A Month at Kantipur Daily

It's been almost a month since I've started working at Kantipur Daily. Many friends of mine have asked me to share the experience. I would like to share some of them here.

Part of the reason I have been lackadaisical lately in updating this blog is due to my busy schedule. I am just feeling the daily rush. Though, I worked at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in US for more than five months, I hadn't realized how busy one can be in the national daily's newsroom. Post-Gazette was a rather slow daily, there was not much happening in and around Pittsburgh. I was stationed at features section where stories were prepared in advance.

In early October, I was offered the job of features bureau coordinator of Kantipur Daily, Nepal's largest selling newspaper. I accepted the responsibility of overseeing Arts and Style section and Koseli, the daily's Saturday supplement. My predecessor blogger- friend Dinesh Wagle headed to New Delhi to take charge of Kantipur Publications' India Bureau. This change comes at a time when new media houses are coming up in Nepali market, at least four dailies (two English and two Nepali) are in the pipeline.

I have written two front page feature stories (bottom anchor) for Kantipur and the response has been overwhelming. Magazine (I worked at Nepal Weekly for more than four years) has a different set of readership and the working style is in contrast to a daily newspaper. In-depth and long stories are required in the magazine while daily demands short stories with either new info or a fresh angle.

It's definitely fun to work with Kantipur. Here, one can be a part of the team that decides what to put in tomorrow's newspaper. It sets the agenda for the days to come. The newpaper that has the highest readership in Nepal also has a serious job of providing correct information to the public, thereby helping them understand things happening around them.

I had always wanted to have a byline in this daily. I have contributed a few stories as well. But being part of the team is entirely different from being an outsider. The experience so far has been exciting and I hope it will remain so in future.