After decades in journalism, Jaldeep Katwala is embracing a new challenge: helping The Bristol Cable evolve, while staying true to its mission of quality, community-driven reporting.
I began my career in journalism in 1985. I worked as a general factotum at an Asian language news weekly which was based in London but served the Gujarati community around the United Kingdom.
In those days our bilingual magazine was written in both Gujarati and English. However, one major problem was the compositor had to type in Gujarati but could not see the output on a screen. The technology had not been developed for that. It meant every time he pressed print, he hoped and prayed that he had managed to get the right font size on the very expensive film paper. One mistake and the whole text would come out in 72 point. In those days the text had to be glued on to a piece of paper that was the template for the metal block that printed the paper.
And then to the BBC, where in those days we wrote our scripts on typewriters with carbon underneath. It's amazing to think that in my lifetime working as a journalist we've gone from typewriters to word processors to computer screens to laptops to mobile phones and now who knows where?
I remember the days when in local radio when we used to cut tape, throw the bits we didn't want onto the ground, hang the audio we might want around our necks and carefully join the bits we definitely wanted with sticky tape to make meaningful interview clips. I remember shooting television pieces for the nightly news programme in London and the Southeast on film. The story had to be in the can by midday to be on air that night. I remember filming a piece about blood donations where I did a piece to camera with a blood bag hooked to my arm watching desperately to see what the camera operator was filming as we couldn’t afford to develop everything and I had to decide which rolls should be developed.
All of this to say that the process of journalism creation changes all the time. Change is not only good but inevitable. However, in my career, I've also been aware that journalism itself and how I've done it has changed as well. At the BBC I was trained to be objective, impartial and to leave my opinions at the front door. At Radio Netherlands I was encouraged to bring my story and myself into documentaries. Channel 4 News had a unique way of identifying original stories that mattered. In the morning news meeting, if you suggested the story, you then became actively involved in delivering it. A picture editor who used a wheelchair wanted to report on reconstructive spinal surgery and interviewed Superman, Christopher Reeve. My colleague was the reporter.
Since then, I've taken a backseat from frontline journalism, sharing skills with students at Bournemouth University, broadcasters in Papua New Guinea and journalism educators in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar, among many other interventions around the world.
That has continued in my role with PINF as Network Manager. I've brought together a community of journalists who want to serve people with relevant, useful information. We now have a vibrant group across the UK who learn, share and discuss issues that matter with each other.
However, I've always missed hands-on journalism. Now alongside my role with PINF, I've taken on a new challenge. Ever since I moved to Bristol from Juba in South Sudan 20 months ago, I've admired the quality journalism created by the independent news outlet here, the Bristol Cable. In November, I joined the Board of Directors at The Cable. I've now been asked by the Board to do what I can to support strengthen and improve the already excellent work the Cable is doing.
Like all maturing organisations the Bristol Cable is moving to a new phase. The original founders who came up with the concept have all left. The challenge is to take the organisation forward, while retaining the essential essence of how it’s made – the formula that’s led to the fantastic organisation it is now.
And in a journey of lifelong learning about journalism, I find myself taking on and understanding a process that is completely new to me. The Bristol Cable runs a model of sociocracy, where decisions are made by the staff together in a spirit of co-operation and collaboration. There are three circles – media, operations, and people and well-being. It is so radically different from everything I’ve ever known before. It couldn’t work for anything much larger than the Cable. You can count all the staff on the fingers of two hands.
Sure, there are questions about how to hold people to account for the work they say they’ll do make and what to do if there are differences of opinion about strategy – but it works. The challenge is to take the brilliant team that makes The Cable into a new phase to face the future with confidence in an era where click-bait journalism is rampant and where social media platforms seem to generate lots of heat, hate and hostility, but not shed much light, learning or latitude.
I sense a growing backlash against social media, against Artificial Intelligence and tech bros and for good quality local journalism that’s relevant, matters and makes a difference.
It’s the most challenging role I’ve ever taken on in a forty-year-long career, but it’s also the most exciting and potentially most rewarding.
Once a journalist, always a journalist.