Nidhi Razdan: TV Journalism Then v/s Now

It is no secret that TV Journalism has seen a complete overhaul in the last decade. While a decade or two ago, it had its position as the most credible source of news and information, today in the times of Twitter and Google, mainstream television news media is struggling to remain relevant. As someone who worked in the broadcast news industry for over two decades and seen all of its different facets, award-winning journalist and former executive editor of NDTV, Nidhi Razdan shares her insights into how broadcast journalism has transformed in the last two decades as she says that the pressure to get a story on-air first is more now than ever before.

Reminiscing in old times, Razdan recounts, “In the TV world, even spending two-three days on the story is a lot. But earlier we would have that time to edit, we would take turns also every month. We will be rostered to do these long format five-minute pieces for the Sunday show. We would spend the entire week shooting that story in ease and edit. And we used to do a lot more documentaries in half-hours, so the pace was very different.”

(Interviewed by Poorvi Gupta, video produced by Manasi Phadnis and edited by Tanvi Nang)