23. How Did Newslaundry Build A Successful Subscription Model? With Chitranshu Tewari, Product Director at Newslaundry

Aishwarya speaks with Chitranshu Tewari about news media in India, and why subscription models bring much-needed disruption to the business of journalism.

How does the subscription model work for Newslaundry? How do you convince society to pay for their news instead of consuming it for free? What are the trends that shape the industry - for better or for worse?

Chitranshu Tewari started his career mobilising people on issues ranging from climate justice to sustainable development, for which he was awarded multiple international awards. For the past six years, he has been with Newslaundry as their Product and Revenue Director, successfully building a robust subscription news product. Find him on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chitranshutewari/

Aishwarya Javalgekar is a writer, book editor and podcast producer. As the Head of Originals she specializes in creating stellar content across formats - books, podcasts, newsletters, etc. She is a member of WICCI - Print Media and previous experience in  Zubaan Books and Simon and Schuster Canada. 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aishwaryajavalgekar/ 

Email: aishwarya@boundindia.com

Topmate: https://topmate.io/aishwaryajavalgekar 

Brought to you by Bound, a company that helps you grow through stories.

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Produced by Aishwarya Javalgekar
Edited by Kshitij Jadhav

Transcript

00:00

Yeah, I actually started the NGO when I was in school. So I always had that news cookie, right? I think news organizations also have to do a better job of it. Right? Like, why should I pay for news, right? If I'm getting news for free, and for a healthy media ecosystem, you need to talk and report about media. This is actually stealing, right? But nobody's asking you a question, right? And it's very likely to happen with a news organization like how news organizations can counter it, I think they can counter it by just reporting the truth. That's the easiest way to do it.

Aishwarya  00:40

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03:14

as well, thanks for having me on the show. Very happy

Aishwarya  03:17

to have you. And you know, it's very interesting because you sort of call yourself news laundries, first known editorial hyoe. And, you know, today obviously, have taken your story from having a few 100 subscribers to more than 30,000 Paying readers. So this is a very sort of deep, complex question, but how did that journey take place for you? And how did you actually grow that subscriber base?

03:46

Very exciting that very long. By the time I had joined news, laundry, they were already around a dozen people because newsletter he was founded back in 2012 by Robin and then went to Aruba can Prashant but like most media organization, right like roles for product subscription social media that comes in much later to talk about the journey from a few 100 subscribers to the community that we have right now, I think the good thing about news laundry is that people who started news laundry and found in news laundry, they were firm in their belief that the kind of journalism that we wanted to do or that they wanted to do back then, is only possible on the back of subscriptions. Because the Genesis story of news laundry is because I've been and then who's the who's one of the co founders, and he's the CEO of banana and Madhu actually had a show called clothesline. And up in London before news laundry, he was running this other company called small screen In, which was the TV production house, they've made some of the best, or the most watched food and travel shows in the country. They had an idea to do a media news satire show something say what a John Oliver or a Jon Stewart does, which will basically take big media to clean us call them out for the for the kind of stuff they pull off on primetime television. And because obviously, they had lots of experience in making TV shows, so they obviously had the show they pitched it to the leading broadcast channels back then, but nobody really wanted to take it because a the show involves calling out other media channels. And also the show involves calling out your own right, a lot of times, let's just say if any TV is airing that show it will often happen. Did Madhu who was the host of clothesline, she'll end up calling out what's happening at NDTV so nobody really wanted to touch that show. And I think in media we have at least in India, we also have at the tradition that we won't really talk about other people, whether good or bad. So often, I think now it has changed. Somewhat like raveesh when he is doing when he used to do his show. At NDTV he would consistently cite stories and articles that he might have referred to or come across during the research. But in general, media has had that habit where they won't really acknowledge other stories or other reporters and so on so forth. Even when I don't know how much TV news you follow by even when say like channels like Republican times now because you know, there's a rat race as to who has the most PRP, they don't really name the other, but they'll come up with phrases. So for example, whenever Erna wants to call out the India today, Artstor group, he will not name it, obviously, for legal reasons. But he keeps saying the quality. Right, so so it I think media has had that long tradition. That's why they didn't really want to do it. So. But of course, Brenda and Madhu were really keen to do that show. And this is right when YouTube had just come to India and YouTube had happened in India. So they figured, you know, guess what, we'll just record the show, because we already have the studio capacity. We Madhu is one of the finest journalists the country has seen. So let's just record it, do it on our studio, put it on YouTube. And let's see where it goes. So that's how it really started, right. And that's why the name was also news laundry, right? Because the tagline was subkey. The lie. The idea was that we will take big media to cleaners. And obviously, slowly, slowly, we started doing more show. So we had initially started with clothesline, which was the show that Matthew used to do, and interviews. But obviously over the period of time, we started doing more tech stories and media analysis. And then as we raised funding, and as we got more subscribers, we started doing ground reports, podcasts and other formats as well. But going back to what I was earlier, saying and I think that's pivotal to the kind of subscriber base that we have seen in the last three or four years, you must have seen, I'm sure your listeners would be aware, almost all news organizations are asking for subscription or membership or donation, especially after the pandemic. And this is a trend that has taken like five, six years. One is that your big tech companies or your big tech platforms, Facebook, Google, Amazon, etc, etc, they are taking the largest share of ad revenue. So a lot of ad revenue that would directly go to say newspapers and digital media organization is that that lunch money is stolen by big tech platform, right? So there is so publishers increasingly are relying more on subscriptions and needed revenue, and so on and so forth. But for a publisher to be successful with reader revenue or subscription, you need to do a very different kind of journalism, right? You need to do impactful journalism you need to do you need to engage directly with the reader or the subscriber. So for us, because and we, we realized pretty fast that so for example, we were ad free from day one, because we knew that for us to call out big media, big corporates, we can't rely on ad and and the news already co founders even back then they knew that the current media model the erstwhile media model, not that it's not in a mess right now. It is in mess because of the way it is funded because of the revenue model. Right. So if we go down that road if we are also relying on advertisement, right If we are also getting ads from, say, big corporate interests, the moment we do a story on a mining group, and then they will pull out pull ads, and then we'll be getting flour for bread. So we were farming, I believe that for our journalism, we need to be ad free. And we need to go to our readers who ask for subscription. This is way before this is imagine this is what 10 years ago, right? There was no Netflix, there was no Ott, there were hardly any payment gateways. In fact, much later, when I also joined, the payment failure used to be around 70 80%. There was just like one payment gateway. Now there are like at least half a dozen. So the good thing for us was that our subscription or reader revenue strategy was baked into the editorial product, right? So we were never chasing the RPS or pageviews. Even never doing because a lot of publishers, they would do PS just for the heck of it. Right. So for example, yesterday night was IPL. So what a lot lot of newsrooms would have ended up doing is they'll have a CEO desk, they will have few people who are just tracking Google Trends, what is trending and so on and so forth. And then they will just type in pieces have the right SEO keywords so that they get pageviews and more the pageviews more ad revenue. But Will someone really want to pay money to see the IPL score? Not really, because that information is available publicly. But will people pay for say Deep Dive? Long Form reportage? Will people pay for election reportage? Will people contribute if they know that there is the kind of journalism that we are seeing in this organization we will not get to see in different organization, then people pay for it. So for us, we really had the first mover's advantage, then and that's how we build the company also. So we focused on formats like podcasts a lot more, right? Because we knew if you are in someone's ear, two to three hours a week, they are very likely to pay for the content, as compared to you relying on say 30 articles a day, which is being entirely driven by Google and search and SEO and so forth. So I think that is that is that is a very key differentiator between us and the other at least the natively digital publishers. And that's why we've been very successful, right? So even though we don't do like, say 100 pieces a day, we do anywhere between six to 10 pieces a day. But we one of the largest subscriber base in the country. So one was clearly that right, that we realize that this is the kind of journalism we have to do. And it was from day one, right? Our reader, we were getting a lot of stories, suggestions from readers, we were engaged, we were speaking with them a lot more because again, the way conventional media is structured, it's a one way communication, right? A primetime television anchor will tell you here's what I think here's what the news says, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Similarly, with newspaper, they have something called the letters to editor, but how many people right? And how many of those letters make it to the opposite or to the newspaper? Whereas in our case, there is there is almost weekly or daily communication, right? Our subscribers writing letters for our podcast.

