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The Collective Newsroom is the BBC News’s sole provider of content for its Indian-language websites, social media platforms, and BBC India’s YouTube channel in English.
We produce distinctive, impartial, and world-class content in seven languages for the BBC’s digital services in Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Punjabi, Tamil, and Telugu across multiple platforms including the BBC News websites and Media pages on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. We also produce audio podcasts and television news bulletins for partner networks.
We undertake the production and publication of content on BBC India’s English-language YouTube page as well.
Home to India’s most credible, creative, and courageous journalism.
Lead with facts, bringing diverse voices through innovative and impactful journalism in the public interest.
In a world inundated with breaking news updates, and sensational and misleading headlines, Collective Newsroom is committed to authenticity, depth, and empathy in storytelling. Inspired by the BBC News’s editorial policies, our journalism is credible, creative, courageous, and endeavours to hold power to account.
With a robust presence in six major Indian languages—Hindi, Tamil, Punjabi, Marathi, Gujarati, and Telugu—alongside English, our journalism goes beyond linguistic barriers and resonates with audiences across India and the world. Collective Newsroom is committed to a digital-first strategy for modern newsrooms, producing superior quality stories spanning a myriad of platforms and formats, ensuring our reach is as diverse as the communities we serve.
What sets us apart is our unwavering focus on going beyond the headlines. We delve deep into the heart of stories, bringing in-depth ground reports and human narratives brimming with empathy and clearly marked by fairness, and impartiality. Our skilled, experienced, and brave reporters go where many dare not—within India and around the world—all in pursuit of facts from the ground. Our fearless approach to storytelling ensures that we amplify the voices of those often overlooked, putting humans at the centre of every narrative.
Our explainers and analysis make sense of the intricate tapestry of local, national, and international events and offer valued reach for a meaningful growth trajectory. We use cutting-edge technology and innovate with media to produce unique stories you are not likely to see elsewhere. We recognise that the often deliberate spreading of disinformation, deep fakes, and fake news has put values such as democracy and freedom at risk around the world. Our newsroom strategy backs a sustained fight against this menace by using digital tools and ground reports.
The accolades we've garnered, including the prestigious Ramnath Goenka Award, the Red Ink Award, the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU) Awards, ENBA Awards, and Digital Media Awards, among others, serve as a testament to our unwavering dedication to excellence.
Yet, more than any shiny trophy, it is the trust bestowed upon us by the audience that remains our greatest honour. This trust is reflected in the fact that our partner, BBC News, has its largest international audience in India. Such recognition is a testament to our shared commitment to truth, integrity, and the power of storytelling.
In India, Collective Newsroom provides high-quality, unique content in six languages – Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Punjabi, Tamil, and Telugu, as well as in English, to 82 million people around the country on average each week through linear and non-linear platforms of BBC News. We publish text-based stories, videos, graphics, and special interactive stories on BBC News's Indian-language websites and social media handles.
We also have three daily, five-day-a-week TV programmes in Hindi, Telugu, and Tamil that are beamed to millions of viewers on our partner stations in India. The programs are broadcast live or recorded in state-of-the-art studios in our Delhi bureau.
The nerve centre of the operation is in Delhi, where 200 journalists run websites, social media accounts, and TV programmes that showcase the best of international and national journalism.
With around 30 staff reporters in multiple languages and more than 100 stringers and contributors, we have a strong network of well-trained journalists across India. Apart from our headquarters in Delhi, we have small but vibrant teams in Chandigarh, Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Chennai, and Hyderabad.
Our presence in major Indian cities means we have a finger on the pulse of what matters for the people and are able to produce stories that work for audiences around the country and the Indian diaspora.
Our exclusive partnership with BBC News means we are able to bring the very best of international journalism to our language audiences in India.
Collective Newsroom is committed to the delivery of high-quality pre-employment and early career schemes for journalists in India. Our vision is to be the home of India’s most credible, creative, and courageous journalism. For us to achieve this vision, we support individuals with early career and pre-employment opportunities within the company.
These two programmes have been designed with an eye on the Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) commitment at Collective Newsroom. We try to partner with colleges and universities that are known to attract students from backward and minority communities.
This is a step we have taken to ensure our workplace is an equal-opportunity newsroom and reflects the social fabric of India. Our Trainee and Internship schemes have been designed in partnership with BBC News and evolve in shape with the changing industry environment. Both are paid schemes and do not promise any placement at Collective Newsroom or any other company.
Some of the successful participants have been hired by well-known media brands around the country. A few landed jobs at BBC News too. We advertise for these schemes through LinkedIn and through our partnerships with academic institutions. We regularly invite students from colleges and schools around the country to get an insight into how a modern newsroom works. This is helpful in an age when the importance of impartial and fair media has only increased.
We are committed to supporting our journalists through their career milestones. With the help of the prestigious BBC Academy, Collective Newsroom journalists are given training from the day they join us and are regularly upskilled in keeping with industry trends.
