Asad Ashraf
Consulting Presenter & National Correspondent

I’ve spent over a decade reporting on politics, development and the social realities influencing contemporary India. Most of that time has been spent in the field, particularly in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Chhattisgarh, and in the corridors of Delhi, where decisions are made that ripple outward into lives far removed from them.

I’ve worked and contributed in newsrooms and formats as a reporter, editor and video producer for organisations like Frontline, Tehelka, TRT, Al Jazeera, Firstpost, Newslaundry, The Wire, The Quint and others. The work has ranged from election coverage to long-form stories on communities that are often talked about in aggregate yet rarely encountered as individuals.

What keeps drawing me back to this work is something harder to articulate, a compulsion to sit with a story long enough to hear what it is actually saying. The places I have reported from are full of voices that get filtered through others, through officials, data and received narratives. I have tried, however imperfectly, to do the opposite. To slow down. To listen. To write about people in their own terms rather than as illustrations of someone else’s point.

That is what drew me to Newsreel Asia. There is a kind of journalism that treats depth as a discipline and empathy as a method, grounded in genuine attention. That is the kind of work I happy to be part of. At a moment when much of the news cycle rewards speed over substance, I chose a place that still believes the human behind the headline is worth the time it takes to find them.