13:13

We have these zoom sessions, with our subscribers and team leads, when they can come and tell us what is it that we are lacking on what is it that they would they would like us to improve on etc, etc. We also do these subscriber meetups across the world we just did one in London and one in us. So that that is really the heart of it, right? Besides everything that you can gain subscriptions, right? I know, a lot of legacy media organizations would probably price their subscription 300 rupees for a year, and then they will add some OTT subscription upon it. So it's like a sale offer, right? Whereas our annual subscription is 3000. Right? So you can imagine the difference, right? So it's not really you can't you can't really game it, you really need to build the kind of editorial product, the kind of engagement, you need to listen to the readers. So I think it

Aishwarya  14:02

was the subscription amount when you slowly started the subscription model like 10 years ago,

14:08

I think. So we then when we launched we didn't have subscriptions. So it took us a year, year and a half. But when we launched we were around 150 or 200. I don't remember the exact amount for a month even. We had monthly and annual subscription 150 a year. It just doesn't make sense. Yeah, that's the other. That's the other thing because we had the first mover's advantage in subscription reader revenue. And I keep telling this to other publishers, specifically, people are focused on subscription. We had to actually get people to understand why is it that you have to pay for news? Right so we we had a slogan which we still use that when advertisers paid advertisers are served. And when the public pay the public is served. So we had to do a lot of public awareness. We had to do a lot of appeals. We had to do a lot of behind the scenes at where exactly is the money going? How does the economix News works, right? Because a lot of people think that I'm actually paying seven rupees or eight rupees to the newspaper, right? Not really, you're actually paying for the distribution. Because the average eight, the average cost sorry, of putting together a newspaper is anywhere between 20 to 30 rupees. So newspapers are actually not making money through the subscription, or through the money that you pay the monthly money, they're actually making money to the advertiser. And that, again, we had to, we had to break it down. So we had to tell people that the, if you're reading a newspaper or watching news, the relationship is between the advertiser and whoever other media proprietors of that organization, right? Because, essentially, you're serving ads, whereas in our case, the relationship is with the reporter, or the editor and the reader. Right, because people do not pay for content specifically for news. Even now, there is a very small subset of community and people who pay. And that's why I keep telling other publishers that they should really thank news slowly for making that. Because now we have at least we've hammered in that why people need to pay for news,

Aishwarya  16:07

I really wanted to dive deeper into the subscription model, because you know, like you said, right, even today, if you look at sort of newspapers, or just news platforms as a whole, the constant conversation is that people aren't willing to pay, especially in India, you know, the narrative is always that people are so used to getting like content for free, or things for free that whether it is newspapers, even with sort of podcasts, and these other media mediums sort of building now subscription models into their sort of platform, a lot of people aren't willing to pay for subscriptions, because they're so used to kind of having free content. And I think that's also a struggle of a lot of platforms today, especially post pandemic, who have tried to now be subscription models, where they have started off providing a lot of free content, you know, where all their content is free. And then after a point, once they build some sort of audience, then they have a paywall, right, and they start saying, okay, only this percentage of our content is free. And now for to sort of access everything else, you kind of have to pay this amount. And that doesn't seem to be working as a sustainable business model for a lot of platforms. So I think two questions. One is, are people actually willing to pay? And how much are they willing to pay? And for what, you know, like, what makes it worth it for them to pay that particular amount?

