Wikinews:Accreditation requests/Acagastya

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Closed as successful. --Pi zero (talk) 13:51, 24 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Acagastya

Name: Agastya Chandrakant

Location: Mysore, India

Areas of interest: Sports, Science and technology, Crime and law, Politics and conflicts, ... basically, almost everything, honestly.

Reason: To be able to conduct formal interviews, and cover some local news.

Accomplishments: I have four ORs, and created over 150 news articles which were published.

Contact information: acagastya

outlook ● com

User ID: 1526439

Applied on: 21:27, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

Comments

Hi Acagastya, I am glad that you are volunteering to be a reporter. Please answer several questions inline. :) --Gryllida (talk) 23:11, 9 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- Local original reporting in person is perhaps best done with one person doing the photography and another taking notes. Do you have a peer who would be willing to help? --Gryllida (talk) 23:11, 9 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- What news or events are of interest for you to attend in the future? (Some reporters are known to use their accreditation to enter parliament or sports events or competitions in the past; it would be interesting to know which ones you would be targeting.) --Gryllida (talk) 23:11, 9 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- Have you performed any interviews before (perhaps by passing them to an existing Wikinewsie reporter if the interview target is not responsive)? I recall a controversial topic on the Chinese Traditional Medicine; while I quite liked it and the enthusiasm, it seemed too challenging to cover in a relevant neutral way. Have we got anything else as an example? --Gryllida (talk) 23:11, 9 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Gryllida:

About photography, I do not have any peer to help me photograph, and even if I had, I would not want to. There is a reason behind this. The peer will be the author of those photos. Those photos should be licensed under a Creative Commons license. I have tried to explain my friends about CC license many times, and every single time, 1) they would not understand 2) are not willing to listen and understand the license 3) are bored 4) have a problem with commercial use term. I am interested in photography, and I believe I can manage taking photos and notes, though it will not be easy, but it is better to obtain photos under CC license that the author allowing the photos to be released under CC license just because he or she wants me to stop telling about the terms of the license. (Just in case if anyone wants to see some of my photographs, visit this link; but I do not shoot humans frequently)
I have covered almost every kind of (sports, politics and conflicts, science and technology, disasters and accidents, obituaries, culture and entertainment, crime and law ...). But my ORs were focused on politics and conflicts and crime and law. In India, I will get opportunity to cover articles on crime and law and politics and conflicts more than any other category, which becomes my primary focus. I would be happy to cover other events from the other category as well, if I get an opportunity.
Yes, I have interviewed few civilians for my ORs. I recorded an interview (for India discontinues ₹500, ₹1000 denominations; releases ₹2000 and new ₹500 bills) and sent to scoop and Pi zero. Another interview was for Magnitude 7.5 earthquake hits Afghanistan, I left the notes on the talk page of the article.
acagastya 21:30, 11 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the answers. One more question, what would you use accreditation for, if approved? What kind of events would you primarily target? --Gryllida (talk) 23:12, 18 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Gryllida: As I said, I would be happy to cover events from various category, but, Crime & law and Politics & conflicts will be my primary target, as that is the easiest one to find and follow. (And about the licensing, they are impatient, and would not listen after a while. If someone approaches me to know about it, I will explain them, but it is clear that it is pointless to explain to everyone. After all, the don't know what is copyrighted, what accounts for copyright violation and what is fair use or commercial use. They think photography starts and ends with someone seeing a subject and pressing the button and don't want to know anything more than that for a simple^[sic] task like photography.)
acagastya 12:45, 19 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Having picked a theme to focus on has an advantage: that particular thing is exposed in depth, continuously, which helps to gather a group of people around it who read the news and help to report them.

"Crime & law and Politics & conflicts" is OK as the theme. Please keep it up. :-)

Is it in a particular geographical area or internationally? --Gryllida (talk) 02:01, 20 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Gryllida: I would not be going abroad anytime soon. So, it will India. Since my college is in a different state and my home is in other state, It depends where I am. I can't specify a particular geographic area. But the primary target is Crime & law and Politics & conflicts in India, let it be central or state level.
acagastya 05:46, 20 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Question User:Acagastya Our page WN:OR has some small discussion of identifying oneself as a reporter when asking questions. I seem to recall this issue came up with regard to some reportage you were doing a while ago. What are your thoughts on the legal and ethical considerations involved? --Pi zero (talk) 17:18, 20 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Pi zero: I believe the article you are thinking about is India discontinues ₹500, ₹1000 denominations; releases ₹2000 and new ₹500 bills. If you remember, not only the story was getting stale (since I decided to write about US presidential election), there was a language barrier -- I could understand Kannada, but not speak it. That was the reason it slipped out of my mind that I should disclose I am asking for Wikinews. However, while writing, I remember asking you (on IRC) how I should present the information and I informed you that I could not tell them I was asking for Wikinews.

Legal and ethical considerations -- it seems likely that one should disclose they are doing this for a news org, however, there are cases when journalists need to go under cover. [We even had an article where journalists carry a sting operation going under cover -- that was for Sam Allardyce article.] Similarly, when I was watching Batman v Superman, Bruce Wayne says something, and asks not to quote him. Let's change the scenario, where a country's leader was caught accepting that they did something terribly incorrect [think about any worst case situation, I don't want to create any hypothetical scenario now] -- if they ask us not to report it -- what will we do? We are not priests that we have to keep mum for a confession. On your talk page, there is a quote which says something like "Journalism is printing [publishing] what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations." PR might be an important thing, but telling the truth, publishing the facts -- that is the most important thing. One should reveal the information of their org, but if the situation demands -- which I do not think would arise in the near future, one has to go undercover. "Sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic archdiocese of Boston" might not be the best example, but it is no secret that going undercover [which I presume is not so common] can yield dark facts. FWIW, I can not make any scenario where I would have to keep my identity hidden, so I would disclose my relations with Wikinews for ORs.
•–• 18:06, 20 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Votes

Support I see no problem here. (And please keep trying to explain licensing to a friend slowly, it's a challenging task :-).) --Gryllida (talk) 23:11, 18 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support I think you've tried to hang around here and help out quite a bit! Journalism (and people's perception of it) requires a lot of patience and tenacity! --Bddpaux (talk) 17:26, 2 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support -- numbermaniac 08:03, 4 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support --Pi zero (talk) 18:20, 20 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support Has a clear use case for benefiting from accreditation and is experienced with the project. —Tom Morris (talk) 08:48, 22 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.