From the excellent Hoot, just when you wondered what journalism was for, along comes someone to remind you – in this case, Indian journalist Rupashree Nanda.

In an award acceptance speech, she spells out what journalism means to her.

If you feel in need of revival, print it out and put it on the wall, and – just for a few minutes – recall that the words “revenue model” did not inspire you to pursue a career in journalism.

[H]elplessness is a very familiar feeling. In the past two and half years of television journalism, I have travelled to some of the poorest places and communities in the country … I have a compelling need to report on such issues. I have always asked myself why am I drawn to stories of struggle and injustice?

I have had my share of struggle but not the direct experience of excruciating poverty that I report on. Yes, there is a reason of birth and blood. I come from Bolangir and may have indirectly experienced it despite being brought up by protective parents. But still, whenever I go out on assignments, I always I come back feeling inadequate, very defeated.

Sometimes people say that it was a good story … but deep in my heart I am acutely aware of everything that I have not been able to say … of the fact that no matter how well-done a story is, the reality that even I as an outsider-reporter feel under my skin is beyond the power of my words or images.

There are no sublime moments in these tragedies … people, their dreams and livelihoods perish not because of some personal hubris … I am not allowed to say it, but I would call it a crime that the present order perpetuates on its own people … it is ugly like Nithari killings … when close to 800 million people don’t have food, water, work how can it be normal?

The humiliation that spreads like a fire in your face while begging for work or the shame of being unable to provide, how can that be normal? The routine way people break down in front of the camera, a reporter-stranger that is me, how can that be normal?

As a matter of duty, I do everything that I should not … I open up old wounds, I ask painful questions, I transgress boundaries, I enter the inner lives of people … I feel I am the beggar and they tell me their stories are the kings … and yes beggars can also betray, I betray … the system betrays.

Why do the lives of so many people continue to be so fragile? Why, despite laws and elections things don’t change fast enough? Why don’t our stories have enduring impact?

I believe, journalism is the most significant human achievement … not man’s landing on the moon, or the splitting of the atom, or the Vietnam war, or communism, … it is the very simple idea of news.

I believe just as it is the nature of water to wet, of fire to burn, it is the nature of journalism to effect change… and just as the water that nourishes can also kill, fire that sustains can also destroy, journalism can effect change for better or for worse.

I believe, it has no limitations except the ones it imposes on itself. I believe, if it is true to its nature, it is radical, it cannot be otherwise.