Local Reporting Databases

Gangadhar Patil gave a keynote on how he is helping local reporters create national news stories. Patil has a background as a journalist, and he runs 101Reporters which is a startup that has a network of over 1400 reporters in India. 101Reporters has created stories for a number of different prominent media organizations, including Asia Times, CNN, The Telegraph and more.

Gangadhar Patil begins his keynote by detailing that when he was a local reporter, he would be frustrated if his work went unnoticed. He later moved to a national newspaper in order to find recognition. During his time at the national paper, he noticed that local reporters still get to stories much faster than national media, however, the local reporters do not have the platform that national media outlets do.

This process later led Patil to quit his job and create a database of local reporters across India. The database is able to connect local reporters with national media outlets, and it has a team of editors to work with and develop local reporters. Patil latter outlines how larger media groups will take on stories from the local reporters in the database because it reduces their costs, while the local reporters get paid more than their standard wages. Gangadhar concludes his keynote by outlining how the database has covered over 2000 stories, and it allows stories to get covered that would normally not.