Indian, Pakistani reporters resume cross border conversations
Among the dozens of media and peace journalism projects I’ve done, the cross border journalism initiative launched by the East-West Center stands out for the quality and audacity of its participants—Indians and Pakistanis who transcend boundaries and unite for the cause of good journalism.

In this project, Pakistani and Indian journalists learn together (production, peace journalism, economic, health, and environmental reporting), and then break up into teams of one Indian and one Pakistani to jointly report issues of importance.

I had a chance to meet some of these journalists last night on Zoom for a concept we call, Cross Border Conversations. Our discussion began with journalists Ravinder Singh and Shiraz Hasnat, who discussed their jointly produced story about a radio station that reaches across the border. Both said there were obstacles in producing and publishing the stories, and especially getting Indian publications to use the Pakistani reporter’s byline, and vice-versa. Despite these challenges, the feedback from readers were very positive since the story took such a unique angle.  

Then, Husnain Raza from the media NGO Global Neighborhood for Media Innovation (GNMI) gave a short presentation about five recent workshops for radio journalists (called Frequency +) held in Sindh and Balochistan provinces in Pakistan. I was fortunate enough to meet and train these 108 journalists in January. The workshops included content production, AI, writing multimedia copy, and scriptwriting for podcasts. (See my blogs describing my wonderful experiences in Pakistan).

Finally, we closed with a discussion about the future of cross border programming. One possible cross border project would be with and through GNMI, and involve Pakistani and U.S. journalists. However, that’s on hold due to the pause of U.S. government funding. Another possible cross border project is in the works with a different media NGO. This is in the planning stages, but might tentatively focus on teaming up newsrooms in India with their Pakistani counterparts.

As always, it was a pleasure seeing and chatting with my South Asian colleagues. I look forward to our next cross border conversation in May.