Rajneesh Bhandari at work

What have you been working on recently?

I am very much interested in multimedia storytelling, so I love experimenting with new tools to tell stories in a compelling way. I have just come up with a multimedia iPad book “Living with Autism“. I chose this topic because mainstream media in Nepal has ignored this issue and the government has not taken any action. Nepal doesn’t have a single autism care center for autistic adults.

Can you apply the knowledge that you learned from DW Akademie to your daily work now?

I still remember these words Thomas Rehman taught me during the Reporting on Television training: “Sound ready? Ready! Camera ready? Ready! Roll! Rolling!”

Though I was doing my masters in journalism and working for a reputable television station in Nepal, I lacked in-depth television reporting training on an international level. That was the reason why I joined the training. I belonged to the first batch of television journalists trained by DW Akademie in Kathmandu. As Nepali televisions were flooded with talking heads, I was trying hard to bring social issues to the screen, to create compelling stories. You can see the video produced by my group.

In my group, news producers, camerapersons and visual editors participated to learn about news production, shooting, editing, writing and sound. I was following the traditional format of television. I used to write my script and then edit the visuals. But Thomas asked me to do the opposite, first edit the visual and then write the story. This way looks more engaging. I am still following this procedure now.

Tell us about your typical work day.

It starts in the morning when I check various news sources. Then I plan my day. My office starts work at 10:45 in the morning with a regular meeting every day. That is when I pitch my stories. I report on security, defense, court and anti-corruption agencies, as well as social stories. As I am covering key beats, there are many important and interesting events. I have to keep my eyes open to the developments, calling the spokespersons and sources regularly. Normally a day ends up with two to three stories, most of the time with news packages.

After coming back from the field, I edit the visual, write the script and give the voiceover. We use VSN news server in our office and Sony Vegas to edit audio and visual. We have news broadcasts every hour so accuracy and speed matter a lot.

After completing my office work, I gear up for other assignments at thinkbrigade.com, where I’m the Multimedia Team Leader. I proof articles from the multimedia perspective with my team, checking if the links are working fine, if the caption is right, if the picture has a good resolution and other multimedia elements.

I get home by around 8 or 9 pm. Then have something to eat and work on the other projects and assignments that I am involved in.

What sort of challenges do you face working as a journalist in Nepal in general?

There are a number of challenges. Society perceives journalists here negatively. We as journalists are truth tellers, we write things because we care about society. Journalists should also be professional in Nepal and not write in favor of certain political parties or groups. Verification, accuracy and fairness should be the fundamentals.

Nepal’s media lacks a good strategy. There is still no social media guideline. Talking heads are still ruling the television screen. We need a good digital strategy, innovative applications to produce good multimedia stories for our readers, viewers and listeners. We need to use the latest technology to tell our stories in a compelling way.

Interview by Juan Ju

Radio Nepal news editor Shyam Rai writes that the Nepali media covered the disaster in Japan from the very beginning. The first reason for this is that the incident itself was huge and newsworthy.

The second reason is that sometimes even small incidents taking place in Japan (which might not get space in other countries’ media) are reported by Nepali media because Japan is one of Nepal’s major donor countries and contributes greatly to its development.

At first the media focused primarily on casualties and losses caused by the earthquake and tsunami. Some broadsheet newspapers and radio stations carried the incident on the front page and as a top story respectively whereas some included it in their international segments.

All of them focused on casualties and the destruction followed by damages caused to the nuclear reactors in Fukushima.

Local media rely on international networks

Over the following few days, the media still filed news reports with focus on casualties followed by rescue efforts, the fate of Nepalese living there, etc. Almost all the print media published the photos of devastation. Gradually the news focus shifted to the nuclear catastrophe (efforts being carried out to stop the nuclear reactor from explosion and radiation leakage) and the effects of radiation (food and vegetables being contaminated).

Rai writes, “I am sure that their focus synchronized with the focus of international media like BBC, DW, CNN and Kyodo in this particular case because none of the media houses has correspondents based in Japan. Only few of them had contact with Nepalese migrant workers there and quoted them in the news solely about their conditions and safety.”

On the part of the audience, only few people in urban areas are following the event on the Internet. The majority of people relies on local media. 

Rai says that, “If we talk as to what part of the events unfolding in Japan touches the people in Nepal the most is, no doubt, the damage caused by the earthquake because Nepal is in highly earthquake-prone zone."

"Some experts say if an earthquake of equal magnitude that hit Japan happens to rock this country, there would be overwhelming damage. They say 90 percent of houses would collapse thereby killing thousands of people because houses in Nepal have not met safety measures. They warn that the country has no capacity to cope with such a disaster. They also claim that hospital, army and police buildings would collapse, which means people would surely die in the absence of rescue following the disaster.”

Former DW-AKADEMIE trainee Rai reports that many people in Nepal are generally not well-informed about nuclear catastrophe and tsunamis. “Ours is a land-locked country and as a result we haven’t experienced any effects of a tsunami and we do not have any nuclear reactors for power generation. We have only hydroelectricity.” Due to this, he says, the Nepalese media focused primarily on the earthquake as opposed to Japan's other two related disasters.