If it isn’t on video, did it even really happen? News is now borne by video and confirmed by it, in ways it never could be before. Here are the important video moments that prominent people and fellow journalists were moved by in 2024.
Saba Naqvi, journalist
I spent much of the year watching Al Jazeera TV as we were seeing for the first time in my life, genocide on live TV. That shook me and moved me and educated me. Journalists I would see reporting would be dead the next week and then the ones who would replace them would get blown away and entire families massacred…I think the Gaza war was by far the big moment on TV.
Aruna Roy, activist and former civil servant
The RTI was used to access that led to the exposure of electoral bonds. “Lack of privacy of political affiliation would be catastrophic. It can be used to disenfranchise voters. Right to informational privacy extends to financial contributions to political parties,” the bench of the apex court had said.
Geetanjali Shree, author
Not news, but we replayed a tiny clip of my mother’s who left us earlier this year at 97 and is always still with us and that made us recall our fun times with her. My sister had conducted a mock interview with her in 2022 asking her how she felt about her daughter’s creation Ret Samadhi winning the Booker. And she haughtily answered, “My daughter is my creation!”
Sravasti Dasgupta, senior reporter, The Wire
While most of us have seen the horrors of the ongoing genocide in Palestine unfold on social media as the western media largely ignores the scale of devastation, Al Jazeera’s investigative documentary ‘The Night Won’t End’: Biden’s War on Gaza, seeks to document the true magnitude of Israel’s actions and the US’ active support in aiding the genocide. The 1 hour 18 minute long documentary is deeply disturbing but an important piece of journalism in chronicling the first genocide in history that is being witnessed live on social media. The meticulous piecing together of the events leading to and the death of 6-year-old Hind Rajab including the young girl’s cries for help left me haunted for days. If there’s one documentary you watch to understand what is happening in real time, let it be this.
Kavita Kabeer, writer and activist
What stood out for me, and I am sure several others this year, is the footage of the genocide in Palestine. And it appeared on the most unlikely platform, Instagram. First the journalists reporting from there, and then ordinary men, women and children took it on themselves to make sure their tragedy is seen, their lives are seen and voices heard.
Jehangir Ali, correspondent
My five-year-old effortlessly scrolling my mobile screen for a ‘better’ video after watching a Palestinian child in Gaza being pulled out of the debris of his home which was bombed by Israel defines the year for me.
Anirudh S.K. news producer, The Wire
I am a fan of the BBC’s video report on how a social worker convinced midwives in Bihar to stop obeying orders to kill newborn girls and to instead give ‘unwanted’ babies to her so they could be given up for adoption. Watching the social worker and a midwife reunite with a grown woman they likely saved from infanticide gave me goosebumps.
Aathira Perinchery, environment reporter, The Wire
The video of a Great Indian bustard chick stretching its tiny ‘wings’ (barely, yet) open was heartening to see.
It’s a special chick: the first ever to be born via artificial insemination. The species is Critically Endangered and there are just around 150 birds left in India. To me, the chick was yet another reminder that we do not need African cheetahs to be brought in to save our grasslands and open ecosystems. We have beautiful, charismatic grasslands species like the Great Indian bustard right here in India, that are struggling and could really do with more boosts – in terms of protection, conservation, policy and funding.
Aparna Bhattacharya, political analyst
On the midnight of August 14 – when women in Kolkata and other parts of Bengal came out to protest against the brutal rape and murder of a doctor at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, I traveled through the city and witnessed a different kind of resolve. Many women, likely attending their first protest, had finally had enough. That night, across my city, the usual barriers of class, gender, and religion seemed to have faded. It was a sad night, many were crying, but it gave me hope, even if temporarily. The videos of those marches are testament to their resolve.
Tamanna Naseer, associate editor, The Wire English
Gulfisha Fathima’s arrest under UAPA exposes India’s shrinking democratic space. Her parents assert she did nothing wrong, exercising her right to protest the Citizenship Amendment Act. The “uneducated” parents of an “educated” Gulfisha proudly await her return, finding solace in her letters from jail, a heart-wrenching testament to her resilience.
