‘Redefining journalism’: how Nepali YouTube series Herne Katha goes off the beaten track to bring untold stories to light

Since 2018, the series has been travelling to ‘unexplored places’ in Nepal to tell deeply personal stories of people who rarely receive media coverage

Herne Katha is among a handful of media outlets aiming to boost Nepal’s journalistic standards and present news and stories in a creative manner

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A screenshot from Herne Katha, with host Bidhya Chapagain interviewing locals at a village in the remote Mugu district in Nepal. Photo: Bibek Bhandari

Published: 6:00pm, 24 Mar 2024Updated: 6:55pm, 24 Mar 2024

With a fresh approach to journalism, a popular YouTube series in Nepal is shifting the media’s spotlight from politics to the personal, documenting a range of human stories that have often been ignored by the country’s mainstream news outlets.

Herne Katha, a web documentary series, has emerged as one of the country’s most popular journalistic endeavours in recent years. Since 2018, co-founders and hosts Bidhya Chapagain and Kamal Kumar have travelled to “unexplored places to find untold stories”, giving viewers a glimpse of people’s lives that have remained invisible to many.

“The front pages of our newspapers usually prioritise political news and it is very rare to find stories of people unless there is an earthquake, flood, or an accident,” said Chapagain from their Kathmandu office, just weeks after celebrating Herne Katha’s sixth anniversary in early March. “We are working to change that perception of journalism and redefining journalism.”

Bidhya Chapagain and Kamal Kumar, co-founders and hosts of web documentary series Herne Katha, at their office in Kathmandu, Nepal. Photo Bibek Bhandari

As Nepal transitioned into a democracy in 1990, private media started flourishing with the newly written constitution guaranteeing press freedom. The latter decades saw a rise in television channels and newspapers, followed by an explosion of online news platforms.

There are currently more than 4,400 online outlets registered with Press Council Nepal, the country’s media regulatory body. However, analysts say Nepal’s media industry,“despite diverse media platforms”, often lacks innovative storytelling techniques to draw in newer and younger audiences, which make up more than half of Herne Katha’s audience.

Both Chapagain and Kumar, who previously worked together on BBC Sajha Sawal, a popular debate programme, say they want to go beyond just asking questions and demanding answers.

“Most of the stories in the mainstream media were from urban centres and they were only giving continuity to it,” Kumar said, referring to their motive for starting Herne Katha. “So there was this vacuum for stories that needed to be told, and we wanted to fill that gap in a creative and innovative way.”