17:28

Correct. So first, are people willing to pay? Yes, I think there are a lot of independent digital media outlets who are primarily surviving on subscription or reader revenue. So you have news laundry, you have news minute you scroll via. So clearly, there is a community of readers and people who understand the value of paying for independent media. Maybe right now, it is not at the size where you can build, say, a New York Times for India entirely on subscriptions. So it is not there if you want to run massive operations. But if you want to have teams that can do the kind of journalism they want to do without any pressure from advertisers, or specifically corporate advertisers, I think there are enough people who want to pay for news. Secondly, I think news organizations also have to do a better job of it. Right? Like, why should I pay for news, right? If I'm getting news for free? How much are they willing to pay? I think that depends on publisher to publisher, and again, the kind of content that you serve. So for example, there are publishers that specifically cover business and tech. So let's just say publishers, like morning context can write which specifically do stories around business and tech, people who are reading Ken and morning or like business in general, people who are reading think papers or business stories, they have a heart, obviously, they make a lot more money than say, like a student. Right? They can afford a more expensive subscription, right? So for example, in some cases, you will see that while a business application might have a 3000 subscription, or regular politics website might have a 2000 subscription. So I think it depends on what is the target audience you're serving. Like if you're a legacy media organization, and you know the game is of scale and volume then you will underprice your subscription. So I think it depends on on publisher to publisher, what are they paying for they are not paying for content that they can find anywhere else. So like I have given you an example. If you think if you want to do subscription, but you want to do the kind of stuff that that ad publishers do. Like for example, if IPLS happened let's do 10 pieces on IPL because traffic will happen, then you will not succeed. If again, these are a lot of it. Basic product analysis like if you're able to give them content that they can't find anywhere else, some of it could be from the standpoint of that we know where big media is right now right, how subservient it is to the government or to the establishment. So, if you are able to do independent journalism, where you are not giving in to pressure from multiple directions and can do credible honest journalism people will pay for it. Secondly, but now, what will happen is everyone's asking for subscription and if there are like six seven independent media organization right, that is not going to be the only differentiator. So then it depends on what is it that I will get if I subscribe, right see, because for the longest time people subscribed, because they liked the faeces that represent a certain outlet. So for news laundry, it could be Manisha, abhinandan atoll for wire, it could be are for someone else, etc, etc, right? They, they knew the kind of work these guys have done, they trusted. And I think that is always the first reason why people pay for specifically for news. But now as everyone does subscription, that differentiator will kick in. Okay, why should I give money to a certain outlet? If all content is free? Why should I not give content money to a publisher whose podcasts and videos I'm consistently consuming, and if I actually don't pay, I will not get to consume it. So I think as publisher build more differentiated products, they'll get it. So in our case of example, we started doing podcasts also fairly early, right. Our interviews have always been very. So whenever whenever we put a podcast that already have a loyal and engaged audience, and we put it behind the paywall, we see a lot of people who are sitting on the fringe fringes that okay, maybe I should subscribe, maybe I should not, they end up subscribing. So to submit people do pay maybe not for the scale, the kind of scale where you can build a invitee for India on the back of subscription, the pay for independent journalism and the pay for differentiated products.

Aishwarya  22:01

Okay, yeah, that's really interesting, because, you know, I was even thinking about, say something that's niche rights effect, a feminist publication, which is, again, very specific, so something like not an Indian publication, but bitch media, which is a US based sort of feminist publication, where, again, they have an annual subscription model, you know, then they have this whole thing of, okay, you subscribe, you get a magazine plus plus, right? Like, you get some merch, you get some additional access, you get some things. And then obviously, now, in India, there are sort of feminist platforms who have been trying to build the subscription model, like say, feminism in India, right? So then it kind of becomes a me as a consumer, it becomes a question of, if I want to consume feminist media, how many platforms am I going to subscribe to? Right? Or it's sort of like, do I choose between, you know, this platform versus that platform? And I'm kind of looking at pros and cons of where to subscribe to just have one platform, for instance, do you think also because, you know, obviously, the kind of content you're doing is long form, right? Because of, say, the advent of now newsletters, for instance, right? And I'm not talking about your LinkedIn, sort of superficial newsletters, but you know, like, sort of newsletters where you have sort of say, like, Roxane Gay, you have, you know, sort of people in that sense, who have something very powerful to say, or are people that, or the sort of audiences kind of want to follow and hear from who are choosing to create newsletters rather than or even journalists, right, who are after a point choosing to create a newsletter, which becomes their own independent platform, versus choosing to publish through publications, whether they are independent or not. Do you see newsletters as a competitor or a sort of threat, I guess, in a way, or is it just another addition to the kind of publications that are looking to build on the subscription model?

24:09

So see, one is I think on the first part of your question, you alluded to what people call subscription fatigue, right? If everyone is asking for subscription, especially specifically in India, India is a very price conscious market. So you won't end up subscribing to three or four organizations, right? You will only subscribe to one or maximum two. And so for example, in US and Europe, in Scandinavian countries, it's the number is a is a lot higher, that the answer to that issue is that more differentiated products you have more likely the reader is going to pay for your content. Newsletters will primarily be written and run by one or two people right? How can it match the scale and depth of an organization and that is 60 people, right? And so that is one even though there are a lot of newsletter, there are a lot of media companies that are primarily newsletters, so their signal. Again, Ken has a bunch of newsletter. Since he talked about feminist publication, there's one that Lakshmi runs forgetting what's it called? So I know I don't think it will match up to the scale and the depth that a news organization can. But I think it does, forces publishers to think a lot more right? Because again, newsletters are not optimize for SEO and search. As a product. It is designed to get you a unique perspective or a unique viewpoint from someone who's more likely to be a domain expert. Whereas when media publish, so media publishers often don't think on those terms, and that is the reason why you will see now, almost all media organizations have their own range of newsletters. One is that they want to get those for lack of a better word, unique heartaches. Second is newsletters work really well in terms of building and habit? Right? That is why, for example, again, alluding to your earlier question, and why newsletter news only has been so successful. We've been so successful, because we've we've consistently designed products that have habit formation baked into it, right? If you like a podcast, you will come back to it. Similarly, if you like a newsletter, you will come back to it every day. Right? Because newsletter is not something that will come on your Twitter feed. Or if you start something and you get it,

Aishwarya  26:38

you have to actively choose even if it shows up in your email, you have to kind of choose every day to read it every week. And I think news laundry also has three newsletters.

