The importance of tracking layoffs and cutbacks in newsrooms in India due to COVID19
Donate to this project by following this link
I began tracking layoffs and cutbacks in Indian newsrooms a week after India announced a nationwide lock down on 24 March 2020. I wanted to understand how COVID19 would impact the news business in India. On 14 April, I began a tracking it publicly and a few days later began circulating a form on social networks to gather more information. Until very recently, I hadn’t bought into the argument of COVID19 would change things or the this-is-an-apocalyptic-moment-for-the-business-of-news argument. And I was underestimating the impact of COVID19 on our industry.
https://twitter.com/cyrilsam/status/1255032231619264512
My name is Cyril Sam. I am a journalist based in New Delhi, India. I write on the business of news in India. My work has appeared in Splice Media, Nieman Lab, News Laundry, Newsclick and Medianama. Since the lock down was announced I have been tracking newsroom cutbacks in India as a personal project, documenting internal communications of newsrooms, statements issued by trade bodies, courts, the government of India and journalist unions.
Nearly a month-and-a-half of speaking with different stakeholders on the business side of news and tracking layoffs, cutbacks and fall in advertising in Indian newsrooms, I am beginning to realise that things will change, at least in the business of news.
Help me track layoffs and cutbacks in newsrooms in India by following this link https://forms.gle/e3rVcdLcFb9nTYdC8, email me at samcyril@protonmail.com or reach out to me on Twitter at @cyrilsam, my DMs are open
I have witnessed two waves of lay offs and cutbacks in Indian newsrooms and reported on a third in the last nine years of working as a journalist. After multiple conversations and weeks of data collection, I have a feeling we will witness multiple waves of cutbacks, layoffs and even closures in the news business as we grapple with this pandemic.
Sustainability is euphemism for death at the first crisis, another friend who studies the business of media likes to say. Most news media were trying to be sustainable. They weren’t. COVID19 comes as an existential blow for many in the business.
Each lay-off and closure signals our information ecosystem becoming poorer and our information sources becoming fewer. Post COVID19 news media landscape might be very different from the one we have today. If we are to make investments, if we are to fund, if we are to study what we lose, how the ecosystem changed and how we can possibly revive it, we need to track the economic impact of COVID19 on the news media in India.
You can read about all the cutbacks in Indian newsrooms so far at https://link.medium.com/Waf8GJraY5
Then there is the story of the individual journalist — the collateral damage — those who spend years in high stress and low paying jobs. They layoffs and cutbacks in newsrooms have shown how dispensable they are for news companies. They are helpless when it comes to seeking accountability from their own companies. At the end of this crisis, journalists wouldn’t emerge any stronger. There will be fewer journalists to begin with.
Each lay off, cutback, closure also signals weakening of democracy in India as newsrooms hollow out and there are fewer journalists to keep a check on power and raise questions in public interest on our behalf
Most importantly, in the absence of evidence-backed documentation, news organisations can claim that there have been no lay-offs or salary cuts. Most recently, the News Broadcasters Association and the Indian Newspaper Society argued the same in the Supreme Court of India in relation to lay-offs and salary cuts at news organisation.
I am currently doing as a side project but would like to turn it into a full time project, which comprehensively tracks and reports on how COVID19 is changing the news ecosystem in India.
You can help me by
1. tipping me off about information that you have access to by filling up this form,
2. donating to this project by following this link
3. connecting me to institutional funders who are interested in studying the impact of COVID19 on the news ecosystem in India,
Let us help each other understand how COVID19 is impacting the news ecosystem in India.
