After nearly two decades of working with leading news organisations, Rakhee Roytalukdar, a Jaipur-based senior journalist, and Rakhi Ghosh, an Odisha-based senior newsreader and reporter, chose to opt out of full-time journalism. Now, they are independent journalists covering Jaipur and Odisha respectively.

Roytalukdar chose to begin freelancing after The Telegraph closed operations in Jaipur. As for Ghosh, freelancing offered flexibility of schedule and freedom in choosing issues to report on. Both Roytalukdar and Ghosh were among those awarded at the 12th edition of the Press Institute of India (PII) and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Annual Awards.

Speaking to Newslaundry about why she became a freelancer, Roytalukdar says, “I was Rajasthan correspondent with The Telegraph which laid off a lot of people in February 2017. I had never freelanced. But when we were left to fend for ourselves, I began reaching out to organisations for opportunities to work as a Jaipur/Rajasthan correspondent. Jaipur is a place where you don’t have many leading English newspapers. You have The Times of India, DNA, Hindustan Times and a couple of others; the choices are limited. I have a son growing up, so I couldn’t move out of Jaipur. So I thought of working independently.”

Roytalukdar says she now enjoys the freedom that freelancing allows. Apart from the flexibility of work location and scheduling, she emphasises that freelancing gives her the freedom to do stories beyond the restrictions of breaking news. “Working in a full-time newsroom, bound to the daily cycle, the stories were very restricted. The shelf life of the stories was short, but now the choice is mine.”

Ghosh, who has worked with organisations such as Asian Age, Odisha TV and Nakshatra TV, agrees. For her, freelancing offers freedom and satisfaction. Speaking about why she opted out of Big Media, Ghosh says, “Once you are married and have kids, it is very difficult to re-enter the media space.”

Regional media is not gender-sensitive—an issue compounded by male dominance in newsrooms—and newsrooms in Odisha are particularly male-dominated. “There is a huge pay gap and the mindset is that a female journalist would ask for flexible timing,” Ghosh says, adding that “despite being mandatory, facilities such as créches are not available”.

Ghosh also felt suffocated by the kind of content and news that newsrooms were doing. So she decided to begin freelancing.

However, the picture is not all rosy. Freelancing comes with its own set of challenges. Working independently means balancing the tradeoff between the risk of an unsteady paycheck and freedom of choice and work flexibility.

‘I would be able to do more interesting work’

Last year, Makepeace Sitlhou, an Assam-based journalist, left her job at a leading non-profit to pursue journalism full time. She says, “With Amnesty International, because of work demands, journalism would always be on the side. But I wanted to report from the Northeast region, I wanted to go into the region as a journalist, not as part of an external organisation.” Sitlhou joined a leading web portal as their Northeast correspondent.

Speaking of her experience in the newsroom, Sitlhou says, “I didn’t quite get to do the work that I had in mind. The organisation had a limited mandate for the Northeast. Despite my best efforts to push for all kinds of reports—features, ground reporting, investigations—it wasn’t working out.”

Subsequently, Sitlhou left the newsroom to work independently. She says, “Leaving a full-time job was the toughest decision I had to make. I wanted to go into the Northeast with a job, a security of a press card, organisational backing to do investigative reporting. I wanted to go in with more ‘access’ to do political reporting. However, working in the newsroom wasn’t fulfilling. Stories were killed for reasons that I wasn’t very convinced.”

She adds, “I realised being independent, I would be able to do more interesting work.”

The problem of payments

A major issue freelancers battle is the problem of payment. Sitlhou says, “The payments are really low. They are not up to the mark. A lot of editors reach out to me expressing interest; however, the payment that is offered is not even enough to cover the travel.”

Roytalukdar agrees. “The amount we were getting for stories now is nothing compared to what we were earning. Had I been the sole breadwinner in the family, it would definitely have been a challenge.” But what adds to the problem is the delay and inconsistency in payments. Ghosh says, “When I started as a freelancer, irregular payments made financial stability very difficult.” Ghosh had to pick up documentation and consultancy work to supplement her income.

“It has also become an industry standard that the payment cycle is three months,” Sitlhou says. She emphasises that editors need to understand that this is not feasible for freelancers who depend on timely payments for their professional survival. “Freelancers are already taking a pay cut, so on top of that, this three-month cycle puts us in a spot,” Sitlhou says. “I have to constantly adapt my life to when payments will come. If they were timely, I could plan stories in advance.”

It’s an opinion echoed by Roytalukdar, who says, “You have to constantly write to them for money.”