26:48

Yes, yeah, we are actually not big on newsletters. That's one of the things we are working on. We've also approached newsletters a bit differently. So for example, publishers usually have newsletters, because sometimes they're not sure whether or not this qualifies as a piece. Sometimes they want to build expertise on certain subjects. So they'll have a newsletter on it. We have used newsletters as a medium to engage or facilitate communication between our reporter and the reader. Right. So for example, all our newsletters are essentially written by reporters or editors, where they talk telling you about the story and the behind the scenes of the story. So we also have very different approach and that has worked really well for us, right? Because our again, our our open rates and click through rates on email is way through the roof, if especially if you compare it to the market average is around 20 25%. But that doesn't mean we can't do that as well. But again, as a small organization, you're always making trade offs and compromises. But yeah, newsletter is something that we need to improve a game on.

Aishwarya  27:57

Now, it's very interesting, because you're not I heard sort of story of news laundry from you also are in my head news, laundry was very written word first, as a platform in my head, and then obviously I saw that, you know, you have podcasts, quite a few. And then you have a couple of newsletters and I saw videos, but I did not in my head I think think of news laundry as video first, you know, as something that started with video and now has kind of evolved into multiple formats.

28:26

Yeah, I think that that explains the fact that you work in publishing. We have the bigger on podcast and video then text.

Aishwarya  28:36

Is you found as well, I mean, because we sort of work with books and editorial, but like a big part of what we do is also podcasts and videos and newsletters. And that's kind of my role as well. That's why I just was surprised

28:52

when even with conservative estimate are we do and podcast reaches at least 10x of our text text reach. So yeah, because again, the the consumption patterns are also changing, people are not reading a lot more. And we as an organization, because again, because of a legacy and the the kind of work, the newsletter co founders have done. We were always big on podcasts and videos and multimedia formats.

Aishwarya  29:21

So how big is the news laundry team sort of today?

29:24

So I think we have we have around 5455 people in the team. We just had like I told you we just had a company retreat. So that's the number of people who were there. There were a couple of people who couldn't make it. But yeah, that's that's the strength, current strength that we have. Okay.

Aishwarya  29:46

And sort of, you know, coming to you. You've also talked about obviously, you know, you call yourself sort of the disrupter or you're trying to disrupt sort of the business of news. What do you think needs disruption at this point? I mean, I know there are a lot of well, there's

30:01

so many things, the biggest typing. I think the first thing that that news laundry has disrupted and our readers and subscribers have disrupted is the business model of journalism. Right? Like I was mentioning earlier, the reason why the legacy media, or what you see on TV largely is broken has to do with who's funding the news there. Right? If you if you look, as to, for example, we've done this series called Who Wants to media, right? Well, we've looked into the ownership patterns across news organization. Most of the news organizations are owned by political or big corporate interest, because media is always a high risk game, right? Why is it that corporates like Adani are buying media houses? Right? These media organizations are not like huge profit making entities, right? Yeah. Companies like Adani are buying, taking over hostile takeover whatever word you want to use, because media is a way through which you can influence public opinion. Right? It's as simple it's, it's really as simple as that. So I think the force and really credit to our subscribers and readers for that, right? Because, again, like I said, we've been doing subscriptions for close to a decade back then nobody really polite people really laughed on us that Oh, like, Where will you? Do you really think that people in India can can pay for content and that two news content? So first, is the disruption on the business model, right? Like, how can you do journalism? where advertisers and ad money is not calling the shot? That is one second is is the fact that media also needs to be accountable to two people. So a large like I said, we were started as a media analysis and a media critique platform, hence the name news laundry, right? We had news laundry, we firmly believe that for a good, healthy democracy, you need a healthy media ecosystem. Right? And for a healthy media ecosystem, you need to talk and report about media. How will media be held accountable to people if nobody is actually reporting on media? rates again, so there was a lot of stigma? So for example, we were really the first ones who actually talked about what is happening in media, right, not just from editorial, but also from the business. Business model standpoint, right. And I'm not saying in terms of calling out or instant in terms of calling out the bigotry, but in getting into who owns actually your media, right, what exactly what is going behind these decisions that are being made and so on and so forth. The third is like I said, the relationship in a conventional media or in mainstream media has been a between the advertiser and the media proprietor we had we have to change it to reporter and the reader as direct as as possible, right? And make it a two way communication. Right? We do not live in an age of radio and just text where you write it, and then there is no feedback or there is no engaged. what journalism is a public interest code, right? If it is a public interest code, readers have to be taken into account they need to be spoken to, right. It can't be like, many picture one or the other picture, they clearly and you buy tickets. So I think these are, these are the few things. So it's the business model, the fact that media needs to be reported and written about. And the third is that readers are part of the media model that we're trying to build it it does not happen in vacuum. The other is also like media again. So for example, I don't know how much of news laundry you've consumed, but I'm sure some of you readers will be fairly aware. So we do there's a lot of subtle satirical programming in news laundry, we do a lot of skits. We also don't think news has to bore you. Yeah, right. If you see some of our most watched shows like new sensor technique, it will actually keep you entertained and informed. So if you can inform someone by keeping their attention and not boring them to death, that is strategic thought thought out decisions, even if you read a pieces, right? The tonality of being cheeky will be reflected in text as well. Right so that's also something so for example, we that's why we started experimenting with format because we were like who has decided that news? I obviously now it it seems like a very basic idea, but 10 years back, all news was into who has decided news has to be in text. So for example, we have we have what people call graphic novels, but we call it comics. We have comics on issues like Kashmir, which where it traces Kashmir is history from its from 50s. To the abrogation of article 370. We have a comic, on on, on Naxalbari, the village and how the movement started, right. And obviously, we have other comics as we have so many podcasts, right? So for example, we have podcast, which gives you news to pop culture, to mental health, and so on and so forth. So there is no there is like we will only do politics, or we will only do text, or we will only do opinion. So I think that experimentation of format again, so for example, why did a lot of publishers start doing video? Because YouTube was giving them money? Then why did publishers start doing short video because Facebook watch had just come in four years ago, and they wanted to make the most of it. So I think publishers need to take these risks, you need to try these innovations, not because certain other platform is incentivizing them. And that's a trend, because they see it as part of their journalism or part of their revenue strategy as well.

