In the next few weeks, I hope to involve you more and more, ideally before even the first draft is written. (More on this next week.)
These videos are a labour of love, and are happening at this scale because we got funding from the International Fact Checking Network, supported by YouTube.
An important part of this project is that these videos reach as many people as possible. To that end, we're putting in place a unique collaboration. Each video will be done in multiple Indian languages. Our Hindi series begins early next week with the journalist Smita Sharma anchoring them for us. You will see that she brings her own sensibilities to each topic. Bengali is going to be next. (BOOM goes out in three languages, English, Hindi and Bengali.)
In order to make this collaboration a success, we budgeted for working with other independent publishers as well. If you can help us find independent publishers in Kannada, Konkani, Tamil, Tulu, Malayalam, Telugu, Marathi, Odia, Gujarati, Punjabi, Assamese, Sindhi, Kashmiri, Manipuri, Nepali, Sanskrit, Urdu, Bodo, Santhali, Maithili, Dogri and more, we would be happy to work with them. (We already have some partners.)
One additional point about these videos: these are not 'hot takes' in reaction to any one topic. Neither will you find direct references to current 'hot issues'. This is a deliberate choice, so that people view them without feeling like they're being attacked for the beliefs they hold. To that extent, we will try to be as apolitical as possible, even when tackling issues such as dog-whistle politics and political gaslighting.
Catch full interview on Youtube or click on the link here.