A personal and professional note. I have personally felt bored, tired, and irritated over the last couple of years, sitting in rooms that endlessly discuss how bad the state of Indian journalism is and the challenges it faces. It does. But there is so much to be done. I feel we are also living a new phase of Indian journalism. One with hope and innovation. One that can be done with much lower capital investment, with much more rigour and by a more diverse set of people. I am happier discussing and sharing how we can do more of it and what is already happening. And there is so much of it already happening that we must spend our energies building on it. In parallel, at The Reporters' Collective @reporters_co, largely driven by my co-trustee @journomayank, we have asked what practices can make us a better collective, and not just a better newsroom. Three answers to it have been simple: 1. We must pay fair remuneration, and the best possible for us as a Collective, to courageous journalists who undertake investigative journalism. We pay a base rate of Rs 40,000 plus reporting and legal costs at TRC for commissioned work. We pay interns, translators, local journalists in distant areas who support us, and everyone else who works with us. Everyone's labour is (and should be) recognised. This is the bare minimum. 2. We must share even our modest financial resources with the larger fraternity, even as we struggle to collect donations for TRC's team and work. Through fellowships and awards, we have instituted a range of them over the past six months. 3. Even as we learn at work (and we are learning a lot everyday), we must share what we have learnt from doing our journalism - our skills, our methods and approach. Gatekeeping has been the bane of Indian journalism. It must end. For some years, we have been informally helping fraternal colleagues from other newsrooms do their investigations, when and if they approach us. But that meant supporting a few sporadically. So, when some donors told us they would donate to support us in training journalists across the country for investigative reporting, we jumped at the opportunity. They had read our hearts. Funded by citizens, we have begun undertaking training for courageous journalists from across the country (not just the metropolitan towns). We have three or four larger purposes in mind, besides sharing the skills we deploy at The Reporters' Collective. 1. Show with proof that younger journalists can undertake investigative reportage given the opportunity and resources; it's no quantum physics. We can all do it. 2. Working journalists at TRC share their methods and skills (not just older grey beards like me), so we all learn to share and build a community. 3. We exchange learnings. There are brave journalists working outside metropolitan towns, whom we want to learn from and work with. There are young colleagues who are more capable in deploying new forms and technology (such as Insta and AI) for good journalism. We want to learn from them too. 4. We enable other fraternal colleagues through solid legal support (and not just fellowships) to deal with the tough legal terrain that we tread during investigative work. Here 👇 is a glimpse of our first intensive 3-day workshop on investigative reporting held for journalists from all northern and central states. Given the resources, we want to do more such intensive workshops across the country. We are keen to do one for colleagues in southern states and another in the northeast of India. If you think this is a worthwhile adventure, please fund The Reporters' Collective. Enable us to support other courageous journalists. Also, do tell us how we can do this better. Donate at reporters-collective.in/supp…