whether they’re physical
sometimes they’re social their cultural
sometimes their mental they’re a box of
limits that keeps you from being who you
could possibly be or achieving
everything that you could possibly
achieve we’re asked myself what my box
was is it the fact that I’m a woman in a
business that’s full of men with loud
voices is it the fact that I’m younger
than a lot of people in this business is
it the fact that I’m not a political
journalist I have no background in
politics whatsoever I don’t do any
politicians they don’t know me hopefully
they’ll find out after some time they
don’t know me now I realized that my box
is very simply the television the box
that I remember I we were taught in
school that the TV is a idiot box just
call the idiot box
my parents wrote me a letter saying
don’t watch so much TV go out and play
the idiot box was called the idiot box
back then because it made people stupid
from watching it such such a lot and
because it didn’t listen because it was
only one-way communication right it was
all coming out one side was not
listening on the other side of course
now it’s an idiot box for a completely
different set of reasons because even
inside the box they’re not listening to
each other now
forget about listening to the audiences
so I realized that for me and for Mira
now the box was the TV itself and it was
not about thinking outside the box
because then we wouldn’t have jobs it
was about thinking beyond the box how do
you think beyond the box so here we were
trying to put together a channel where a
bunch of kids we had in our box certain
sides of challenges right so the first
challenge was the fact that
fundamentally the box doesn’t listen it
doesn’t listen to its audience
television doesn’t allow that second
side of it is it’s a cluttered market
India doesn’t need or didn’t need at
that point I was asked the question why
do we need one more national channel I
said we don’t need one more national
channel we need one channel that does
news we don’t need one more channel that
does news because right now nobody was
actually in my opinion doing news the
other side of the clutter was that we
were a team of young people very young
my team is actually very very young you
could look at it on either side either
glass half-full half-empty we’re either
very young or very inexperienced however
you want to look at it we had no legacy
names there were no big famous you know
celebrity journalists on our team we
were all very young people and these
were all challenges that we were going
to have to be the other challenge that I
saw was a fact that TV television even
though it is in everybody’s houses right
now has very limited reach because I can
put something out on TV it will go out
once maybe twice now if you weren’t at
home at that time and you didn’t see it
it won’t reach you you’ll never see it
so the video that I played for example
of that child lock information how many
of you saw it how many of you saw it on
TV and Omni how many of you saw it on
your phones almost everybody saw it on
their phones so that was a way to think
outside of the boxes that we were in so
the box that we were in of the fact that
we were to begin with a young channel
with no budgets we used the internet to
listen to our audiences we use the
internet to find out what affecting
people what are people care about
do they really care about some random
you know story about hate about how
communities should need to hate each
other about how we should hate Pakistan
all the time
or do people actually care about what is
really happening in their lives do
people actually care about safety do
they actually care about school safety
do they actually care about the price of
fuel do you actually care about what GST
is doing to your lives is this what
people really care about is this what
they’re actually talking about so we
started to use the internet to listen
the second more more obvious thing that
we did was inside the box also we
listened to each other and we told all
of the people who come on the channel
not to shout at each other and to
actually listen to each other and we
realized that that added value because
people who did come to the channel to
watch us could understand what was being
said and that was a lot more fun than
being yelled at we hired our young team
because our young team was able to then
mirror our audience and literally come
in and tell us every day that actually
said my friend was saying this he said
Yahoo at her she said boohoo at us so we
started to pay attention to what people
actually wanted in my opinion it was our
job to do two things one was inform and
the other one was create an impact and
action some sort of change so a great
example and the reason why I played that
shylock video for you is because there
were two aims with that whole campaign
we started that campaign because over
three years ago there was a young lady
in Infosys in in Pune or one of the or
one of the IT companies in Pune who was
leaving after work to go home and the
taxi that she took the taxi driver child
locked her into that taxi she was not
aware of that at that point that there
was such a thing as Shylock they
kidnapped her and shut her body was
discovered a couple of days later her
husband was on the show when those
murderers were given a death sentence he
came onto the show he spoke to us he
said if it was not for child look my
wife would be with me today and that
sentence really hit me
and I said we have two jobs here one is
to inform as many people as we can that
there is such a thing as child lock and
you could get stuck in it given the fact
that even after that after three years
ago there there are so many of us who
take cabs by ourselves every day we’re
taking these aggregator taxis every day
you jump in eight you jump out of it you
never check if the child lock is on
so one job for me I realized was to
inform as many people as possible the
second job was to try and get regulation
