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Vinod K. Jose | |
|---|---|
| Born | Vinod Kizhakkeparambil Joseph Kerala, India |
| Education | Manipal University, MA Columbia University, MA Jamia Millia Islamia, PhD Harvard University, Radcliffe Fellow |
| Occupation(s) | Journalist, editor, magazine founder |
| Years active | 2001–present |
| Employer(s) | Caravan Magazine (Delhi Press), since 2009 Free Press, 2003–2006 Radio Pacifica, 2002–2007 Indian Express, 2001 |
| Known for | his narrative journalism style and interviews |
| Awards | Asia Society |
Vinod K. Jose, orVinod Kizhakkeparambil Joseph, (born 1980) is a journalist, editor, and magazine founder fromIndia.[1][2] In 2009, Jose was hired by Delhi Press to re-launch the company's 70-year-old titleThe Caravan, which was discontinued in 1988. He was the executive editor ofThe Caravan from 2009 to 2023, which calls itself "India's only narrative journalism magazine" and is published in the English-language in New Delhi.[3][4][5] Earlier, he was the founding editor of the Malayalam-language publicationFree Press.[6][7] Jose's contributions to Indian journalism are in the area of narrative or literary journalism, similar to the style ofGranta,The New Yorker,The Atlantic andMother Jones.[3][8][9] He has won several national and international awards for his work. Jose also faces ten sedition cases for his journalism.[10] Since he left The Caravan, Jose has been working on an investigative book on how political and economic power works in India. Jose is also the founder and director of the Wayanad Literature Festival, India's first and the largest rurally-held literature festival.[11]
Vinod Jose Graduated with a degree in Communications fromManipal University in 2001. In 2008, he graduated with an MA fromColumbia Journalism School,Columbia University, New York, where he was aBollinger Presidential Fellow.[12][13] He was awarded his PhD in Sociology in 2012 fromJamia Millia Islamia in New Delhi, India.[14][15] Jose was also a Radcliffe Fellow at Harvard University.[16]
Vinod K. Jose started as a city reporter with theIndian Express in New Delhi in 2001.[6][12] From 2002 to 2007, Vinod Jose covered South Asia for public radio networks such asPacifica Radio,NPR,Radio Australia and Asia Calling.[6][12] Jose was also the founding editor ofFree Press, a long-form investigative magazine published between 2003 and 2006 in theMalayalam language.[6][12] At 23, Jose became one of the youngest editors of any current affairs registered magazine in India when he startedFree Press (Office of the Registrar of Newspapers for India).[6][12] After his journalism education in Columbia Journalism School, in 2009, Jose was hired by India's leading publisherDelhi Press to re-launch the company's 70-year-old titleThe Caravan, which had been discontinued in 1988.[3][8]
In defence of narrative journalism,The Caravan ads a long-term perspective that it says other magazines are not providing. Jose toldThe Hindu,
Magazines are being unable to take advantage of the seven-day cycle. After watching 200 hours of results [in TV], news and analysis of UP elections, what is it that I gain by having five magazines on my desk at the end of the week? Editorial leadership is not being able to address this core issue, and advertisers can see it.[17]
Vinod K. Jose first received attention for his reporting about those accused and those convicted in the2001 Indian Parliament attack. As a reporter, he covered the attack the day of the attack, but he said his story was not published in 2001 because he had found so many contradictions.[6] In 2005, Jose, who was at the time editing theFree Press, was questioned by the Crime Branch in New Delhi about articles that he had written aboutSAR Geelani, who had been accused and acquitted in the2001 Indian Parliament attack.[6][7] In 2006, Radio Pacifica correspondent Jose conducted an exclusive interview withMulakat Afzal Guru while the convict awaited his execution inside theTihar Jail.[18][19] Later in 2006, he published a response on behalf of the Society for the Protection of Detainees' and Prisoners' Rights, which was seeking clemency for Afzal Guru.[20][21][22] His original interview with Afzal was reprinted multiple times between 2006 and 2013,[23][24] translated into 11 south Asian languages and other European languages such as Italian,[12][25] and included in an edited book about the attack.[26]
In the course of his reporting forCaravan, Jose filed a "Right to Information" application to make public the holdings ofKalanithi Maran's private holdings, which was eventually supported by theCentral Information Commission in 2012. Maran's brother is former Telecom MinisterDayanidhi Maran, and India'sMinistry of Information and Broadcasting initially denied the request until the CIC reversed the decision. The issue was reported widely at the time saying the CIC decision on the appeal was landmark by setting a precedent in India for opening up the private sector to public scrutiny.[27][28][29]