Other challenges

Being a freelancer requires easy access to a large network of people, Roytalukdar says, and that makes freelancing from Jaipur comparatively difficult. “If you are in Delhi, if you have a large network of people—then you have easier access to news. Since news organisations do not want localised stories, finding stories that will be relevant to these organisations, which are reader-friendly and will be nationally relevant, becomes a challenge.”

Sitlhou also says even with the plethora of publications operating today, there are only a few organisations she can trust. “There are very few publications that won’t misuse your story.”

Earlier in September, freelancers had taken to Twitter to speak about the challenges they faced. While payments were a regular feature, other challenges included unresponsive editors, media houses sitting on pitches making stories lose their topicality, and media houses stealing pitches.

The absence of a press card

Ghosh and Roytalukdar agree that a big issue with freelance reporting is that independent journalists do not receive organisational backing. This makes journalists extremely vulnerable. “If a freelancer gets in trouble while reporting on conflict or violence, they will have little respite in terms of organisational support,” Ghosh says. She adds that such situations are not very encouraging for freelance journalists.

In December 2017, Priyanka Borpujari, an independent journalist was assaulted and detained by the Mumbai police while covering a slum demolition. According to Borpujari, her harassment stemmed from the absence of a press card. Borpujari had reached the spot based on information from a source, but she hadn’t proposed the idea for publication yet. Thus, she was caught in a situation where she was without organisational support.

As for the accreditation provided by the Press Information Bureau, to qualify, freelancers need 15 years of experience as a full-time working journalist. With most Indian freelancers being under the age of 40, qualifying by this criterion is challenging.

The absence of a press card can be an identity crisis. “If you are associated with even a small magazine or newspaper, people will recognise you, no matter the size or circulation. However, as a freelancer, I am constantly asked ‘which publication do you write for’,” Ghosh says. This lack of institutional association results in delays. “If you are not associated with a big media publication, it is likely you won’t get the interview.”

Roytalukdar had precisely this problem when trying to get an interview with Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje. “I have been trying to get Vasundhara Raje’s interview, they know me from my association with The Telegraph. Despite that, the interview hasn’t taken place yet. Many times, they do not pick up calls. When I call from a different number, they politely say ‘apka interview toh karwaenge (we’ll get your interview done)’. Brand association is important.”

Sitlhou says she hasn’t found it to be too much of a problem. She says, “I have been able to report fairly without people doubting my agenda.”

Newslaundry spoke to Rituparna Chatterjee, former deputy editor of HuffPost India who now works independently. “If you don’t have a press card, it puts you at risk. You are basically an outsider,” Chatterjee says. “I will not have an organisation to back me up.” She says for new journalists, the absence of a press card will also restrict access to government contacts, and trust is a huge factor when it comes to cultivating sources.

Chatterjee says, “Freelancing is all about who to approach and how to approach. The first organisation that I had reached out to, I got a very gruff response. Now, I’ve learnt the hard way.” Chatterjee says treatment meted out to freelancers varies on a case-to-case basis. “If you have the social capital, if you can raise hell on social media—the treatment you get would be starkly different.”

At HuffPost, Chatterjee had to constantly deal with freelance pitches. Now that she’s on the other side of the table, she says, “People would write in saying they wanted to write about a certain subject. Now I’m on the other side and I can see how an editor’s response can make or break freelancers.”

The way forward

Chatterjee believes freelancing is a bright spot, though, despite the challenges, because jobs have become increasingly difficult to come by if you have a certain seniority. Even from an organisation’s point of view, freelancers are much more cost-effective than sending reporters to different places. “But the pay for freelance work is still inadequate.”

Sitlhou thinks freelancing brings a diversity of in news reportage. However, “measly payments will impact the quality of reportage. She thinks the way forward requires valuing the work of freelancers. Editors should also think about making advance payments to reporters. This way, freelancers are not burning their own resources, making the process more tenable, she adds. “If the editors want, they can grill the reporter for specifics, but organisations should consider making at least a partial payment in advance. And if the story is not up to the mark, the reporter can and should be asked to rework the copy.” Sitlhou says the advance and payment can be commensurate with industry standards and the journalists’ experience.

Ghosh says for media landscape to change, campaigns are required. “We need to focus on gender-sensitive reporting and newsrooms.” Ghosh is currently working with a non-profit to conduct workshops about gender-sensitive newsrooms.

Chatterjee also says the best way forward is to form a union of freelancers, allowing them a collective to lobby for their rights and discuss issues at hand. There’s also a pressing need to improve the wages of journalists. For freelancers, she says payment per word or per article needs to be better.