Simit Bhagat, founder of Simit Bhagat Studios, and Shail Desai, an award-winning journalist, chat about the art of pitching the stories of nonprofit organisations to the media.
Shail is an independent journalist based out of Mumbai, India. Since he quit his full-time journalistic job in December 2015, he has been travelling around India and outside and bringing out stories that are seldom written about. He regularly contributes to a range of publications, including Al Jazeera, Mint, First post, Mumbai Mirror, Hindu Business Line, and Scroll, among others. He is the recipient of the prestigious RedInk Awards 2018 by the Mumbai Press Club in the ‘Sports’ category. Check out his work here: http://www.shailwrites.com
Transcript of the Episode:
Simit: Thank you so much, Shail, for agreeing to be on this podcast. Just to give you some background, Shail has been an award-winning journalist and has worked in the media space for over a decade now, right from the Times of India to the Hindustan Times, Star Sports, and so on. Presently, he works as an independent journalist with a range of publications, including Mint, The Hindu, Al Jazeera, and so on.
So thank you, Shail, for being on this podcast. As we discussed, the idea of this podcast is to discuss how NGOs, nonprofits, and social enterprises can essentially be better when it comes to pitching stories to publications. So it would be wonderful to get your insights on this.
Shail: Thank you for having me here, Simit, and I hope I can shed some light on how NGOs could better pitch their stories and get their work out in the mainstream media.
Simit: Both of us have come a long way, right? We started with the same publication in the same media, which is the Times of India. When was that? That was way back in 2019, right?
Shail: No, it was 2008.
Simit: So yeah, that was 2008–09. Yeah. It’s been a long way, hasn’t it?
Shail: I hope we’re going to talk a lot about some of the basics that we learned back then because I’m pretty sure it’ll help NGOs in terms of just how you approach a story because everyone does work, but so many times you don’t know how to explain this to another person.
So I’m pretty sure we’re going to go back to a lot of the basic journalism that we studied and practiced back then.
Simit: Absolutely. In fact, we happened to also have studied at the same journalism school. So one of the things that our director back then, Mr. Abhay Mukashi, would tell us is that the very basics of journalism are five W’s and one H. Can you elaborate a bit on that?
Shail: Sure. Five Ws and one H will essentially help you determine whether it’s a story or not before you actually go ahead and pitch it to a journalist. So the five W’s would be who, what, when, where, and why. And H is the how. So “who” is, “who is it about,” “what” is “what has happened,” which is why you think it’s a story. When did it happen? ”Where” is “where did it happen”? “Why” is “why did it happen” and “how it happened.” If you can answer these questions, these are useful tools to check, whether it’s a story or not.
“5Ws and 1H help you determine a story.”
And as a journalist, these are the basics. This is something that we always follow, and we consider this to be an essential element when a reporter actually writes a news story. So before you actually pitch a story to a journalist, just think: if you can tick off all these five Ws and 1 H, you can be sure that it’s a story worth pitching to a journalist.
Simit: Again, going back to the very basics, we constantly hear this term, the peg of the story. What is the story? Can you tell us? What exactly does that mean? What is a peg of a story?
Shail: Right? So when you talk about a peg, it’s the crux of the story. A story could be anywhere from 400 words to 2000 words or even longer. But the story has a central theme, which is essentially the peg of the story. It’s also called the story hook. And the reason a reporter chooses to report a news story is based on the peg.
And the peg often makes the story very timely, which is, “Why are you kind of writing the story now?” So the peg will kind of answer that question as well. So that’s essentially a peg or a story hook for a story.
Simit: So let’s just create a scenario, okay? And you tell me what the point of that story would be for a nonprofit. So recently, the Prime Minister mentioned using Kissan drones, basically drones that would be used by farmers, and how the government is planning to promote more on that front. So for an NGO that is working in the agriculture space or that is working with farmers, is there something that they can pitch, maybe a story on, or something on a similar work that they are doing?
Shail: So instantly, in their past work, if they’ve ever used a drone, it becomes a sell to a journalist because the Prime Minister has announced this and they’ve already been doing this. So the peg becomes the fact that the NGO has been using a drone and how it has helped and benefited them. So then there is a flow to the story.
