By Karen Rouse

Journalist Srishti Jaswal — who has reported extensively on poverty and starvation in India and won numerous awards for her investigative work, including the Lorenzo Natali Best Emerging Journalist award by the European Commission in 2021 and the Ochberg fellowship at Columbia University by the Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma this year — has been selected by the Pulitzer Center to be the inaugural fellow at the CITP Digital Witness Lab.

Black and white photo headshot of journalist Srishti Jaiswal. Sunglasses are resting on her head. She is smiling.

Srishti Jaswal

Data journalist and engineer Surya Mattu, who is the Digital Witness Lab lead, said Jaswal will conduct data collection and analysis as part of the Lab’s ongoing WhatsApp Watch investigative project. The fellowship is a joint venture supported by the Pulitzer Center, which funds journalism projects globally, and the Digital Witness Lab to support a journalist whose project involves investigating the influence of messaging platforms on some communities.

“We are grateful to our partners at the Pulitzer Center who are doing pioneering work building the field of global, interdisciplinary, and collaborative journalism,” Mattu said. “It was inspiring to see the diversity and ambition of projects this year and while it was hard to make a final decision, we are excited to work with Srishti—she is an incredibly talented journalist doing important work in India.”