Vinod Jose

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Vinod K. Jose, or Vinod Kizhakkeparambil Joseph, is an award winning journalist from India. He worked as a foreign correspondent in South Asia and his mainstay was for Pacifica Radio as their Reporter-Producer in the region from 2002 to 2007. Jose began his career in journalism as a city reporter with The Indian Express in New Delhi.

He also founded a magazine in his mother tongue, Free Press in Malayalam language. Sensational investigations and naive, but idealistic style of journalism of a 24-year-old at the top, Free Press, had an audited readership of 450,000 in Kerala and among the Malayali diaspora. According to the Government of India's RNI registry (Registrar Office of Newspaper for India^[1]) Jose was the youngest Editor-in-Chief in 2003 of a current affairs magazine in India^[2]. But after a short life Free Press went in oblivion in 2005 due to lack of funding, after their office was attacked, distribution system was destroyed, Jose intimidated, and even his parents in Wayanad threatened ^[3]. But no committee was constituted to verify the magazine's claims. However in the Malayalam language press, Jose's editorship was critically acclaimed for the free, fair and courageous journalism it showed ^[4].

As a foreign correspondent in South Asia his exclusive radio documentaries included on Burma and Maoists in Bastar. His stories also were broadcast in BBC, National Radio Project, and Asia Calling. He conducted exclusive interview with Mohammad Afzal, a Kashmiri prisoner on death row convicted in the 13 Dec 2001 terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament. The interview was first carried by Tehelka, a leading Indian magazine. The story was discussed in the Indian Parliament, and was translated into 11 languages. The interview was also anthologized in 13 Dec ^[5], a bestselling book in South Asia published by Penguin (2007) with introduction from the Booker Prize winning author Arundhati Roy.

Jose left^[6] Pacifica Radio in 2007 on a Bollinger Presidential Fellowship to attend a mid-career program at Columbia School of Journalism, New York. He won the 2008 Foreign Press Association award from Carl Bernstein, awarded annually for young journalists in the United States for their outstanding academic and professional achievement.

1 Biography
2 References
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] Biography

Vinod Jose was born in Wayanad, an agrarian district in Kerala State. He was raised as a Catholic Christian and attended schools in Wayanad. Before his career in journalism, he was a student union leader. At the age of 17, Jose was the University Union Councillor (UUC) in Kannur University, representing hundreds of students. He left student politics to join a journalism school in Manipal, Karnataka.