The Art of Storytelling in the News World | Palki Sharma Upadhyay | TEDxMICA

[Music] hello everyone and thank you tedx micah for having me here the subject of today's talk is mind the gap and the first thought that comes to mind is the metro train and it's constant advice to mind the gap that we don't really dwell on once we're off the train but mind the gap can and does have a more profound meaning today i'm telling you about the gaps that i grapple with and how i try to fill them in my own way this is my story and before i begin it i have a question for

you what is your story when you grow up and talk to your grandchildren what's the story that you want to tell will your story be more exciting than your cv or will you say you woke up went to work completed projects met deadlines and targets got promoted every other year basically went through the motions of life did not drop too many balls but did not disrupt very much either think of the story you want to tell a few decades from now and then start writing it today because our world today is essentially a grand storytelling

competition we're all striving to present our own national cultural and personal stories in the most persuasive manner i remember reading somewhere that in the olden times we said if you want to poison a people you must poison their wells but in this day and age as novelist ben okra said if you want a poisonous people poison their stories because stories sway people they change the course of policies politics and indeed the world i'll give you an example during the second world war america had a list of japanese cities it wanted to bomb with the atom

bomb the city of kyoto was on that list but it was removed by the secretary of war american secretary of war henry stimson instead they put nagasaki why do you think he removed kyoto because he'd gone there for his honeymoon he'd seen kyoto's beauty and culture and he did not want to see it destroyed you could say kyoto's story saved it and that's why it's very important to be in control of your story to actively shape it and this is the first gap that i encountered in my career as a journalist we are a country

of 1.4 billion people we have hundreds of channels a very aware and politically engaged audience but we did not have a single news channel or newspaper that told our story to the world the new york times writes something about india and it immediately becomes a twitter trend you may trash it but you're still consuming it and reacting to it the economist weighs in on an indian election and it becomes part of the political debate we are letting the foreign press shape our self-image which indian newspaper triggers a similar response in the west if there is

disturbance in kashmir the world learns about it from the bbc or al jazeera they use their own lens their own editorial biases and for the moment that's besides the point the argument i'm making is very simple why can't india the land of epics like the mahabharata and ramayan tell its own story in its own words this gap was filled by we on india's first international news channel of which i'm a part gap number two you have a story but why should anyone listen to it there are multiple channels with heavyweight anchors all discussing the same

story with the same guests the same graphics the same visuals and the same decibel levels we like that song i'm just a copy of a copy of a copy we all kept looking at each other and perhaps forgot the viewer we wanted to do what someone else was doing bigger bolder brighter but not necessarily better if you have 10 windows i'll have 12. but we forgot to ask what the viewer wants do you want to see so many talking heads do you want an endless and frankly useless shouting match every day and if you want

to see a good stunt will you watch avengers or anchors in this clutter how do you become different what sets you apart is the way you tell the story and that brings me to the concept of the katha and the kathakar if you have a child or a niece or a nephew you would have noticed something they all ask for the same story to be told over and over again we did the same with our grandparents we know the story from beginning to end but we want to hear it again why do we like the

same story retold because what is pulling us is not the katha or the story but the kathakar or the storyteller the manner in which that story is told that's what holds the magic how do we create this magic in news well i was introduced to the life-changing concept called orbit shift it's a very simple concept you all know what a gravitational pull is it's in the simplest of terms it keeps you grounded but it also prevents you from flying as professionals and individuals we are saddled with many levels of gravity number one is personal gravity

this is what i can do this is what i cannot do there is self-doubt and there are limitations that your mind sets for you number two is company gravity this cannot be done in our organization because you will not get cross-functional support or because we've all heard this and accepted it number three is industry gravity how can you do a 9pm show without guests it doesn't happen anywhere how can you not take a break in the middle of the show this is the industry practice and soon it becomes industry gravity and we do not challenge

it number four is the social or cultural gravity prejudice preconceptions in india we flaunt the jugar we do not want a long-term plan because we believe in figuring something out at the last moment with jugaad now think of the number of times when you've had to struggle with this cumulative gravity it is the biggest hurdle in the path of innovation it kills ideas and you rationalize all of it in the name of practicality but sometimes you have to be impractical you have to throw yourself at the deep end and burn the bridge to safety to

come up with something that is really transformative and that is what is called an orbit shift and that's what we did with gravitas or we hope we did we created a prime time news and view show minus multiple guests we went back to the drawing board to focus on tight scripts on relevant subjects research analysis fact checks basic things really which should ideally be sop for all news but they were not gap number three or should i say challenge who watches tv news anymore there is an explosion of content around you television is already the

second screen the mobile phone has taken the top spot so my new story is competing with the whatsapp forward and instagram reel a youtube spoof and what have you one editor famously said my competition is not other news shows my competition at nine o'clock is big boss or kapil sharma another one asked for fizz and said that do not do water journalism colorless flavorless odourless this is the age of coke find your flavor well what should that flavor be inform without making a fuss give your viewer value for time that's the flavor we decided on

use the old playbook of aristotle to make your story compelling he gave us five elements of a good story some 2000 years ago and these are the five elements ethos authority and character which comes with credibility and commitment to the issues that you raise in your broadcast do people trust you do they see you as an authority on a subject if they do they will listen to you number two logos that is reason which involves making a logical appeal using data and facts to make a rational argument because you cannot make an assertion with no

basis in fact or logic number three is pathos emotion and this is different from drama it's a genuine connect with the audience through honest and effective communication number four is metaphor which helps the viewer process complex issues when you give them relatable parallels it makes news more memorable and number five is brevity using short sentences punchy lines informative tag outs and finally the gap that is common to all human stories the gap that i continue to try to fill the question of purpose what is the purpose of what you're doing what do you really want

to do and to what end it's like that dreaded interview question where do you see yourself five years from now where do you see yourself at the end of this journey you've embarked on honestly i've not been able to answer this question so i gave myself another one which is the one story that changed your life of if or if that sounds too dramatic the one story that profoundly impacted you or just stayed with you for me that story was the story of the ugly duckling it's a nursery tale you may remember it a duck

lays some eggs they hatch all ducklings look similar except one he's bigger awkward doesn't have webbed feet he feels sad about not fitting in until he sees a flock of swans and realizes he was never even a duck in the first place he was a swan bracketed with ducks by mistake he realizes he's beautiful and not ugly and he flies away and i find the story very powerful because it is simple and relatable it talks to me i think at some point in our lives we've all been the ugly duckling under immense pressure to fit

in and beating ourselves up for not being able to i'm sure all of you have such stories you read them or saw them and then the penny dropped oh this is what this is about and these stories shaped us where do you find them in books in movies and tv shows cartoons basically mass media and if mass media has such a profound impact on minds my purpose i believed as a cog in the wheel of mass media should be to find and tell such stories that inspire that motivate or at the very least that trigger

ideas and conversations so that i would say became my purpose to shape ideas to make sense of the news to empower you to form your own opinion because you're intelligent intelligent enough to choose i'm going to wrap with that all the very best thank you you