The Fold podcast: Gaurav Sharma on the communities NZ’s media doesn’t serve

The associate editor of The Indian News joins host Duncan Greive to discuss his belief that New Zealand’s media ignores the quarter of our population not born here – and why both parties lose as a result.

I first met Gaurav Sharma in the aftermath of March 15. New Zealand and the world has gone through so much trauma since then that it feels much further away than the 15 months which have elapsed since. He was there for another meeting, but afterwards a colleague said we had to meet, and we spoke for a half hour or so, and he talked to me about the impact of the attacks on the migrant community. Sharma edits the Multicultural Times, which grew out of the Migrant Times, each one a newspaper dedicated to telling stories about and for a community which he argues persuasively for being underrepresented in New Zealand’s media.

His own story is a microcosm of that – an engineer by training, he switched to journalism 12 years ago in India. He arrived in New Zealand five years ago, and found its society and his chosen profession entirely closed off to him. Hence starting two businesses.

He’s now associate editor of The Indian News, a weekly newspaper which he has broadened to include coverage of other immigrant communities within New Zealand. I asked him up to The Fold, my monthly podcast covering media within New Zealand, to talk about his own journey within New Zealand journalism, March 15, and his considered and powerful critique of New Zealand media. It’s a confronting conversation at times, but I think one which Pākehā like me within the New Zealand media need to hear to help us understand who we’re creating journalism for, and who we’re missing out.

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