We are pleased to announce that our Managing Editor Satarupa Sen Bhattacharya has been selected for Google News Initiative’s Newsroom Leadership programme in India, in partnership with Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
The Newsroom Leadership programme, 2022 aims to “enhance the leadership skills and nimble decision-making capacity of newsroom leaders working and living in India, with particular focus on applied technology, audience understanding, design thinking, data applications, emerging business models and editorial innovation.” This is the latest in a host of newsroom initiatives by Google to support news publishers and newsrooms in addressing the altered news landscape.
Historically newsrooms have been viewed as spaces where reporters, editors and publishers come together to create news content for dissemination among the larger citizenry. The quality, authenticity and balance of such content is determined largely by the capacity, skills, objectivity and empathy of reporters on the ground and their desk colleagues.
But traditional models have also led to inadequate or incomplete representation of the marginalised communities. The stories told are disproportionately few in comparison with the stories out there that deserve to be told.
As a Fellow of this programme, Satarupa will engage with experts and colleagues in the Indian media space to build a model that leverages technology and builds effective partnerships between professional journalists and citizen journalists.
Her learning will help us in our journey to strengthen our citizen journalism and provide a platform for mainstreaming diverse voices. This is a key aspect of Citizen Matters’ mission in bringing citizens, journalism and data together to make our cities more liveable, inclusive and sustainable.