In September 2012,The Washington Post published a correction that said its India bureau chiefSimon Denyer had not sourced two statements from Vinod K. Jose's article about Prime MinisterManmohan Singh that first appeared inThe Caravan.[30] Sanjaya Baru, Singh's media advisor, said, "Simon Denyer quotes me inWashington Post without talking to me. He has merely rehashed what I told Caravan last year."[31] Denyer did respond that he had failed to adequately give attribution to Jose's article.[32] According to FirstPost, the ethical issue was that Denyer's article made it appear that Singh's representatives had told him something that he had actually told Vinod K. Jose ofThe Caravan in 2011.[33]
Under Vinod Jose's leadership The Caravan became India's leading investigative journalism newsroom. The magazine brought out the 2010 Commonwealth Games scam in Delhi; a multi-billion coal allocation scam in 2011; a 2-year old investigation on Swamy Aseemanand, the Hindu priest who plotted five terrorist attacks in India that killed 117 people;[34] the mysterious death of Judge Loya who in a murder case had refused to take a $15 million bribe offer to acquit the principal accused Amit Shah, who is Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s three-decade-long chief lieutenant;[35] the credit benefits extended by public banks to Amit Shah's son;[36] National Security Advisor Ajit Doval's son operating a company from the tax haven;[37] payoffs amounting to over Rs 1,800 crore to the BJP’s national leaders, its central committee, and judges and advocates;[38] the MeToo charge against the Chief Justice of India, Ranjan Gogoi etc. The investigations on the judicial corruption led to the start of the first ever impeachment process against the Chief Justice of India, Dipak Misra. The magazine and Vinod Jose faced numerous defamation lawsuits over the years, but has not been convicted in any. Vinod Jose also face ten sedition cases.[39][40] In 2023, Vinod Jose announced leaving The Caravan after heading the newsroom for fourteen years.[41]
In 2011 Vinod K. Jose won the Ramnath Goenka Award for his reporting on politics and government. It was his Caravan magazine profile on Prime MinisterManmohan Singh, which won him the prestigious award.[citation needed]
In 2008, he had won a Foreign Press Association award fromCarl Bernstein, awarded annually for young journalists in the United States for their outstanding academic and professional achievement.[12][53]
In 2021, under Vinod's editorial leadership, The Caravan, won the prestigious Louis M. Lyons Award for Conscience and Integrity in Journalism. The Award, administered by Harvard University, said that the award was in recognition of the "unique and uncompromising coverage of the erosion of human rights, social justice, and democracy in India." "[54]
His work "River Deep, Mountain High", about espionage and lost plutonium in theNanda Devi,[55] was acknowledged with an "honorable mention" at the 2011 Kurt Schork Awards in International Journalism,Institute for War & Peace Reporting.[56]
He was presented with an award for excellence in reporting by theAsia Society in 2013.[1] Two articles from Jose were listed in the citation: "The Emperor Uncrowned: The Rise ofNarendra Modi," which about how Modi reformed his reputation from the days of2002 Gujarat violence into a prominent investment booster forGujarat, India,[57] and "On the Success of Ethics," which is about the changing relationship between public relations and traditional journalism and the possible role of ethics.[58] Another magazine asked if it were ethical for a journalist writing about ethics begin the story by recounting his eavesdropping of the private communication of a public relations representative.[59]
In 2006, Vinod K. Jose met Afzal Guru inside Tihar jail for a rare interview.[dead link]
An earlier version of this article failed to credit the Caravan, an Indian magazine, for two statements that it originally published in 2011. The assertion by Sanjaya Baru, a former media adviser, that Singh had become an object of ridicule and endured the worst period in his life first appeared in the Caravan, as did an assertion by Ramachandra Guha, a political historian, that Singh was handicapped by his "timidity, complacency and intellectual dishonesty." While both men told The Post that the assertions could accurately be attributed to them, the article should have credited the Caravan when it used or paraphrased the remarks. The article has been updated.
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