Stories of Resilience: Media Voices from India's North East

The arbitrary use of laws and muscle power have emerged as visible threats to journalism and media in North East India, despite the growth of new media, and information technologies. Amid financial, political, legal, physical and psychological pressures at work, editors, reporters and media persons have been targeted, kidnapped, injured and even killed. This report builds narratives out of these patterns of harassment, attacks and intimidation that continue even today, and places them in the global context.

The COVID-19 pandemic has emphasized and magnified the crises that portend the right to report freely - independent, assorted and trustworthy information. Structural factors that impede freedom of the press are both internal and external. Challenges and pressures are created by authoritarian regimes, lack of infrastructure, disregard for mental health, inclusive and stable workspace, gender disparity, inadequate security and constitutional safeguarding. More journalists are being systematically dispossessed of their freedom, harassed, terrorized, online and offline, even killed.

This report identifies and assesses challenges faced by local media in the region, through the narratives and lived experiences of journalists. These stories document the exceptionally tough circumstances and pressures under which journalists and media practitioners work in the region. The report stands as a first of its kind publication on local media from one of the most challenging regions for journalism in the world – one marked by insurgencies, political and ethnic strife, conflict and citizenship exercises.