The training modules comprise, among other programmes, Essential Broadcast Journalism, Digital Video Production, Data Journalism, Editorial Standards, Leadership Development etc. We offer specialised training to our journalists who cover hostile environments like war zones and incidents of violent protests. Mental health support is another important area for the Collective Newsroom. We provide local and international assistance to anyone who feels they need support due to their life or work situation.
Programmes like Hot Shoes, short-term attachments, etc. give our journalists a chance to move around within the organisation and acquire new skills. Apart from training and attachment opportunities, there is a performance-based assessment system in place to encourage and recognise talent and exceptional work.
Through D&I initiatives, we ensure colleagues of all backgrounds and identities are given equal opportunities for growth. We endeavour to make sure all our employees feel heard and included at work.
Our D&I initiatives started in 2020 with the objective of increasing diversity, equality, and inclusion of women, protected castes, and underprivileged communities, apart from religious and sexual minorities. Customised recruitment and human resource policies for reaching out to all sections of society attract the best of candidates from a diverse pool of talent that we have built over the years.
A few D&I initiatives of note:
1. Traineeship and internship programmes
2. Diverse talent database to expand talent pool for recruitment
3. CV and interview workshops for students
4. Internal sensitisation sessions to understand caste, religion, and gender fault lines
5. MyStory is a unique monthly sensitisation programme where employees share how they successfully face challenges in their lives and careers. The staff is sensitised towards various situations and realities.
6. Gender-neutral maternity and paternity policies.
The BBC Indian Sportswoman of the Year Award (ISWOTY) ceremony is an annual event to celebrate the remarkable achievements of women in the world of Indian sports. The aim of this grand event, which was launched in 2019, is to bring focus to women who break stereotypes of all kinds. There is recognition of the disparity in media coverage between male and female athletes. Research and studies have highlighted the startling contrast in the visibility and representation of women in sports. ISWOTY and the editorial season of stories about women sportspersons highlight issues and address this imbalance.
The nominees for the awards are selected by an esteemed jury that includes sports journalists across the country. The winner is decided by the people through an online poll. The awards night is hosted by none other than the Director General of the BBC and is graced by dignitaries from all walks of life. This award is more than just a ceremony; it is a platform for meaningful conversations about gender representation in the media. By recognizing the accomplishments of Indian sportswomen, we hope to spark dialogue and drive positive change in the way women are perceived and portrayed.
The Delhi bureau of Collective Newsroom is equipped with cutting-edge television, digital, and audio studios and production facilities. The studios are used to produce and broadcast daily bulletins on prominent Indian TV channels for BBC News.
BBC Hindi’s ‘Duniya’ is our most-watched television news bulletin produced for NDTV India. This 18-minute offer brings the best of the BBC News global coverage to its Hindi audience at 10 p.m. every weekday. With a 26 million unique weekly reach, ‘Duniya’ also maintains its focus on India’s neighbourhood - countries like Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Bangladesh. We also cover issues concerning India’s diaspora, whether in the US, Canada, or the UK.
BBC Tamil’s `Ulaga Seithi Arikai’ is a ten-minute capsule that focuses on the best international news stories, ground reports, and snippets that are relevant to the Tamil audience. Produced for Thanthi TV and telecasted at 7.45 p.m. every weekday, it gets an average weekly reach of 9.1 million. BBC Telugu’s ‘Prapancham’ offers a snapshot of the most significant global, national, and regional developments for its Telugu-speaking audience. Produced and presented for the HM TV audience for 11 minutes, the recently launched bulletin is a fast-paced offer that informs, educates, explains, and entertains every weekday at 8 p.m.
The studios and broadcast facilities are also used for digital productions. Presenter-led explainers, live shows, digital audio programmes, chroma-based productions, etc. are regularly supported by a highly skilled production operations team. There are very few media companies that produce high-quality journalism exclusively for digital in India, and Collective Newsroom is one of the companies that leads on that front. It's a newsroom equipped to navigate the future.
We believe in the spirit of collaboration and knowledge sharing in the media space. With the purpose of learning and enhancing the spirit of the collective – we have done many editorial collaborations across India. These have been extremely useful exercises in creating impactful journalism.
In 2023, we collaborated on a project called BBCShe with media houses that are trying to move the needle on one of our most important audience goals: journalism with a gender lens. These broadcasters are smaller in size, but their approach has a gendered perspective and attracts female audiences. Our collaborators were the English news website TheNewsminute, the Marathi website Baimanus which empowers tribal women, community radio Gurgaon ki Aawaz which has an all-women team, the sports website The Bridge, and the English and Hindi website FeminisminIndia which reports with a focus on women.
During the collaboration, reporters from each of these media houses worked with our teams to produce impactful stories. The project culminated in a roundtable with editors and broadcasters from the collaborating media houses and from BBC News, which turned into a passionate knowledge-sharing session. BBC Young Reporter India is a media education project adapted for regional relevance from the successful BBC UK scheme. So far, 50 trainers have reached 8,000 students in 120 schools across India.
We have created a series of workshops and presentations of varying lengths, along with videos and delivery notes, to help deliver programmes to students and help young people meet these challenges. Our aim is to build a community of students, schools, and teachers who will be able to sift facts from the fake and understand online information better.
