cities may have modernised and are well equipped but no salary, training or space is provided to stringers who are deprived of basic training.

While the going is good some publications force stringers to help them increase the circulation and to bring in advertisements. The stringer is often caught in between the interests of the newsroom, and the management of a publication looking to expand its business.

Under these circumstances many journalists resort to blackmailing people around them who are in power, and take to filing fake reports.

There are numerous incidents of stringers turning to unethical means to make a living.

The power equation between media houses and stringers is most unfair. Most people who spoke to The Citizen want employers to be more fair to stringers whose reporting from the grassroots adds great value to their media outlet.

Former BBC correspondent Ram Dutt Tripathi told The Citizen that it is high time stringers are treated as part of the media fraternity and not like a stepchild. Having filed from the ground for the London based BBC for decades, Tripathi said that stringers or part time reporters are essential to building a news network for any organisation.

Only a few big news channels provide remuneration and recognition to their stringers but a large number of media institutions do not stand by their stringers at the time of a crisis when the government, or powerful people in the locality are annoyed with their reports.

Many news organisations force their stringers to expand the business and bring advertisements, said Tripathi who expects the Press Council of India to look into the malaise and to get media houses to provide legal protection and proper wages to those who work for them.

Subhash Tripathi Etawah in Western UP has been contributing reports to leading Hindi dailies like Swatantra Bharat and Nav Bharat Times for over three decades. Tripathi loves his job, and does not regret choosing journalism as a career.

He told The Citizen that he managed to earn enough money from stringing for national publications that allowed him to lead a simple life. When he was younger he had tried to live and work in Delhi and in Lucknow but he kept returning back to his ancestral village in Etawah to report from the countryside.

The income of the agricultural lands owned by his joint family had helped him to make ends meet and he had never felt the need to look for advertisements for the publications that he wrote for. Tripathi said that some of the problems faced by stringers like him are real, but it is also true that most youngsters today who dream of a profession in the media are not qualified or trained enough to do so.

This is frustrating for an organisation like the digital platform ‘Health On Air’ that is deeply committed to unearthing the untold stories from the heart of the nation. This is a dynamic network of more than 400

Community Radio Journalists who are passionate storytellers.

“We stand shoulder to shoulder with grassroot reporters and stringers,” said Associate Editor Somi Das. Das finds that good writers are precious.

However, the delivery of top-notch ground reports is often hindered by stifling constraints, especially when confronting local authorities. Grassroot reporters serve as the vital conduits of information within the community, yet they find themselves perched precariously at the bottom rung of the power ladder, leaving gaps in our collective knowledge.

To confront this uphill battle head-on, ‘Health On Air’ invests in equipping its local reporters and stringers with the tools of effective storytelling, and fact checking.

However, the core challenge persists in navigating local power dynamics and safeguarding the truth, said Das. This includes contextualising why the work of local reporters matters.

The editorial team has already published stories from the ground like “What it means to live with leprosy”, “The agonising despair of expecting Mothers in Manipur” and “First organ transplant in a district hospital”. The focus area of the publication ranges from climate change and gender empowerment to environmental preservation and equitable access to healthcare and education.

“These are not just buzzwords but issues that impact the community. However, grassroot workers, due to inadequate training, lack of top down information channels are often unable to link local trends with global issues,” Das said.

Das also rejects the notion of parachuting outsiders into the heartlands to report on local events with global repercussions, believing that the community must tell its own stories.

This is perhaps where 101Reporters steps in to fill the yawning gap between media outlets and freelance reporters. Founded in 2015 by Gangadhar Patil, ‘101Reporters’ is a pan-Asia network of grassroots reporters. ‘101Reporters’ sources original stories from local reporters and shares them with mainstream media for wider reach and public good.

Patil quit mainstream media to pursue his interest in investigative journalism by building a strong network of grassroots journalists. At its core, ‘101Reporters’ is a network of freelance journalists and acts as a bridge between them and media houses.

“In our initial avatar, we would accept story ideas from reporters, fine-tune them and pitch them to media houses. Once a pitch was approved, we would help reporters deliver a well-rounded story.

“Now, we ourselves have become a publisher. We have partnered with various media houses to republish our articles and amplify their reach,” Patil, a Ted Talk speaker, said.

Started in October 2015, more than 2,000 reporters from almost every state have found a place under the umbrella of the Bengaluru based

‘101Reporters’ from across India.