Simit: So typically, for the last, I don’t know, ten, 12 years that you’ve been working in this space, you must have done like hundreds of stories. What is it that you actually look at when you’re considering a story?
Shail: Firstly, I think this story needs to make sense to me. If there is something worth narrating to a larger audience, and if I am clear on why I am narrating this story, it makes for a story, at least for me. So clearly, a story needs to have a unique angle or a unique element, which makes it worth narrating to the audience.
“A story needs to have a unique angle or element.”
For example, if there is an initiative that is launched by an NGO, what I’d be looking at is whether you launched the initiative. That’s not a story for me. But did this initiative actually have an impact on the ground, whether it’s community-based or it’s related to individuals who come from a specific category? So I would look at the impact that this story has had and whether it’s improved or not. This is what I kind of look at, which will make it interesting for a reader.
Otherwise, it becomes very hard to justify why you’re writing the story. If it’s just an announcement like an NGO is launching X, well, fine, but what is the impact that X has had? So what you can do is essentially pitch a story a few months after the initiative has been launched, so that you yourself can first analyse how it’s had an impact.
And this is what I would like to narrate when I’m writing this story.
Simit: I mean, this is, I think, the most difficult part, I guess, for an NGO, especially for people who have not been in this space or who do not understand the media space, because, in the time that I have interacted or been working with nonprofits, one of the things is that, when I try to understand if there is a story angle that I could pitch to a journalist, one thing that I find it difficult to get from the organisation is that peg. What is that most important thing?
For example, recently I was speaking to an organisation; they work in this space of education, and this was my first or second interaction with them. So I didn’t know much about their work in detail. So when I asked them, one of their complaints was that they had been pitching stories to media houses, and none of them picked up the story.
I kind of had like a very quick sort of exercise just over a Zoom call to understand that. Are there anything specific, or are they not specific angles that they could tell me? And I could kind of make sense of it, and I could suggest to them that this could be a potentially potential story.
And I had a discussion, and I just could not We could not come up with anything,because typically the organisation would tell me that, oh, we work in early education, early childhood education, for example. Now that doesn’t make a story. There has to be a story to it that has to be right. So how does an organisation kind of understand this?
Shail: Since you spoke about child education, let’s talk about that. When you’re on the field, you can actually analyse for yourself the kind of impact your work has been having on the field. I think it’s important to just sit down and try to look at what you’ve done and then kind of make sense of it. If it actually had, like I said, any kind of impact on the place that you’ve been working because all NGO is work, all NGOs do a lot of stuff on the field, but analysing what they’ve done is essentially what comes out in annual reports.
“Analyse the impact of your work on the field.”
But you don’t wait. And at the end of the year, if you just analyse it every week or every month, depending on how frequently you’re implementing the entire project step by step, it will give you a decent understanding of the kind of impact the programme has had.
Simit: And you think that would sort of help them identify what could be a potential story that they could pitch to a journalist?
Shail: Certainly. And then you obviously are going to check the five Ws and one H because the peg is important, right? It has to be timely. So if something was launched in January, say, at the end of January or mid-February, it would be a good time to do a full check on what kind of impact it’s had. And over a period of time, it’ll give you an understanding, but it’s quantitative or qualitative that will give you an idea of what you need to tell a journalist, what the journalist needs to see and read to convince him that, yeah, this is a story worth writing.
Simit: And would you say something—let’s say data? For example, would you say that data would sort of help in pitching a particular story?
Shail: Absolutely. Data makes it very easy to understand the impact with respect to a story. It’s a start. It’s not everything in a story, but when you’re saying something in a story, the data will help you justify the statement that you’re making at the start.
“Data helps to make an important point.”
And a lot of publications need that data. They’ll ask you to get that data.
In fact, not just the current data. They’ll actually ask you to go back and look at the data from a year ago—maybe a year before that—and maybe compare it to data that’s out there, from another part of the world. So, coming back, data isn’t everything, but data is absolutely essential when you’re narrating a particular story.