Aishwarya  36:07

Yeah. Well, I think that makes a lot of sense. And I also want to get into you know, you as a person, because I found it very interesting that you have worked in the developmental sector earlier. And then you sort of made this move. You also worked at I think youth Kia was correct for a little while. So how did that shift happened for you? I always

36:27

had interest in media. That is for sure. Because my father is a avid news consumer. So for my father, his chill time is actually having a cup of tea and watching which I still don't understand. So I grew up in a household where we were watching news reading news all the time.

Aishwarya  36:46

Yeah, and the news is just on all day, on TV,

36:50

and so for example, I grew up watching rubbish T report even before rubbish became like a mainstream news anchor and then everybody knew about him and all of that. So while my my classmate and my friends and people from my generation and age, they grew up reading in it Blyton, they grew up reading Harry Potter. I grew up reading Reader's Digest and India today. Right. So I always had that news cookie era, and I always had an I grew up in Patna, right. So by default, if you grew grew up in Patna, either you're doing a job. Everyone's very politically involved, right. And I think, for example, right from, from JP to what happened. Later on, it has always been a very politically active state and both students and public at large, there has always been very informed. So I would like to think I had an understanding of, of basic politics back then, because I was reading and consuming. So much of news. But I got disillusioned with media pretty early on, right? Because I was like, not maybe not so much, because I didn't want to be an anchor. And I knew like, I thought I didn't have I didn't have the required writing skills to be a reporter either. And then this is back when I started working a lot on climate change and climate change advocacy. So I actually ran my own NGO for like a couple of years through which I ended up working with Center for Environmental Education, through which I was again, a youth advisor to United Nations Environment Program. After all of that, obviously, I by the time I was done in college, I needed a job.

Aishwarya  38:42

And you were running the NGO while you were in college.

38:45

Yeah, I actually started the NGO when I was in school. Oh, yeah. So yeah. And then by the time college got over, I worked on this fellowship with Oxfam. I think it was funded by Nokia, it was called Create to inspire fellowship anyway, then I obviously met unshelled. Through that, because I think he was one of the mentor, I ended up working with youth ki Avas. They also had a very interesting business model. Back then writing for an online publication was a novelty idea. Now, anyone can write, you can people can, young people can just go to Instagram, click on story and put it but back then, there were only so many platforms you could write on. I had a very interesting business model. So I mostly worked on their campaigns where we would run campaigns for development organization. But, and then obviously, I've worked briefly with three fifty.org. Also, which is a, again, a climate advocacy organization where we organize one of the global climate marches in Delhi where we mobilize around 3000 people. Through all of this I realized specifically when I was working on climate change or climate change, advocacy that media is a very important and integral klog of this entire thing, right, and that if people really want to be nudged and pushed, whether it's for active citizenry, or about understanding of climate change, media plays a very important so through that I was like, and then by the time I was out of youth here was I met up in London, and I interviewed for news laundry, and then obviously, because I always had that media interest. And back then there was nothing called subscription. Right? There was no subscription, I think now everyone is a product manager, there was no product. So my designation, my designation back then was also something called business development or whatever what they were, there was no understanding, right. And like I said, I was in a, in a team of what 1516 people where they were reporters, they were editors, they, they they were the these who were caretakers, and who looked after us. And then there was me, and the CEO of the company writes, that's how I started. So anything that the reporters couldn't do, I ended up doing. And reporters would only write stories they would go out and so right from putting together events, to raising sponsorship for a to working on subscriptions, to building a social media. So I have literally done everything. So and I think that's a good way to learn. Also, because I didn't go and study I didn't do an MBA, or I didn't study media either. So everything I've learned, or I built in understanding, has mostly been working on the job. And in hindsight, that's been the best way to learn also, right? Because the kind of the kind of press pressure situation and the ability to just sort of work a task backwards, right and plan things to the tee. I don't think if I worked in a large organization where there were 10 people to share workload with I could have done that. So

Aishwarya  42:00

now, I still remember you'd give us because I think maybe I came across it. And I think 2014 2015 When I was in college, doing my undergrad and I had a blog, like everyone else had a blog. And I think that's when they were also you know, doing, again, one of the drives where they were recruiting writers to kind of

42:21

Yeah, I actually, I actually ran their Campus Watch Program, which was basically getting students to write about politics and their campus issues. I think I covered a couple of elections also. Specifically the D re election. So yeah, basically, my job there was to do this to design and run their campus program, and obviously work with the organization's development organizations to sort of run campaigns when you try the contoura. Yeah,

Aishwarya  42:53

but I think what you said about, you know, your role at news laundry, I think I also really resonate with it, because for me, also, I was like, Okay, I want to work with books, you know, so it was that very narrow thing of books. And then I did a publishing course. And then I kind of wanted to work in the publishing industry as an editor because like, that was the only thing and then when I started kind of working at bound, it evolved from that to being like, okay, podcasts, okay? You know, newsletters, okay, looking at sort of different IPs. And it gives you an opportunity to grow in a lot of different ways that you wouldn't have if you were just doing sort of one thing in a larger team. And you were focused on one job versus, you know, it's like, okay, you're handling like, multiple IPs. And then also like social media, and also, you know, sort of doing a bunch of different things and building new things like the publishing course that you're doing. So I think that is very exciting to me. So today, what does a day in your work life look like?

43:55

I think it starts with making a list of all the things I'm supposed to close into that day. I think it depends on day to day, like for example. Mondays and Thursdays are slightly hectic because that's when I keep most of my meetings with and the thing is, my work is also in so I lead a fairly cross functional team, right? So basically, there's some people are working on social media, some people are working, some people are developers are working on tech, some people are working on on subscriptions, figuring out the subscription strategy. And then obviously there are some people are working on events. So the the team is fairly cross functional. So my day idly started making a list and then it's interspersed with like, meetings, me working on my own, trying to figure out what are the kinds of stuff that you have to take care of in that quarter or in that month, and then it ends with meetings?

