“Maintaining some dignity but also generating revenue…” Palki Sharma Upadhyay spoke about the challenges of balancing content and views.
🎥: Raj Shamani
🎥: Raj Shamani
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00:00Journalists also have to pay EMIs. They can't always be poor, right?
00:03It's a fact that more people in the world are watching cat videos than anything else.
00:07At the end of the day, we have to stay afloat.
00:09We want the views, we want the numbers, we want the revenue.
00:12The number of people who want to enter journalism is dropping.
00:28It's reducing year by year.
00:31Why is this happening?
00:32Because people are smarter.
00:34I think people are smarter.
00:37I say so because see journalism is a calling.
00:40It's not a job. It cannot be a profession.
00:43You have to be slightly crazy to pursue the same thing.
00:46Pay scales in journalism are abysmally poor.
00:49So the fruits of your labor come very late in life if you're a journalist.
00:54People have kind of like lost respect for how the journalism has been perceived in the country.
01:02The trust which people had, now it's no more there.
01:07Why do you feel that this is going on?
01:09If you look at India, in the early days of journalism, when there was independence,
01:14there was this moral purpose, right?
01:18That you are writing against the British.
01:20There was a greatness.
01:22After that, there was the journalism phase.
01:25You were always in the revolutionary phase.
01:28So people feel that this is very respectable.
01:33But journalists also have to pay EMIs.
01:36They can't always be poor, right?
01:37They can't always be wearing chappals.
01:39But they've always been shown as...
01:42Everything is changing. Like netas are also changing.
01:47There was a time when they wore dhoti, kurta.
01:49Then now someone's walking in a t-shirt.
01:51People are changing, right?
01:53So journalists are also changing.
01:55Plus there is an explosion of media.
01:57There was a time when they were the only ones connecting you to those in power.
02:01They were bringing you the news because you had no other source of news.
02:06But today, sources of information are so many
02:09that you don't need that messenger.
02:11You need that person either to verify or to give context
02:17or to explain that if someone has said this,
02:21then what does it mean?
02:22And how can your life be affected by this?
02:25I think just by chasing events,
02:28your whole model has become a little hollow.
02:31What will we do today?
02:33Today we will track that this journey is going from here to here.
02:36Then if there are 200 people,
02:39then we will take the bite of 20 people.
02:41You tell me, how are you feeling?
02:43Are you feeling hot? Are you feeling cold?
02:45Do you think anything is changing?
02:47What is this?
02:48It's the stated preference of everybody.
02:50I want to watch good content, meaningful stories.
02:53But it's a fact that more people in the world
02:55are watching cat videos than anything else.
02:57Yeah.
02:58Right?
02:59We are not running cat videos.
03:00Someone else is making them.
03:02So, this is what you want to watch?
03:04So, it's not…
03:05The media has its flaws.
03:07But media is only one part of the story.
03:10At the end of the day, we have to stay afloat.
03:12We want the views.
03:13We want the numbers.
03:14We want the revenue.
03:15And if this is our consumer,
03:18then we have to, I think, make some tough choices
03:22how far will I push
03:24and how much can I go down this road
03:27while maintaining some dignity but also generating revenue.
03:31That's a real challenge.