Amid curbs on Kashmir media, freelancers hold fort

Abstract

by the BJP-led Indian government. Article 370 of the Constitution granted Kashmir its special autonomous status. A communication blockade was imposed by the administration to stop the protests after the abrogation. The political crisis, along with the absence of working phone and internet connectivity made functioning of the media impossible.The media has been reduced to carving out positive stories (Naqash, 2021a). Even the critical journalistic work done years earlier is conspicuously missing from the websites of news organizations (Hassan, 2021). A new breed of social media users posing as journalists has permeated social media (Javed, 2021), overtaking the role of established organizations. Whatever little adversarial journalism the new websites have managed to do, faces the highhandedness of the executive (Shah, 2022). The silver lining in the debacle seems to be the emergence of young freelance voices who have managed to carve space for themselves in national and international publications, although they also do not feel safe (Raafi, 2021).