Aishwarya  44:56

Yeah, I guess it's like every day so different that you don't have sort of one thing of what a day looks like.

45:03

Yeah, yeah.

Aishwarya  45:04

Yeah. Yeah. Also coming to, you know, what you said about you your writing or you kind of having a certain perception about writing, I was going to ask you about your writing, because I do know that you have written a few things are new Sandra, and you had a column? Back in 2020. Yeah, that you were writing, but I think it was called Stop, press right and correct. So is writing something that you see yourself doing a lot more of like, is that something you want to get more into?

45:39

So first is I never had the confidence to write because when I was in school, right, I was one of those kids who were the magazine editor and so on, so forth, right, because I grew up in Patna. So if I think if most kids in the class, trying to aspire or are too busy trying to crack IIT, and medicals or law, there is not much competition in writing. So I wrote and I used to think I'm, I'm a good writer, then I came to Delhi University, right? And they are in I was sitting with folks who have gone to the SRI Rams in the mother's international of the world. And I figured boss, I don't write well, right? Because I can I realize this, to sewing vocabulary that I have learned two days before is actually not good writing. It's actually bad writing, right? So then I got quite conscious, even though I did, I studied English. And it's not a language literature course. So I and then I used to read magazines and long form stories. And I was like, I can't write like this. And back then I had no concept that there is also some thing called an editor, right? That before a story is actually put on a website, it goes through multiple tiers, right, there's a sub editor, there's a copy editor, then there is a, and so on, and so forth. So I never wrote for initially, I never wrote everything, I'm very shitty writer. If I write people with like, wow, he writes really bad, he should not really write. But then I ended up reading some of the first draft of the reporters. And I will, I can write better than this, for sure. Right. And then obviously, early on, I realize is editor and all that I never really had the time to write because like I said, they were always I was always wearing multiple hats and doing multiple role roles. So I, but then, I think the idea with the stop race, it was a newsletter, because I was, this was a during the pandemic, I was reading a lot more. And I wanted to explore a column, or a newsletter that can like while I'm reading and thinking of ideas, I can also put them out, right. And I also thought that if a not not a lot of people are working on subscription news product. If certain people are aspiring for the kind of work that I want to do or see themselves doing this job, it might help in their journey and their understanding. That was the idea. To answer your question specifically, do I see myself writing, maybe it depends on how much time I get going forward, I'm not looking to be a reporter. But every now and then when I get time, I would love to write about what I'm thinking what I'm reading. And if I have a good enough take on something, maybe on that, too, I'm very interested on platform accountability, and how big tech impacts not just the media ecosystem, but also democracy and society at large. So I'm working on a couple of things on that. But let's see when it comes out, because again, it really depends on because my priority is my job at news laundry, which is figuring out and leading product social events, etc, etc. If and when I get time I will work on it. And I'll try to put out let's see.

Aishwarya  49:08

And you know, because obviously now news laundry I saw does a lot of things in English and Hindi. Are you also thinking of then moving into more Indian languages is that something that you are considering

49:23

our our approach to language is so again, if you see a lot of Indian language content, AI like that, you use the word Indian language and not like regional language because I like every language is a regional language in India. But so a lot of media publishers, what they do is they will have a team or a reporter writing something in English, and then they just have a translator to translate in Hindi and other language. But I don't think that's how journalism in Indian language works right because then you will be able to figure it out. So right now we have Hindi we have a Hindi desc. We have have reporters in India who go out and do their own stories, every now and then there will be stories that will be done both languages. But the Hindi operations and writing is independent of the English writing. So, yeah, we do have planned but it's not like to it, we are not some startup that we have to raise money. So we will just launch it to 10 more languages, so that it bumps up our number and then we can raise, increase the valuation and raise more money. We do have plans, but like these are very slow flame plans. Because if and when we venture into a new language, we will report originally in that language instead of just like copy pasting and translating it. Yeah, we've partnered with the publisher down south, which it's been in works for a year, but we've just announced it a month back with news Vinod, which is South India's largest one of South India's largest digital publisher. They obviously, they have content in Malayalam and Tamil as well. So we are looking to work very closely with them to ramp up their video, their podcasts and obviously, their subscriptions as well.

Aishwarya  51:14

Yeah, well, I think that makes a lot of sense. Because I think one more question that comes out of, you know, looking at different languages, is that one is obviously, you know, originally reporting in that language, but also then the kind of top topics or, you know, issues that get covered or news that gets covered. Also nice sort of changes based on that, right, because it becomes more authentic to maybe what is happening locally in those specific regions. So what is happening that is affecting, in a way people who speak that language more rather than a more sort of national outlook of news, if that makes sense? So I think, you know, like, if it was a Marathi language thing, right, then it will also focus a little bit of what is happening maybe in Maharashtra or specifically sort of what is affecting Marathi speaking people in a way, because then that is also what would organically be chosen to report on, which I think clearly shows the differentiation between doing that versus just something that's, you know, an English reportage being translated into different languages. So I think it makes a lot of sense. What exactly makes something an independent media house? You know, which is to say that tomorrow? And this is a question I ask also, because like a lot of listeners, viewers of this podcast video series are people who want to enter the creative industry, right? So they're either people who want to work as writers work in different media houses, or people who are thinking of starting their own thing. So what makes something independent? And you know, what sort of criteria doesn't have to fit in to match?