Banjot Kaur, health reporter, The Wire
I have been making a series of 10 videos on various issues related to public health. One of them was on mental health. Personally, that was one of the year’s most satisfying video moments for me. It was personal as I too have been diagnosed with a particular mental health disorder. I shared a large part of my personal experience in the video, without making it explicit – be it the struggle with doing even the most basic of daily chores, professional and personal life going for a toss, helplessness in gaining control over cognition, facing stigma from loved ones, and the importance of a tiny but strong support system.
All the doctors featured in the video showed a ray of hope, and offered doable solutions. If some of the responses on social media were any indicators, it seemed to me that the job was done, even if not fully.
Atul Ashok Howale, reporter, The Wire
This year, I covered two significant elections through video stories – Lok Sabha and the Maharashtra assembly – meeting people from various regions in Maharashtra, including farmers, students, labourers and so on. I gained insights into their struggles and challenges.
I remember capturing the struggle for drinking water in the drought-prone region Man-Khatav of Satara district while covering the Lok Sabha elections in Western Maharashtra.
The emotional weight of documenting this issue was immense.
Soumashree Sarkar, news editor, The Wire
Namit Arora’s 10-part series on India and its history is decidedly longer than a moment, but in its expanse and tone, it signified why we needed a reminder of how syncretic our present is.
The story of India is one of profound and continuous change, Arora tells us. So there is little joy in adhering to a monolithic account peddled by a few.
Pavan Korada, data analyst, The Wire
At 2:16:33, George Fernandes narrates an anecdote that confirms, in terms of brute realpolitik, albeit in reverse, Dr. K. Balagopal’s thesis that “true secularism in India is nothing but the annihilation of caste.” That Hindutva can be nothing more than a concentration of hatred toward any genuine democratic aspirations in this country.
Elisha Vermani, news producer, The Wire English
I got to see Joe Sacco in conversation with The Wire’s Seema Chishti talk so passionately about journalism at a time when the world’s collective faith in the profession seems to have hit a new low. For a young journalist, to see the media’s failure to hold power to account, or even just get the story right, is disheartening. But it’s evenings like these that have a way of restoring your faith just a little bit.
Saikat Majumdar, author
The video where the neighbour of the trainee doctor murdered in R.G. Kar Medical College spoke about the way the parents found her dead body in the hospital seminar room. It felt like the destruction of the city in which I’d grown up, particularly of the neighbourhood near the hospital where I’d spent my childhood and college years.
Deep Mukherjee, news producer, The Wire English
A video news story that I found really interesting was “The Sea is our Mother”, a video story on the women who collect seaweed in the Gulf of Mannar. The video story was published by The Wire in partnership with the Pulitzer Center and was part of an insightful series on the oral history of India’s fisherwomen.
Aquilur Rahman, social media manager, The Wire
On July 31, an RPF cop, inside a moving Jaipur-Mumbai Superfast Express, shot down four people, his senior Tikaram Meena from a point blank range and three Muslim passengers while they were asleep. The video went viral on social media where he was heard saying, “Agar vote dena hai, agar Hindustan me rehna hai, toh mai kehta hoon, Modi and Yogi, ye do hai…’.
This incident moved me the most this year and has left behind many unanswered questions like what if it was someone from my family? What if the attire and appearance of people is giving out signals to kill? Is this it or there are more in the making?
Vani Vasudevan, veteran publisher
A video moment that stood out: There are a great many of these and it is impossible to choose, but fresh in my memory is Vir Das introducing himself at the Emmy’s. Unsurprisingly, his speech was brilliantly scripted with so many layers, and was yet delivered with panache, seeming spontaneous. Somewhere along the way, humour has got derailed in the public space and most influencers who are rated highly in India take themselves too seriously. Thanks to comedians such as Vir Das ‘arriving’ on the international stage, there is a great upsurge of stand-up comedians across India.
Rohit Kumar, contributor, The Wire
In Karan Thapar’s interview with Dushant Dave, the latter expressed what so many of us are feeling. The tears of a senior Supreme Court judge probably did more to convey the collective anguish of millions than anything else has in recent times.
Armanur Rahman, news producer, The Wire
Seeing Dushyant Dave getting emotional in his interview with Karan Thapar made me a wee bit emotional.