Simit: So can you give an example of how a data-driven story actually works? Is there anything that you have done that would kind of help people in this space understand what you’re talking about?
Shail: So I think the easiest one—I mean, that comes to mind—is that I was in Bundelkhand at a school for farmers. And what the person there was trying to do was bring them back to the traditional form of farming. So obviously, farming is something that takes time, and analysing the results takes time.
But over a period of three years, he could kind of see the impact that the traditional method of farming was having in terms of the volume of cultivation that was happening. So that data became an easy reference because the land was the same. But once you implemented the traditional method of farming, which you learned through the farmer’s school, that was a three-fold increase in his produce. So that became an easy sell for me.
Simit: So just to kind of sum up, basically you need to have like good data, something that you can back to do to your story. And then you need to have multiple examples of something similar that has happened to a bunch of people, not just one person.
Shail: Absolutely. Yeah. Right.
Simit: So, you have done a lot of work with nonprofits,and you’ve covered the nonprofit space as well. So, what has your experience been like?
Shail: Something that could be very relevant for this particular podcast is the fact that a lot of them don’t know what they’re actually pitching. So what happens is that whether it’s a telephonic conversation or an email, they just tend to write a thesis, which is not the way to approach a journalist because,sure, he might read through the whole thing, but while reading through the whole thing, the crux of the story might just get lost; it gets diluted.
“A lot of nonprofits lack the skills to pitch a story to a journalist.”
So a lot of them, I mean, what I have come to understand is that they have great stories, but they just don’t know how to kind of talk about them to a journalist. Often, I have to sit down and read through a press note or analyse the conversation that I’ve had with someone to understand where the story is.
Simit: Right. Or maybe look at their annual report, their website, or something.
Shail: I mean, I would love it if they would just feed it. in a two-minute conversation to see it happen, or a short press note saying this is what we’re doing, or just send me data. Often, if you just send me data, that’s enough for me to kind of decide whether it’s a story or not.
And like we are going back to what we were discussing, if it’s clear, like the data is in front of you, it’s very easy to understand that, yes, Project X has had this kind of impact, and here’s the data, and it becomes so easy for a journalist to send the story.
Simit: Because journalists get a lot of information from various sources and from various places. Right. So I guess it’s not possible or even feasible for a journalist to go through each and every email that they get because there’s just tonnes of information coming in. So I guess what you’re saying is that if there is maybe a two-sentence or a very short kind of introduction or information about what the pitch is, that would essentially make it much easier for any journalist to write.
Shail: I mean, you said two sentences, but I’m happy to read even 20 sentences if they’re meaningful. If they help me understand that this is the story you’re trying to tell, this is the story you’re trying to narrate. I don’t mind reading 20 sentences, but make them meaningful.
Simit: Just don’t bombard yourself with information.
Shail: Yeah, don’t just give me an entire history.
Simit: I want it to go with you with some of the stories that you’ve done about NGOs and some of the initiatives. So shall we start with the skateboarding story that you did in Madhya Pradesh? Can you just walk us through? How did that story happen?
Shail: Sure. Through a friend, I heard about a skate park. close to Panna. Now, for me, it was hard to believe because skateboarding is a very urban sport. At least back then, it was very urban. Even today, you’re related to a lot of urban settings. So for me to just hear that there is a skate park in the middle of nowhere was something that I wanted to go see for myself.
I didn’t have a contact, but even if I had a contact, I wouldn’t call them because this was something that I wanted to see with my own eyes. So I actually made the trip to Panna, and about four kilometres from Panna is a small village called Janwaar. It now has a network in certain sports. But back then, it had no network.
Resources were limited. But I reached there, and there were little kids there barefoot. There was a skate park there, and they were having a blast skating around the ring. And obviously, the wow factor as a journalist remains for us for a short span. And then I try to look at the kind of impact a skate park like this would have on a community that was divided into Yadavs and Adivasis.
And they wouldn’t even mingle in the same village. They would lead separate lives. But because of the skate park, I could see Yadav and Adivasi kids playing together in the same space. Now, obviously, it raised a lot of eyebrows. Okay. But over a period of time, this skate park started bringing about a lot of change.