Any reporter in search of a publication is able to sign up on the 101Reporters website to pitch a story, while a publisher too can put in a request for a story. Once the story of a reporter is approved and published the payment is processed within the first week of the following month.

In his testimony on the ‘101Reporters’ website, Pankti Mehta Kadakia of ‘Forbes India’ writes that he had the privilege to be on both sides of the ‘101 Reporters’ fence, first as a writer, gaining access to some coveted by-lines including one on CNN, and on commissioning stories to the network for ‘Forbes India’.

“101 Reporters has helped us widen our reach and dig out important and interesting stories from regions we would not otherwise be able to access, including Begusarai, Ayodhya and a great series from Kashmir. I’ve found their work ethic to be very professional; they always deliver on deadlines and pitch stories that are relevant to the publication,” Kadakia said.

All international newspapers, broadcasters and news agencies have staff reporters throughout the world, but they also rely on stringers and freelancers to get the breaking story out from the inland. What would popular television channels be without the input they are able to air from stringers in far flung parts of the country?

Some journalists are based in cities where news is churned out continuously while other journalists are constantly on the move from country to country. These freelance journalists, or roaming reporters report from wherever they are.

While abroad, journalists also hire stringers and work in close partnerships with local reporters. These working relationships are most useful for picking up skills from each other while on the road.

A Lucknow-based stringer for an international media outlet said that he learnt to do everything himself from his colleagues from abroad. In traditional communities in cities like Lucknow, people rarely work on their own.

Every activity including reporting is done mostly in a group along with other people. What this Lucknow based journalist learnt from his European colleague was to work on his own without the support of a formal boss or an office.

“I learnt to be versatile,” the young scribe who continues to struggle to master his profession, and did not want to be quoted, said. Just as well as media outlets everywhere are reluctant to pay for an office or a full time correspondent both abroad or at home.

Besides, reporting worldwide has become increasingly unpredictable, making it a lonely journey for reporters whose survival kit includes all in one skills like writing, reporting, editing, making videos and managing the finances.

That is one way that a true reporter can eventually distance himself from those who broadcast armchair sermons from the confines of an air conditioned studio in the name of journalism. The other kind of journalism that is equally unprofessional is the parachuting down of reporters for a couple of days and their return to ivory tower offices to make lofty predictions.

With some guidance the sky's the limit for stringers as well. Once stringers are noticed by international online publications, journalism can prove to be as lucrative a profession as any other for them.

The starting payment for European and American publications can start from $300 for a 1,000 word article, and increase to more. The payments for photographs and for video and audio contributions are made separately.

For an enterprising stringer an outlet like ‘Global Radio News’ (GRN) is an attractive option. Global Radio News connects international journalists with broadcasters around the world. Based in London GRN takes good care of the sales and payments side, guaranteeing payment to the reporter within a month.

‘Global Radio News’ is connected to about 1,00 freelance correspondents with reporters in 130 countries. The news outlet has a rate card according to which it pays its reporters around the world whether it is the world's largest broadcaster or the world's smallest broadcaster.

The Indian media stands at the crossroads. Today the country ranks low in the world press freedom index. Times are changing.

Some former editors and star reporters have “demoted” themselves by reporting like stringers. They have migrated from cities into homes in the small towns and villages where they were born and brought up.

Sheetal P. Singh is one such journalist who reports from all over the UP countryside for the YouTube news channel Satya Hindi. Singh has a huge following on social media and is known for his understanding of socio-economic-political issues. He has been reporting since 1983 for the well-known Hindi daily ‘Amar Ujala’ from small towns like Bareilly and Meerut, and later from Lucknow.

In the past Singh has reported for ‘India Today’, ‘The Frontline’ and ‘Dainik Jagran’. Today he is a roaming reporter filing news from different parts of the country.

With this wealth of experience in both the urban and rural areas of UP, journalists like Singh are a role model for stringers and for young reporters in both the city and in the countryside. Singh is forever on the move in search of witnessing life as it is lived in the loneliest of places on the planet at a time when journalism is being forced into confinement in an enclosed studio and presented mostly as a source of entertainment.

The country ranked 150th in the World Press Freedom Index of 2022, dropping eight places from the previous year. This is the time for all journalists, stringers and full timers to play their part in rescuing the profession from becoming a business to return to becoming the voice of those who are voiceless.

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MEHRU JAFFER