From India’s coal mafia to winter poverty in the UK: reporting data-driven journalism
By: Hanna Duggal
Tags: Indian Politics, Data Journalism, Investigative Journalism, Careers

Pupul Chatterjee is sitting in a dimly-lit room, the whir of a fan can be heard in the background on the video chat. She is talking about the digital transformations that have taken place in journalism over the last decade, namely how journalists have employed technology in reporting. “I was working for ITV in 2016, when Facebook Live launched off the back of Periscope,” Pupul says. “I used to see senior reporters trying to come to terms with doing their day job — reporting from the courts, getting ready for the six o’clock news, etc. — and, in the middle of it all, they were expected to do a Facebook Live. It became the norm because everyone was doing it.”

Technology has become customary in journalism with the increase in connectivity, open-source investigations and AI. Pupul has been witness to and worked through those transitions over the last decade, though she never set out to be a journalist. On completing an undergraduate degree in mass communications, Pupul began working as a reporter for The Telegraph, an Indian newspaper based in Ranchi, Jharkhand. While her dream was to report on the world of film and books, it was in Ranchi that she was opened up to local politics.

Pupul’s front-page story for The Telegraph in Jharkhand

The state of Jharkhand is known for its mineral-rich wealth and natural forest resources, with an abundance of coal, iron and other reserves. While stationed in Ranchi, Pupul was exposed to the coal mafia in the region. She describes the socio-political conflict between indigenous tribes living in the forest, the government and the Naxalite-Maoist insurgency. Being only 18 at the time, Pupul observed the realities of local struggles. Tribal people were driven off their lands to make way for big mining corporations. She recalls how local activists fighting for the preservation of these lands would often go missing or end up killed. This was the reality of the coal mafia that her colleagues were reporting on.

“It was a wakeup call,” says Pupul. “I was only 18 or 19 at the time. I hadn’t been exposed to the real world. I was completely lost in the world of cinema. Being thrown into serious journalism I was beginning to learn what journalism was really about. It became an aspiration for me.”

‘Everybody loves a good drought’ by P. Sainath — a work that inspired Pupul.

It was a year later that Pupul first gained insight into data-driven journalism when Indian journalist Palagummi Sainath gave a talk at the university where she was studying for a post-graduate diploma. Sainath was one of the first journalists to report on farmer suicides before it gained traction in larger media outlets.

“He was one of the people that got me interested in data journalism. It was only when people heard about farmer suicides in big publications that the government took the sheer number of deaths seriously. But, P. Sainath was writing about it long before that,” says Pupul.

Pupul’s report on CCTV implementation for The Indian Express

Pupul went on to work as a reporter at the national newspaper, The Indian Express, where she covered transport-related news and developed her investigative skills. She describes the paper as having a very good culture of investigative journalism. “There was always a big push from editors for us to do more in-depth stories, where we were encouraged to request RTIs (the equivalent of an FOI in the U.K),” says Pupul.

On the releveance of journalism based on numbers, Pupul reflects on a story she wrote while at The Indian Express. The story looked into feuds between local police and council members who each wanted revenues from fines issued out of footage found on CCTV. “It was a number-intensive story. Hundreds of thousands of rupees were being spent on this. The project got stuck because of infighting,” says Pupul. “It made me realise that there must be a better way to understand numbers.”

Pupul came to the UK in 2012 to study a post-graduate diploma in journalism. Her experience of England, though completely different to the political climate in India, shared some of the same starkness. “My view was to look at a different side of England,” says Pupul. “There is a lot to be talking about here, such as the day-to-day struggles of everyday families.”

Pupul reported on winter poverty in the UK for BBC West, where she worked with data to research the number of households unable to afford heating bills during the colder months of the year. “If you have a story backed up by data, it’s not a case of two or three people having this problem in far-flung corners of the country. You can say out of x, y, z amount of the population there’s one in 10 people having this problem. That makes people sit up and listen,” argues Pupul.

It’s Pupul’s view that everyone has a level of data literacy, but what data journalism provides is a story that gives nuance to issues that are often underreported. While she continues to work, Pupul’s goal is to learn about data journalism and use it to tell stories on the fringes.