and government to pass some sort of rule
that will either prevent taxis from
having a child lock at all or put a
sticker on the cab that says check this
car before you get into it now in order
to do these two things we need to use
both the box and what is outside the box
because action and influence will only
happen through television you can only
reach the highest portions of our
society the people who run our
governments through television and we
did that we managed to speak with the
Ministry of Surface Transport we managed
to try and get them to consider removing
China lock from taxis in their next
policy that is still being worked on but
we also use the internet to try and
reach as many people as possible we have
millions of views on that child lock
video and we can’t even track it because
on whatsapp you can’t make out how many
views and you know who it was sent to
and how many people actually saw it but
that was the reach we could not have
achieved purely through television we
managed to achieve it because we also
used the internet so my message today is
pretty straightforward to everyone we
will all get undoubtedly put into boxes
at some point where you will feel like
you’re being restricted you will feel
like someone has you know paper clipped
your wings together and you’re not able
to fully do what you want to do but the
answers are not always outside the box
the answers are sometimes
to beyond the box it’s about recognizing
what your strengths are and using them
to your advantage so when we sat around
in the beginning to launch mirror now
and we realized that we’re inexperienced
and we’re not celebrities and nobody
knows our names we realized that was
also an advantage it means that we’re
young and they were hard-working and
there we have no baggage when we
realized that we have more women
actually most of the people in my
channel are women more women anchors
than male anchors and that might be some
people actually told me is a
disadvantage because people like to
listen to news from men they don’t take
news from women so seriously I realized
that maybe maybe it is time for that
change maybe it is time for a woman to
come in and make news less angry maybe
it is time for a team of women to come
in and reprioritize the news and put the
things that really matter forward and
the fact that we have that young team
meant that we were better at the
internet than everybody else we’re
better at Twitter we were better at
Instagram we were better at Facebook we
were able to listen better
we had no baggage over you know what
should be and how it should be done and
why it should be done we were also able
to be more democratic every day and
someone asked me among the organizers
they said can you talk about how you
choose your stories every day and it’s
it’s actually good fun because we have
so most of the teams in its 20s and we
do two phone calls in the morning and
then we sit together in the you know
over around lunchtime and we decide what
we want to lead stories to be we
actually argue it out and then we vote
so somebody will say no I think this is
a bigger story I’ll give you an a recent
example there was a story about this was
last this was last Friday three days ago
there
story about bad marbeth Padmavathi right
and at the same time the lake in
Bangalore was on fire again and these
visuals were coming in life because our
reporter was actually the only reporter
in the business who were standing there
and you could see his ridiculous
ridiculous story where there’s this
massive lake it’s about three four
kilometers wide the fire was in the
middle of the lake so these guys had
come with fire trucks the fire
department had come there the fire had
been burning for 10 hours so whatever
was in the water there was enough fuel
in the water to burn for 10 hours the
fire trucks came and was nothing they
could do because they’ve never had to
put out a fire in the middle of water
they had no way to access that water
that fire they didn’t know what to do is
standing was standing and nobody knew
what to do and then the government
decided let’s call ONGC and ask them if
they can cap this fire because they were
treating it like a oil rig that is on
fire in the middle of the water because
nobody else knew how to do this I mean
imagine how ridiculous it is in this day
and age that you have a lake that is
burning in the middle because there’s so
much pollutant in that lake that nobody
has found the solution and we actually
stood around that day and said what
should be our story at 9 o’clock today
and most of the people in the team voted
that it should be the fire in the lake
and we realize a lot of times these are
tough decisions to make because maybe
it’s good for TRPs maybe it’s not good
for T RVs but we realize that we choose
stories that matter to us because if the
lake is on fire that means that poison
has gone into the groundwater into the
board well water and it is making
everybody sick and this is a story that
should be told over and above everything
else that’s happening in politics so we
choose based on what we feel for we
choose based on who we are we turn our
strengths and our weaknesses to our
advantage so in a business where there
are massive goliaths who are
well-connected and who know all the
important people we’re a little David of
a system but we use
our smarts in our advantage remember
always in life when they will be an
opportunity where you find yourself as a
David it will seem frustrating but it is
never hopeless
remember to use your weaknesses as your
strengths as your armor be proud of
whatever it is you don’t have because it
makes you special so if you are
inexperienced and if you are young and
if you are scrappy and you are good for
a fight remember that that makes you
special
it will allow you to put up a completely
different product a completely different
fight a completely different argument
and there is nothing better to break
clutter than what makes you special
thank you [Applause]