Report for the World is building a pan-South Asian journalism program that brings together journalists, editors, and media innovators to strengthen independent media across the sub-continent.
We are excited to share a key milestone at Report for the World. Our very first regionally focused chapter, Report for South Asia, is here! We are building a pan-South Asian journalism program that brings together journalists, editors, and media innovators to strengthen independent media across the sub-continent.
Report For South Asia
Report for South Asia will support 45 to 60 new specialised journalists, editors, and media innovators in newsrooms across India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh over the next 3 to 5 years. They will join our growing global network of 77 journalists from 54 newsrooms in 32 countries.
The pan-South Asian cohort will provide deeper support for newsrooms and journalists serving minority, Adivasi (indigenous) communities, including those in rural areas and informal settlements, which report in languages such as Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Bhojpuri, Malayalam, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu and other native languages.
“We’re building a Report for South Asia chapter that supports state and language-focused media, and creator-led outlets, in addition to newsrooms covering national issues. We will create collaborations among these diverse media of different sizes and geographies, to enable them to report richer stories across borders and within their countries and communities,” said Preethi Nallu, Executive Director of Report for the World.
“Our goal is to create long-term financial sustainability for locally led, public interest journalism, so they may serve their communities with nuanced perspectives on public interest issues such as climate, governance, health, civil liberties, education, labour rights, etc.”
Through a focused South Asia chapter, Report for the World will support the growing ecosystem of creator-led and hyper-local outlets serving specific communities, focused audiences, and under-represented geographies. Report for the World will continue to work with our current partners, such as The News Minute, The Scroll, and Tribal News Network, while building a collaborative regional network of 30 to 40 newsrooms with editorial depth and sustainable revenue over the next three years.
“Our partnership with Report for the World enabled us to do deep-dive, impactful, public interest journalism. We are excited about the launch of a new South Asia-focused program which will bring the same opportunities to a wider group of newsrooms in the region, and create space for much-needed collaborative work,” said Supriya Sharma, Executive Editor at Scroll.in. “Every fourth person in the world lives in South Asia. Journalists in the region can tell their stories more powerfully if they can work together, and we look forward to Report for South Asia making it easier for us to do that.”
For the first time, Report for the World will support non-editorial roles responsible for media innovation in newsrooms. The roles include revenue, impact, and audience experts, responsible for developing and experimenting with strategies and tools that deepen the reach, revenue, and accountability around public interest issues.
“We see our two main tracks of support – editorial collaborations and media innovation – as inextricably bound to each other’s success, and the success of newsrooms in delivering high impact journalism, ” said Nallu.
“We want to reduce silos between and within our media partners, so they may collaboratively create media ecosystems that endure financial and political crises.”
“Report for the World’s continued support has been crucial in enabling us to report on vital stories around human interest, gender, and civil liberties—stories that may not have seen the light of day otherwise,” said Vignesh Vellore, Co-founder and CEO of The News Minute. “Their focus on media innovation and sustainability, through workshops, seminars, and collaborative initiatives, highlights the need for long-term support, new revenue models, and stronger newsroom cooperation to build a thriving regional news ecosystem. The Report for the World initiative has significantly expanded our capacity, and we hope it continues to empower more newsrooms across the region.”
Report for the World is partnering with Splice Media, who are working with our in-house staff and newsroom leaders to provide tailored support to newsrooms and journalists. We will continue to expand our technical training services and editorial mentorship for journalists and build on our revenue diversification strategies to increase audience engagement and income for newsrooms.
“In this new AI-driven era, the path to media viability lies in understanding audience intent and agency,” said Alan Soon, Co-founder of Splice Media. “Independent newsrooms must ask tough questions about their content: Who is it for, when and how will it be used, and why does it matter? We are excited to work with Report for the World newsrooms in serving their audiences.”
Report for the World’s decentralised approach will offer contextualised support in regional languages to promote mentorship between national and hyper-local media. We will facilitate cross-border collaborations, regional editorial and revenue-sharing models. Report for the World will also facilitate town hall-style gatherings to catalyse partnerships between media, civil society, experts, and research institutes.
“Support from Report for the World promises a multiplier effect in our ability to hire much-needed new team members at a time when our existing team is over stretched,” said Roman Gautam, Editor of Himal South Asian, a Pan-South Asian outlet based out of Kathmandu and Colombo, with journalists across the region.
“With support from RFW, we will unlock a new phase of development and growth into 2026 that would simply not be possible otherwise.”