Unorthodox but different, Babra Wani decided to tell the year-long story of her newsroom, the little universe she gave most of the last 365 days to
We reporters are told that newsrooms are mini-universes, microcosms of the ecosystem in which they operate. The surrounding happiness and tensions are routinely reflected in these spaces almost in real-time. As the internet has changed the news cycle, it has done away with overlays, both in terms of time and description.
In Jammu and Kashmir, 2024 was hugely significant because it marked the return of democracy as two elections took place within a few minutes. This put such a massive load on the newsrooms that sometimes it was challenging to keep pace with the happenings. For journalists, especially the newcomers, these events are Himalayan as they help them to know something that now has a five-year cycle. These elections were hugely important because they took place after 2014 and these pulled the political class from the margins. These periods offer scribes invaluable, hands-on experience in political reporting and the issues that matter.
In my newsroom, however, too much to do and to do it better has always created a tension that various generations of journalists have lived with. While the 24×7 web operation chases events on a minute-to-minute basis, the multimedia and the audio-visual section follow the news trail. Despite being part of the magazine set-up, an operation that has slightly a longish deadline, the race between the web and the multimedia eventually sucks the entire newsroom.
Celebrating Ramazan
Our year started with Jashn-e-Ramazan 2 (JeR), a hugely successful series being webcast daily throughout the month of Muslim fasting. Led and presented by Syed Shadab Ali Gillani, this series is challenging because it requires travel, shooting, research, editing and release – all in a 24 24-hour cycle. This year, the added responsibility was to manage an allied talk show, the Aaj Ki Mulaqaat, on the same subject and involved arranging and studio-recording daily conversations. So both the daily programmes needed two dedicated teams.
The JeR 1 was hosted by Sabreen Ashraf in 2023. This year’s team comprised Shadab, Shuaib Wani and Umar Dar. Occasionally Mushtaq Sahib and Mohammad Imran would also accompany the trio. This team was on the road, during the whole course of Ramzan and travelled near and far, connected with people, moved along the roads less traversed, prayed almost in all the mosques of Kashmir, visited a variety of shrines, and brought back a beautiful and highly-acclaimed audio-visual series.
One of the toughest and most challenging parts of the series was that most of the iftaars (evening breakfast) for the team, happened on the roads. Many a day, they had Iftaar with plain water or a delayed breakfast in the office. Kashmir has its own peculiarity – barring Srinagar, no area in Kashmir can get you a person at Iftaar time barring home or the mosque.
While the outdoor team had its own challenges, those sitting in the office were not at ease either. There was constant research going on. The research team also juggled between two parallel series. The episodes of both these series had to go on air daily and the juggling between the two, while managing and writing for the magazine as well was a daunting task.
The research for the JeR included framing of questions and answers daily. The research for the Aaj Ki Mulaqaat Ramzan Special included sourcing, inviting and managing to record 30 different guests, one a day. “We also had to research about thirty different topics to be discussed during the episodes,” a host of the season said, “and then we had to write for the magazine as well. It was very difficult to manage fasting, researching, interviewing, and then writing for the magazine as well.”
Most of the time, during those thirty days, the traditional editorial meetings were done away with.
Though supposed to be a magazine person, I was part of both AKM and JeR. Most of my Sundays during Ramazan were spent in the office. Most of my iftaars were on the road, just outside my home.
A fun thing that happened was that to give most of the time to JeR, we used to record multiple interviews for AKM in a single day. Our highly competent editor, Aijaz Ganai was editing and releasing these conversations on the same day.
Dealing with tonnes of pages of knowledge and information was a daunting task and every time the information had to be cross-checked because when it comes to faith, the information that has to be put in the public domain has to be more accurate. During the course, more than 150 questions, answers and their explanations had to be framed. This challenging series is a nightmare for the staff but it is hugely satisfying. Even on Eid, a staffer spent most of the day editing the last episode.
Leading the political coverage was Syed Shadab Ali Gillani, my colleague, who dedicated the majority of the year to this crucial beat. His work spanned both audio-visual reporting and insightful print stories, capturing the nuances of the unfolding political landscape.
The JeR2 was handled by Iqra Akhoon – all days, except Eid. Her screen absence was talked about on social media very loudly till people understood that her editing skills had made JeR fascinating. Interestingly, the JeR2 returned for Aiman after the fasting was over. She had to curate a reel question series out of it, and it is still going on.
The Lok Sabha Election
Well before the team could sit and cool the heels, marching orders came too soon. Given the fact that Shadab takes care of the political beat across the verticals, he had to move out and cover the politics. “For Kashmir, the Lok Sabha 2024 was very important as after a gap of almost five years, since the reading down of Article 370, some election of any significance was taking place. When the newsroom assigned the campaign trail and one-on-one interviews with contestants to me, I was both excited and nervous.,” Shadab recorded his experience, in ‘Kashmir: Politics, Politicians, People. “As a junior, I lacked exposure to the political landscape, experience and contacts. There were no escapes. It was both a challenge and an opportunity.”