And today, I’m not saying everything is good, but there’s been a difference. People are more accepting of the elderly; actually, adults are more accepting. But the kids—they don’t even see the difference anymore. This was started by Ulrika Reinhardt, a German national who has worked in skaterstan in Kabul. She’s seen the impact. So, she kind of decided to bring this here,and she came up with this simple rule: no school, no skateboarding.
So as kids typically do it, you point fingers—yeh nahi aya tha. So, they would not be allowed to skate that day. So over a period of time,that kid who didn’t go to school started going to school, simply so that he could skate in the evening. And pretty soon, the attendance went up at school.
And initially, even the school teacher had doubts. What is happening? Because they were very resistant to change—any form of change. But he slowly realised the impact that the skate park was having, so kids started going to school. I think that was fantastic.
“The skateboard park had a big impact on school attendance.”
The second rule was girls first. So suddenly, obviously, it wasn’t so easy. Even the boys there know the kind of setting around them. But today, if you go, girls are using an equal amount of the skate park as the boys, so they don’t have to wait for their turn. They don’t have to wait for the skate park to be empty to be able to actually go and skate there.
So a lot of change has come about because of a simple skate park. So this was it. I’m just briefly telling you about the difference it’s made.
Simit: What year are we talking about?
Shail: The first time I went there would be about 2014 or 15, not exactly sure, but it was at least 5–6 years. So yeah, for me, it was a story that I enjoyed working on, and I made it a point to keep going there at regular intervals to kind of see for myself the change that’s happening in that village and the kids are studying. A lot of them are now studying at Satna, which is near Janwaar.
A few have had exposure. They’ve gone abroad to skate. They speak English now. They’re actually learning remotely. They have their guides sitting in different parts of the world. But now they have the Internet, so they’re regularly talking to them. So yeah.
Simit: Wow, yeah, that’s quite a story. How did you come to know about this? A lot of things must have not happened. I think a lot of the other developments that you mentioned are probably more recent. So the first time you came across the story, how did you pitch it? And where did you pitch it? And which publication did you pitch it to?
Shail: So, I’ve written it again. I’ve written about different aspects of the Barefoot Skateboarders and what they do. So the first thing that I wrote was simply the fact that there is a skate park in the middle of nowhere. And here are kids who, back when they didn’t know what was happening in their own village, realised they’d been skating.
And obviously, there was not much in terms of change back then. But the fact that at least kids from two communities are playing together and there is no school or skateboarding really came up quite early. So you could see the impact that kids are going to school. So, yeah, these are some of the initial observations that I had.
Simit: So initially it was just one story, but over time you’ve done multiple stories about the organisation, about the work that they do, and you’ve taken different angles to pitch that story and to various publications.
Shail: Certainly. So water is an issue in this part of Madhya Pradesh. So they actually looked at rainwater harvesting systems and really improved the quality of the groundwater and all of that. These are all subsequent things that kind of happened. Then I wrote about Asha and the kind of change she’s bringing about in the community as a girl. I’ve written about four or five stories.
Simit: So when you say Asha, it’s not an individual and not the Asha programme that you’re referring to?
Shail: Oh, no, no, Asha Gond, this is the girl on whose life ‘skater girl’ is essentially based.
“The movie ‘Skater Girl’ is based on the story of Asha Gond.”
Simit: Right. In fact, that brings me to my next question, which is: how do organisations get journalists to cover their stories? You know, would it be a unit of time and cover various angles and various, like, how do they kind of get to do that? Because generally, the perception is that if you have pitched a particular story and a journalist has written about you, he or she would not kind of cover you again.
But in your case, as a team, you have done multiple stories over a period of time. So how can organisations get journalists to do that?
Shail: Every organisation is continuously working. There are some projects that are active on the ground,and obviously, there are some that are in the pipeline. I think it’s important for one person at an organisation to take the responsibility to keep in touch with a journalist. And by that, I don’t mean to call him every week, but to keep him posted on future projects that are currently being tested and may be implemented in the time ahead. Let him know about the impact that the previous project has had.