53:04

I think the word independence is also thrown very casually, these days that, yeah,

Aishwarya  53:11

there's this new trend of basically, if you go freelance people start to start calling themselves independent. So they say I have gone independent, and hence, it's nice. So

53:21

I don't think I can comment much on independent as a fad or as a tag. But I can tell you, since your question was what makes a brand independent? I'll answer it in use terms. You just need proprietors and people running it to have a lot of courage. Most media organizations who are doing independent journalism in the country have faced pressure from the corporate world, they face pressure on the government. We keep getting it, it notices. Both and we were paid a visit by the income tax officials last year. So this is not a business for the faint of the heart for the faint hearted. Right? You need people who are not you need people who are running media organizations because they understand the difference journalism makes to a democracy or to a larger society. If you're here if you're running a media organization to make money you will be run it like a lot of mainstream media organization. So I think it really boils nine boils down to do you have it in you? Do you have the courage and you have the courage to take the fight? Right, because there are no two ways about it. We've seen what has happened with BBC we've seen what has happened with news laundry. We've seen what has happened with wire we've seen what happened to the dining Tasker after that they did a really stellar job during the COVID reporting on the COVID crisis, so we've seen the kind of pressures mean Your proprietors face. You also saw what happened with Zubair because one of the cofounders of altos. So this is really a profession or a business that unless and until you're really in it, for the public good of it, you will not survive. If you are nobody starts a media organization because they want to make money. Right? They do, but then they do a very different kind of journalism. Yeah, yeah.

Aishwarya  55:28

This is a question. I think, for all, anyone who works in journalism ever, what do you think about like, the whole fake news thing, which is obviously like, now worldwide an issue. But in India, specifically, you know, I'm very frustrated by just this WhatsApp news phenomenon. They're just like this random, unverified news, kind of, you know, being forwarded on whatsapp on these family groups, and especially older people and older people. I just mean, like, parents, relatives, and of, you know, being imaged, like sort of trusting anything that shows up as a forwarded message on WhatsApp as, like reality or truth, or factual information and kind of acting based off of that. See, the thing is,

56:18

fake news or misinformation has always existed. This is not a new phenomenon. Right? What has changed it that obviously, social media and internet have aggravated the kind of scale and reach it will have? Right? Politicians used fake news and misinformation earlier also, yeah, is that you have to read a lot more about how Hitler's propaganda was tried. So I don't think these are new. But these have big, both fake news and missing information have become enormous challenges with the way technology has involved, and now he is coming in with a deep fake, and so on and so forth. How news organizations can counter it, I think they can counter it by just reporting the truth. That's the easiest way to do it. To give a recent exam, there's just so much of misinformation and talk of loves yet, right. Right Wing, or a specific strata of society would like us to believe that Muslim men are out there to whatever right to go after novice Hindu women, because obviously, why how can Hindu women have their own agency, right, they can think on their own anyway. But again, so what you can do is you can actually report on a lot of these cases, right? So for example, a website like article 14, who do a lot of deep dive report as they have covered. In fact, I think their Ranas, entire series on special Marriage Act, and couples interfaith couples overall. So I think many organizations just need to do their job, right? Because as we report more people read more truth, right? And then if you're informed, right, then you will not believe something that you're getting on WhatsApp. So if media organizations are doing their job, they are reporting the truth. Half of the job of fighting misinformation and fake news will come from that. Second, there are organizations like all can use, right and boom, like we've we've been doing a tremendous job of like fact checking every day, I think one would be that if you have if you have a relative or someone introduced them to like what I've done personally, is I've introduced them to the hotline, origin users, right, where you can just like send them a story and ask them whether or not it's it's fake. And obviously, just to like, I think the problem this is this is the thing that sometimes I see. Like with with some of my older relatives, and to suddenly say, My parents also, in general, propaganda, or content full of bigotry and bad content, let's call it like, is it's way too easily available. Yeah. So I think the easiest thing that we can do is like you and I will know what is like, what are the some of the best shows to watch I what I keep on doing is we have to introduce them to better interim entertainment sources. Why do we will watch news so much because they don't have better entertainment sources? Right? So for example, I personally told them that you know what, no, you think that news is actually relaxing? It's not. So I've asked them. So I think what we need to do if we have a relative or a parent, who's just finding everything on WhatsApp and believing in it, we need to give them better entertainment content sources, introduce them to good films on Ott, right introduce them to Spotify, where they can listen to music, right because if their mind is caught up, watching good films, reading good books, listening to good music, they are less likely to spend time on Whatsapp and Instagram, reading bigotry and misinformation. I know you didn't ask me for a suggestion, but no

Aishwarya  1:00:08

suggestion Honestly, though, but yeah, yeah, no, it's a good suggestion. And I also want to ask about, you know, because you mentioned deep fakes, I think, obviously AI being a question that no one can ignore, at this point by, especially with, say, like, video evidence or photo evidence at this point, right? Yeah. How big of a problem is basically like deep fakes. Because then how do you? Like how are basically today, news channels able to really verify,

1:00:38

I think, both generative AI and the fakes and other models of machine learning, I think they've I am very skeptical of them, specifically with the kinds of threats they pose to society and newsroom, there is a lot of good that will come out of it. And obviously, we should, we should celebrate it. But I think whenever there is a new technology, or a new innovation or a new breakthrough, we get so excited by the good things that it promises, we completely overlook the kinds of dangers it poses, right? And the kind of questions it should be asked, I'll send you an article that you can link to this podcast, it was published, and I'm forgetting the author's name for the very bad with names, but that talked about the kind of dangers that face and how see what is eventually the currency for news organization. It's trust. Right? And if you can actually get AI to do defects, like how will trust work them? Yeah. Because if AI through deep fakes through whatever, I think there will be any way there is a trust crisis, right? We are anyway, so skeptical of something that we read online, etc, etc. I think the crisis of trust will only get deeper with these technologies. Unless we rein them and ask them questions that need to be asked. I think we get too excited with technology that okay, it will do this, it will do, why it will do etcetera, etcetera. But I think we're not seeing the kind of dangers this poses, right, something as simple, something as simple as like copyright, right? So for example, you know, again, there are these services, where you give a prompt, and they will make a graphic image. But nobody is asking that there are millions and millions of copyrighted images and work of artists, on which these modules have been trained on exam, right? This is actually this is actually stealing, right? But nobody's asking a question, right? And it's very likely to happen with a news organization. Let's just say, we do a deep dive article on on caste ism in India, I'm just giving a very, right? But then a website that is peddling fake news can easily just like through prompts, copy some of our content, we won't even know right, because it's not like copy pasting right there paraphrasing. So I think there are huge copyright concerns there huge trust concerns. And I think like, we need to be a lot more critical of new technology. Yes, we should acknowledge the good. But in the effort to celebrate the good and being too excited about it, we should not lose sight of the kinds of challenges. It pays poses to a society and world at large.

