Knight Fellow's crowdsourcing project democratizes media in India

por Margaret Looney
Oct 30, 2018 em Miscellaneous

Knight International Journalism Fellow Shubhranshu Choudhary explained the potential of his mobile news network in a recent TEDxTalk.

Inspired by the need to have the voices in his community heard, he created CGNet Swara, a network where people can report news in their native language via mobile phone and then have their recorded messages posted on a website.

When the mainstream media overlooked militant violence in the Indian state of Chhattisgarh, it was citizen journalists who made the news public. Choudhary said a significant spark like this was needed to prevent an “aristocratic” style of censorship from the major media organizations in India.

“We did something very revolutionary," he said. "This is the group that stopped a genocide in Chhattisgarh."

Only 7 percent of the nation's population has Internet access, so he urged the tech community to heed its needs. If this network had search capabilities, it could be the next "search engine for the poor."

Check out the live talk below.