And if there’s any data related to it, if a constant connection is maintained, I’m insisting on the fact that it’s one person so that nothing is repetitive, right? Because journalists , if they’re working on a bunch of things with that one person, that conversation has been maintained over a period of time, exactly what he’s said to him the previous time.
So the next time around, you’re updating, and you’re giving him more than that. And I’m trying to tell you that if another person talks, maybe he’ll talk about the same thing again. So, if you maintain this link,
“Maintain a link with one journalist and keep them updated.”
Simit: So, one person from the organisation?
Shail: Right. If one person keeps in touch with that journalist and keeps them posted on how things are progressing because there’s work happening every minute, every day, that would keep the journalist in the loop. And often, at least for me, I’m waiting for a particular thing to happen. And the moment that happens, I know it’s a story that is worth pitching.
So instead of being hasty, I would wait until I was convinced it was a story in my head. Because once you are convinced, trust any other journalist, it becomes an easy set because of exactly what you’re selling. But when there is a product, for example, that you haven’t seen, it becomes difficult to sell it because you don’t know what you are selling.
But the constant feedback and updates that you get from an NGO make it very easy to kind of convince the journalist. When is the right time to pitch this story, right?
Simit: Yeah. So just to sum it up, essentially, what you’re saying is that there should be one point person at the organisation, and they should be that point person who should be in touch with the journalist. And perhaps, I mean, you have not said this, but if the person is leaving the job or quitting the job, then that person should ideally do a handover to the next person who is joining it and maybe make that connection so that there is a smooth transition and that contact continues even beyond that person.
“It is essential to have a smooth handover of media contacts.”
So that’s one. And secondly, you mentioned how the organisation should probably just keep the person in the loop, keep the journalist in the loop so that there are any sort of updates, and you can chat with that journalist. On a personal note,
Shail: Oh, yeah. I mean, what you just mentioned about if someone leaves the organisation he hands over, whatever has been done so far, the next person would be absolutely amazing for what a journalist, because yeah, I mean, what more can I ask for? Really good. Actually giving me information that I don’t know from another person who has been kept in the loop.
So that would really be great for a photojournalist sitting anywhere, just to get that updated information from a completely different person.
Simit: Great. So, yeah, I wanted to know; there was another story that you had done about which I remember. I think you covered a radio station, like a community radio station in Uttarakhand calledMandakini ki Awaaz’. Can you tell us how that story happened and what it was? What was the point of that story? How did you come across that story?
Shail: Right. So the Kedarnath floods happened. And the next year, I was kind of travelling in the same area. And one of the things I wanted to see was the damage that’s happened because of the flood, how the rehabilitation has kind of started off, and how it’s going to help the people there.
So, while I was there, I was talking to someone, and he told me about a community radio called ‘Mandakini ki awaaz, and it became a very important tool for the people of that region because, typically, when there’s a natural disaster or communication lines are down now through this radio station, what they started was ‘Alerts’. So, for example, if there is a heavy rain forecast, the radio station takes it upon themselves to kind of spread the word to the people in that region.
So it became an instant sale for me because the flood had happened. And now this radio station was using the tools that they had to keep people informed , because typically in mountains, people live very far. So a short distance could take many hours to cover. But through this radio station now, the word spreads easily.
“Radio stations helped keep people informed during a disaster.”
So someone who is living remotely, if he knows that there is heavy rain forecast, could probably come to a place from where he could have easy access in case things went wrong. So this radio station had a direct impact on the future.
So for me, it was a very easy pitch to propose to the newspaper.
I think I wrote this for ‘The Hindu’. Then how is this radio station now changing the lives of people there? And this was just one part of it. But through the radio station, they tried to revive a lot of their songs, their lorries, and all of that. So a lot of the dadajis would sit with their grandchildren and tune in at 9 p.m. on a particular day.
And then I saw them singing along—the same songs and all of that. So that is, of course, different. But the primary thing for this story was the fact that, in case of a natural disaster, now they have a local radio station, which will alert them and kind of help out in case things are bad.
