A news vendor tends to her child while selling newspapers and magazines. Photo by Barun Roy
Find this original research article in Vol. 24, Issue 3 of Journalism – Theory, Practice and Criticism. Journalism – Theory, Practice and Criticism is edited by Prof. Barbie Zelizer of University of Pennsylvania and Prof. Howard Tumber of University of London. It is a SCOPUS Indexed research journal published by Sage, New York.
Cite this paper:
Roy, B. (2021). The imponderabilia of a stringer’s everyday life in Darjeeling Hills – excerpts from an ethnographer’s field diary. Journalism, 24(3), 671-685. https://doi.org/10.1177/14648849211028765 (Original work published 2023)
Abstract
Learning about journalists, their culture, their shared beliefs and behaviours by immersing ourselves in their context through ethnography has emerged as a significant strand in journalism studies. Such a strand, however, is limited to studying elite media and elite journalists. It has thus, led to a substantial lacuna in understanding the sociology of news production particularly, in developing countries like India. Taking this as a point of departure this paper looks at a neglected but dominant workforce in the news media sector – the stringers. Based on intensive field research and building on participant observation, and employing emic and etic perspectives, this paper offers a thick description of the everyday life of a stringer. The researcher argues that the shared agreements and the manifestation of value attached to stringers are lopsided since stringers often find themselves at the lowest rung of the value structure within the journalistic reporting community resulting in a meta-social paradox. Stringers are the culture hero and the custodians of the community’s memory yet remaining the quintessential other.
Keywords: Imponderabilia, ethnography, stringers, media labour, news production
The Setting
I came to know about Navin from one of my gatekeepers. He was one of the most sought-after stringers in the region, having worked for several Nepali dailies. He also did most of the legwork for prominent Bengali television news channels operating from Kolkata whenever the Gorkhaland movement flared up. Navin was respected for his reporting acumen. Stringers form the bulk of the reporting workforce. It is primarily because permanent or staff reporters cannot be everywhere, every time (Davidson, 2009; McLeary, 2006; Sterling, 2009). There are many reasons for it – logistics, financial expenditures involved, the impracticality of maintaining journalists in every district, every village, the unpredictability of events and happenings. News media houses thus rely on stringers – enthusiasts like Navin who begin as freelancers when they are either college students or have just graduated. A stringer is a subcategory of reporters who supply content regularly to a news media house but is not a regular or permanent employee of the organization (Sterling, 2009). The designation originated with strings with knots tied at the intervals of 1 inch to measure the reports filed by reporters who were not permanent employees. Individuals thus paid on a per knot basis were known as ‘stringers’ (Davidson, 2009).
Click at this link to read the full paper: https://doi.org/10.1177/14648849211028765 .
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