Aishwarya  1:03:57

Yeah, no, I 100% agree. And now there is AI, which is, you know, being created, which can basically emulate people's voices. Right. So that's also one of the things happening, there's obviously art, and how AI is affecting art, there are entire books being written by AI, and then you know, copyright questions, and obviously now with voice where it's like, okay, if I feed an AI or 15, second 22nd clip of anyone's voice, say your voice, right? And then it can just then replicate your voice. And then you can have audio content out there, which is in your voice kind of claiming your identity, right, in a way, then that itself is its own problem, which is, again, this issue of trust, and how do you verify and what is like real and fake and true and false? I think that it's definitely a question like, ethically and also just the ramifications of what everyone's doing that kind of needs to be answered. Yeah. Okay, what disruptions are you hoping happen in the industry in the next few years?

1:05:00

I hope more organizations pivot to subscriptions. Because again, like I, like we were talking earlier, the large problem with the current media model is the business of how media organizations are making money. So if more organizations and news outlets are pivoting to subscriptions and relying on reader revenue, I think by default, that will increase the quality of the journalism they're producing and the quality of the larger media equals ecosystem. So that's that's one disruption for shows though, reader revenue and subscriptions are nothing new. The other thing that I want to see is again, more experimentation and innovation with format. Right? Like like we were talking earlier, right? Who's decided journalism can only be done in text right there. For example, I follow this guy who I think he's he's quit Washington Post now. But he does these 32nd Tik Tok videos on like, very important news events. Right? And these are not like it's actually informative, right? Like, for example, when the when the Silicon Valley Bank crashed, I think one of the best explainers was done by this guy on Tik Tok. So more and more innovation, and I think it's happening a lot of young people who are coming into the profession, they don't have that. Template, right, yeah, Charmin which is Toluca near to I will do a writer 500 piece text. Yeah, right. I think disruption there, for sure. And the other thing is, I think we'll see a lot more quality independent journalism in Indian languages, I think we're still we've still not seen that growth in Indian languages. Most of it, it's still just translated from Hindi or English. Because that's when the growth is will also come from because I think we've mostly saturated the metro and the first and second tier city. It's basically Indian languages. And I think for for example, creators and YouTubers are already there. They're already so many channels that are specifically say, Malayalam or Bengali or cetera, et cetera. I think news organizations also have to be built to cater to that target audience. And it can't be like one legacy media group, or let's also start a Bengali thing, right? Because then it's just like, churning out the same content material are different. So yeah, I think those those are the things that at least I'm looking forward to in media.

Aishwarya  1:07:52

Let's do sort of the last section of this conversation, which is a very quick rapid fire round. Okay, so I have a few questions for you just as fast as you can answer.

1:08:02

I'm very bad at quickfire, but I will try to do justice. Let's try a very original format.

Aishwarya  1:08:11

Okay, so one independent media house that you really admire today.

1:08:16

There are so many, but I really admire the work that newsmen also I'm I'm slightly biased, because I really like to organize. I really like Whitney, who's the CEO, and then who's the editor in chief. I like how they built the organization. Bottom up, because nobody really covered South India. Before that, right. So so my short answer would be newsmen it Yeah.

Aishwarya  1:08:45

Would you ever write a book?

1:08:48

I don't know. I think I'm I still have that anxiety with insecurity, rather that I'm a bad writer. So I don't know like, maybe we'll see. I actually don't have the answer. Maybe I will. I want to I have a couple of ideas. But I I'm not very sure right now if I'll have the time to write it as well.

Aishwarya  1:09:11

If not this what would your alternate career be? So also not social development, not developmental sector?

1:09:23

I think there's a strong chance I would have ended up being a reporter for sure. Because like I said, I grew up with consuming so much media and interest in it. Or I would have started my own organization. But again, in the in the development sector or something because that's something that was for me, news industry,

Aishwarya  1:09:43

not developmental sector, other than these two.

1:09:49

I actually don't know I don't have an answer. Yeah, I've got a really I never wanted to be a doctor, engineer or a lawyer for me. Maybe I don't know, maybe a lawyer. I because that's that's one thing I really thought about. And I debated in college. And that's where a lot of debating society people end up in. But yeah, maybe so maybe a lawyer.

Aishwarya  1:10:13

But yeah. One mix that you want to bust about news platforms in India.

1:10:21

There's so many myths, the biggest myth is that only people you see on camera are the ones putting in all the work. I think there's an army of people, behind people you see on camera that are able to sort of put together the journalism and content you see on the screen.

Aishwarya  1:10:40

Yeah. One piece of advice for people who want to enter the media industry today.

1:10:47

Ah, I think there are certain trade offs you have to make in any industry, the trade off that you will make in a media industry is that you might have a very fulfilling career in terms of contributing to public good, but that will come at the cost of you not making a lot of money and you working really, really hard. So I think people people should not join or come to me then industry thinking it would be a 10 to five gig where I can be like people who are working in corporate and make a lot of money. Yeah.

Aishwarya  1:11:29

Okay. Cool. Thank you so much for coming on the book people and talking to me about all of these things. I think I have learned so much more about subscription models about you know, just generally how, what is happening, especially with independent media more than anything else. So I think this has been really really insightful.

1:11:48

Great, lovely talking to Asher. I hope this gives some insight and value to your listeners and followers.

Aishwarya  1:11:57

Yeah. That marks the end of another episode of the book people. Tune in every Thursday for some breakdowns, some truth bombs, and some insightful and real conversations with industry experts about all things books. This podcast is created by Bob. We work with writers and brands to create content across formats, whether it's books, podcasts, newsletters or speakers. So get in touch to see how we can help you grow through stories and follow us at bound India on all social media platforms. I'm your host Aishwarya in follow me on LinkedIn, where I share many, many more insights about books and content. Or you can get in touch with me at Ushuaia at bound india.com If you have any suggestions on topics I should cover, or if you want to book any of my services or consultation calls. Until then, keep writing