DIDIHOOD ~ Issue 70

Saying goodbye to another year.

It's been an incredible year to work with the community again. We just hosted a networking night for women in Canadian journalism at TikTok Canada, we are wrapping up our mentorship program, and we've added 12 new Didis to this year's newsletter roster. We would like to thank all you Didis for making our 2023 eventful and impactful. 

We would also like to announce that this will be our last newsletter with Tiny Letter. We will be launching a new format for Didis in early 2024. Thank you for reading all 70 issues! 

In the meantime, if you need to reach out to us, please follow us on Instagram. 

Meet the Didi:
To wrap up the year, this month we speak to Alisha Sawhney, Podcast Lead, Globe Content Studio at the Globe and Mail in Toronto. 

Tell us about your journey into journalism — why did you choose this path?
I’ve wanted to be a journalist for as long as I can remember. When I was in elementary school, my dad and I would cut out long words in the weekend Toronto Star and I’d turn the crafting into spelling games. I remember copying rows of words from the dictionary and trying to spell them as fast as I could. I have fond memories of journaling and playing crosswords in the car throughout my childhood. On some level, I must’ve subconsciously fallen in love with newspapers during those early years. 

Over your career, you have tapped into several roles from social media to editing to reporting. Tell us about your latest role at Globe and Mail? 
I currently oversee podcast strategy in The Globe’s Content Studio — a content marketing arm of The Globe and Mail. I work across departments to conceptualize, pitch, produce and promote both editorial and sponsored podcasts. I oversee every stage of production, from pitching show concepts, assembling teams, episode outlines, pre-interviews, scripting, host coaching, editing feedback and promotion strategy. I work closely with the newsroom but report to the revenue floor, so I get to flex my editorial muscles on the business side of the company. It’s been pretty rewarding so far! I’m currently the executive producer of Stress Test, a personal finance podcast for millennials and Gen Z.

How did you enter the podcasting world and did you face any challenges navigating the industry?
Like so many other journalists, my interest in podcasting started at the side of my desk. I had fabulous managers when I worked at HuffPost Canada who allowed me to explore the medium while I was working as an audience development editor. I got to co-host Born & Raised, a podcast about the second-gen experience.

The challenges I’m facing are more directly related to the small podcast market we have in Canada. With the news gap left by Meta, news podcasts have gained more popularity in the last few months. However, some of the top podcasts Canadians listen to are coming outside of legacy media. There are so many podcast creators out there, so it’s getting harder for mainstream outlets to distinguish themselves.

It is no secret that trust in the media has declined, especially over the last decade. People often don’t feel like news is made for or by people like them. One good strategy is actually investing in auditing your own content and saying, “If I were a member of this community, would I see my life reflected?” In this era of misinformation, podcasters are emerging as the trustworthy figures of the media industry. Podcast listeners actively seek out content and create time for it, making the time spent with podcasts highly engaging and intentional.

As a South Asian woman, do you ever bring your identity to your journalism? If so, how?
Yes, I definitely did when I was producing Born & Raised. It gave me the confidence to eventually branch out in my reporting but I think it’s completely natural to start thinking about storytelling from a personal lens.

Moreover, in 2023, I think there is still a strong market for personal essay writing and identity-driven journalism. Some journalists even make it their niche. You can bring a whole lifetime of experience to a story by infusing your personal identity. In our age of instant news deadlines and dried-up travel budgets, plumbing the depths of your own life seems to be the only way to spend time on a topic, to take a breath and say something slower and more considered, to draw “reporting” from a wider time frame than a morning press conference. First-person journalism isn’t going anywhere — nor should it.

Tell us about your time working at the New York Times.
I still pinch myself when I think about this because I got to live out The Devil Wears Prada in real life. During my tenure there, the Times bought The Athletic and Wordle, so you can imagine how much the audience grew beyond any reasonable expectations. Elon Musk hadn’t bought Twitter yet. Measuring the success of the week’s editorial agenda was directly tied to how many “touchpoints” there were between a subscriber and the offering we were producing or editing. In other words, habit formation was always at the back of everyone’s mind as we were coming up with new ways to retain readers. A big part of my job was to help shape stories — and particularly headlines — to resonate with digital subscribers. I wrote headlines for essays written by Tom Hanks, Malala Yousafzai, Roxane Gay and even Joe Biden on America’s position on Ukraine. I was often the last set of eyes on these pieces, hitting “publish.” It was never a dull moment.

You have also produced and hosted Lost Voices: An Untold Story of the South Asian Diaspora — tell us about this project. 
A few years ago, McGill University asked me to help them demystify an archive called The Gwillim Collection; a body of research that offers us a glimpse into pre-colonial India. I made a four-part podcast to reimagine this archive using the voices of South Asian millennials. The show is a journalistic inquiry into the South Asian diaspora focusing on ideas around archiving practices used by South Asians to collect, preserve and reconstruct family and community histories. What would historians say about the digital remnants we leave behind about ourselves on social media, 100 years from now? Are social media companies complicit in shaping our views about history? Do we need to be loud for our stories to be believed? These are some of the questions I ask in my show.

The podcast was also about reconstructing history in the diaspora, why is this important?
Creating this show was an important milestone for me as a journalist. Throughout the show, all the women’s stories were anchored by a desire to come to an alternative account of our histories — one that brings together our fragmented stories for a version of history that feels closer to the truth. It was eye-opening to learn that so many South Asian women are searching for digital avenues to explore and share the details that make up their dual identities. I wanted this show to be a space where South Asian women could spawn new opportunities to rethink our relationship with history and storytelling. The body of research I was given serves as a starting point for deeper reflection on how we can bring more diverse voices into our interpretation of the past.

What would be your advice for a young Didi who wants to enter journalism?
Working in the media industry teaches you how big the world is, and I’ve been so lucky to work in newsrooms that supported me in my quest to find my place in it. But journalism is not just the beautiful art of reporting, writing and publishing. Successful journalists are now those who can develop and embrace their inner manager. Those who have developed the skills to write strong business plans and powerful elevator pitches. Those who understand the difference between price and cost and can establish diverse revenue streams. All without ever leaving behind journalism that matters. Not an easy task.

Do yourself a favour: start a folder on your desktop. Mine is called “you’re doing great, sweetie!” When you get positive feedback or a compliment, screenshot it and put it in that folder. When you need a confidence boost, or to combat imposter syndrome, open it up and read them.

What we're reading:

Sex Lives of College Girls star Amrit Kaur is ready to lay her soul bare

Hamilton author wins prestigious Governor General’s Literary Award with debut book

The schoolgirls and sportswomen resisting France’s abaya ban
 
— Arti Patel

Issue 70
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