Simit: Yeah, I mean, I’m sure that there are so many stories that you have done, and you can go into each one of them like in detail, but I’m going to, because you’re on my podcast, so I’m obviously going to do my blog here and also bring you to the other story that you had done about ‘the bidesia project’.
Shail: I don’t think it’s a blog at all. I think that’s some incredible work that you’re actually doing. And I mean, it was delightful of me to kind of listen to your stories. Forget the fact that I wrote about it, because it’s just some amazing work that you’re doing. And yeah, thank you for letting me write about it.
Simit: I’m glad. I wanted to speak to you about the fact that one of the stories that you did about ‘the Bidesia project’ got published in an international publication that’s Al-Jazeera. So typically, I mean, as journalists, having worked in India and having an understanding of this, the media space, how to pitch a story to an Indian publication
But I’m sure the same—I mean, there is a lot of change when you pitch stories to international publications. Is starting story. So I wanted to understand from you what it is that generally international publications look for. How can organisations and nonprofits pitch their story not just to an Indian publication, but what is it that they need to keep in mind when they are pitching it to an international journalist or someone who writes for international publications?
Shail: So, I talk in terms of this story. So Mahendra Mishra ji was the person that we wrote about, who was a Bhojpuri musician by day. Let’s put it that way. But he had a solid impact on the freedom movement because he used to bring fake currency notes. The song that he wrote was a lot about indentured labour and the migration that kind of happened during British time.
Then he had an impact with the fake currency note printing, which he would give to revolutionaries to kind of fund the movement. You know, this demanded a global audience because indentured migration meant people went all across the world. Again, India’s independence movement is something that a global audience connects with. So in this particular case, my audience was beyond just Indians. People across the world would be interested in a story like this.
“Under indentured migration, people went all over the world.”
And it’s a fascinating story about one man who was sitting in the heartland of India and who was trying to make a difference in his own way. So his songs—I mean, the two sides—then spoke about migration and indentured labour, which is something that a lot of people don’t know about.
And then the currency that he printed kind of funded the entire independence struggle. So, these are like unknown heroes who had a major impact on India back during their times. So it became very easy for me to kind of get this out, and Al Jazeera agreed, because they probably, of course, saw the kind of impact this story had, and while I would have gotten this published in an Indian publication, I personally thought the story deserved to kind of go out to a wider global audience, which is why I pitched it to Al Jazeera.
Simit: So for people who don’t know about indentured migration, Indentured migration is a migration that happened during the British Raj in India. It happened in the early 18th century, right up to 1917, around that time, when the British government then, back at that time, basically signed contracts with people mostly from UP and Bihar and got them to work on a contractual basis, and they essentially shipped them to the colonies, British colonies across the world, so right from Fiji, Mauritius, the Caribbean, and so on.
So essentially, people signed; they could not read or write at that time, but they put their thumb impressions on a piece of paper, and they were shipped to these countries, and they never came back. So just to give a background on what indentured migration is
Coming back to the story that you mentioned, So this story, because it was about the independence movement, was about pre-folk artists. So there are different angles that you could have possibly taken, right? So in terms of timeliness, the story could have been delivered maybe around the 15th of August, the 26th of January, or maybe even around World Music Day, for example.
Shail: Absolutely. That’s right.
Simit: So one of the ways that organisations can look at stories is to also try to see what are the important days in a year and try to see if there are any stories or if there is any potential story angle that they could bridge around that time.
Shail: Right. Obviously, based on the field that they’re working in, There’d be a bunch of days. If you can just take a look, I think that can make it very easy for the journalist. If you connect with him two or three weeks in advance to let him know that this day is coming up and we’re doing this again, it will be very easy for the journalist to put the story out.
Simit: Right. Okay. Well, I know one thing I like about you in terms of: I know you hate press releases, like long press releases, but do organisations, even today, continue to do so? This is still one of the mediums through which organisations communicate about their work. I mean, do you see any value in receiving press releases from organisations?