For almost one-month Shadab remained too busy covering Kashmir’s political landscape. As expected, the journey was not smooth. It was a lesson that politics is transacted differently on the ground than in newspapers. From travelling miles to reaching destinations and managing appointments, everything came with its own sets of challenges.
The entire newsroom chipped in this process from offering inputs to facilitating the interviews. There were rejections, delays a lot of travel and loads of pain. The maze of access to political beings was painful. Sometimes, it was too frustrating. The assignment led Shadab to hugely compromise his biological clock.
While he was busy recording multiple multimedia stories, he had to deliver a special report for the magazine based on the week’s political activities. And he did it. Sometimes he filed special reports, other days he managed to write cover stories amid his busy and hectic schedule.
Rediscovering Silk Route
While Shadab was chasing the politicians, Iqra, the multimedia producer, decided to go for a rediscovery – to trace the routes and the spots that once made the Silk Route, Kashmir’s access to commerce, faith and civilisation for the millennia gone by.
Though I spared myself for the magazine reportage, Iqra picked her team. Given the importance of the cultural and historic project, she picked Humaira Nabi for research and direction, a team of three ace photographers – Shahzad Wagay, Mudasir Farooq Parray and Umar Dar, besides Fayaz Najr as the manager.
They were out for weeks. We used to see each other on WhatsApp till they concluded their thousands of kilometres of journey. The series, a 16-episode film series, never attempted and rarely told in Jammu and Kashmir’s history has emerged as the only audio-visual history of the time gone by. The last of the 16 films was webcast on the last weekend of 2024. Given her style of working, it is just the beginning of the long story, she is telling us in the newsroom.
Iqra remained preoccupied with her series, throughout the year. As she took it upon herself to edit her entire series. Not only that, she was also the chief editor of JeR, with AimanFayaz and Mohammad Imran, assisting her. The back-to-back projects prompted a decrease in her screen presence, while people often inquired about her absence. But with the release of her series, she was back in her element.
Five Talk Shows
This year, my newsroom managed to produce five seasons of a talk show, Aaj Ki Mulaqaat. The series showcased a variety of hosts and guests, coming from almost all walks of society. Almost every journalist in the newsroom – Masood Hussain, Iqra Akhoon, Syed Shadab Ali Gillani, Raashid Andrabi, Aiman Fayaz, Umaima Reshi, Khalid Bashir Gura, Jahangir Sofi, and BabraWani – were part of it.
These one-on-one conversations are recorded in the studio. Two of the seasons were theme-based, one being the Ramzan special season, and the other one was the recently concluded was dedicated to the author – people who have a book to their credit. The author series was received very well because people are used to reading books but not knowing the toil the authors invest in making them.
A Year Shift
Time leaping from 2024 to 2025 might be a year shift but in my newsroom, it just is a time connector. Shadab who did two seasons of political series Know Your Politician, is out for most of the days. He is doing something more, and something exciting on the political front. He reports sometimes after three days to the office along with his team.
Iqra has barely finished the Silk Route and is weaving a new web of knowledge and information.
While Iqra and Shadab are the two publicly acknowledged faces of Kashmir Life – given their day-to-day interactions with the audience, many others work off the camera but are fundamental to the newsroom. Multimedia apart, the magazine carried some of the best stories of the year, ranging from society to politics, to health, to human interest stories. The magazine also featured stories of survival and resilience and some such topics that are often stigmatised.
The joining of Muhammad Nadeem has added to the coverage of the books section in the magazine and on the web. This year, he did a wonderful series on foreign travellers and their impressions of Kashmir from ancient to medieval times. That is something that has never been attempted in Jammu and Kashmir.
For a major part of the year, the coordinating editor, Faiqa Masoodi handled the website solo. Later in 2024, she picked erstwhile intern Maleeha as her assistant. “The web has been doing very well,” is the majority consensus in the newsroom. However, as has been the routine in newsrooms, the scoops and the early news breaks barely get thumbs up. Unfortunately, when there is a miss, it is an essential dressing down.
“I can say with full authority that we as a newsroom, as an organisation were the first ones to break a development during the Assembly sessions,” Faiqa Masoodi said. “We did extensive reporting and rather than waiting for agency feeds, we did our own stories. Shadab was there in the Assembly, reporting from there, sending video clips, doing live reporting.” She believes the year was too busy – two elections and nine series.
There is an emphasis on the students and youth affairs vertical, the Youth Affairs, given the desperation of the student community to get the best place to study some job to work.
The newsroom, as part of the routine, welcomed a few batches of interns as well. These interns were students of the University of Kashmir, Government Degree College Baramulla and Central University. Given the fact that they get too little time to spend in the newsrooms, we have been strictly enforcing every-moment-matters so that they have something to show back to their guides and classrooms. These interns produced multimedia stories, reels, print and web stories. While the students of Central University and the University of Kashmir were in the newsroom before the Lok Sabha elections, a batch from GDC Baramulla was with us during the Assembly elections.