Shail: Press releases are important because they give you a feel for what is happening at the organisation. We spoke about this in the past as well, wherein if you have to reach out to a bunch of journalists, the best way to do it is through a press release that says nobody has the time to read a lengthy press release.
So a concise press release without spelling errors, like I mentioned before, would be great, just to give the journalist an idea of something that’s happening. No, this is a new development. It could definitely be communicated through a press release.
“A concise press release is the best way to reach out to a journalist.”
Simit: Right. Okay. So while we’ve talked about everything, like a fundamental question, How can organisations actually locate a journalist and reach out to them? What is the best way to go about it? How does one go about it?
Shail: Right. So when you’re looking for journalists at a particular publication, many times it’s very easy. It’s their first name, and their last name is at the bottom of the group. So, for example, if I were the Times of India, I would be shail.desai@timesofindia.com. If you just open newspapers, you will often get the journalist’s email address at the end of the story or at the start of the story.
That said, I think it’s critical to understand who we are pitching the story to. So, for example, if you are an NGO working in the environment space, it would be silly to pitch to someone who’s working in the education space. So as an NGO, you also need to track journalists, and that’s easy. You just have to read the newspaper first, and you’ll figure out which journalist is covering which beat,so it becomes very easy to kind of understand which journalists would be interested in your work depending on the sector that you’re working in.
“Identify a journalist for every relevant beat.”
And when it comes to an independent journalist like me, you can. I’ll drop in my email address. Please feel free to reach out with anything, because, jokes apart, an independent journalist will be happy to write about any topic as long as it makes for a story for him or her. So when you’re approaching an independent journalist or the person who’s an independent journalist, feel free to reach out to him or her. And you can use social media. Most of them have a presence on social media.
Simit: Except for you, maybe.
Shail: No, actually, I’m just lazy, but I have an active presence as well. And I do check my messages, my tweets, or whatever it is. So yeah, I think that’s the best way to reach out to an independent journalist. And then, it doesn’t matter what field you’re working in. I’m pretty sure they’d be happy to hear you out.
Simit: having done stories about the NGO space. Do you see that there is some reluctance in the mainstream or generally in the media space to do stories about NGOs or cover this space?
Shail: Certainly. A lot of editors I talk to are always apprehensive about writing stories about NGOs because there are just so many out there, and a lot of them don’t do the work that they claim to be doing. So yeah, there is some reluctance, but that’s where someone like me who is out there and who sees things for himself can talk to the editor and let him or her know that I was there.
And the fact that you were there on the ground means that half your job is done because the editor knows that this is not something that’s been fed to him over the phone; he’s seen it, and he’s writing what he saw. He’s writing based on field work, which is traditionally how a journalist used to be.
The guy with the jholi was walking around, seeing things, and bringing news to other people. So, I think a journalist’s credibility kind of depends on this. So I touch it for whatever time I’ve been working. I know now that when I say this is a story, my editors know that it is certainly a story, and it’s not something where they need to doubt any particular thing.
Simit: Right. So, we have covered a lot of ground, haven’t we? So just to sum it up, according to you, what would be the top three takeaways from this session or from a nonprofit that could be taken when it comes to pitching a story to a journalist? What would those top three things be?
Shail: So I think first, be clear in your head: what is it that you’re pitching as a journalist? You can use the five Ws and one H that we spoke about earlier. Be clear in your head first, then approach the journalist with what you think is the pitch. Secondly, use data to substantiate the pitch because that is really effective, like I told you before.
“Be clear when you’re pitching to a journalist.”
And third, be concise. When you’re actually approaching a journalist, don’t give him a whole lot of data that confuses the person. So be crisp and concise. Just give him an idea, because eventually the journalist will be out on the field, and he’ll do his own research to write the story. So just give him an idea of what it is that you are talking about, and then let him decide how he wants to approach the story.
Simit: Wow, thank you so much, Shail, for all your insights. We will
Put your email address in the link below so people can reach out to you directly if they have any stories. And hopefully, you’ll get a lot more leads after this podcast is out.
Shail: Certainly, I look forward to it, and I thank you so much for having me over.
