Animals, Just Like Humans, Thrive in Healthy, Interconnected Communities
Our Managing Editor learns lessons from a wildlife documentary trailer screening
Dear Reader,
Against the backdrop of Carnatic music, a tiger opens its eyes sluggishly, an endangered lion-tailed macaque is lost in thought on a moss-covered tree branch, and a school of fish explores the coral habitat.
The trailer of the upcoming documentary Wild Tamil Nadu was just 94 seconds long, but in a 12 September screening in my hometown of Chennai, Tamil Nadu’s largest city, I was able to grab a hold of the director, Kalyan Varma.
In a candid conversation that lasted fifteen minutes — ten times the length of the trailer — Kalyan spoke about his experience of shooting the documentary and the peculiar behaviours of the wild that intrigued me as he explained.
Did you know that Tamil Nadu is home to the Madras Hedgehog — a cute mammal species that cannot be found anywhere else in the world? When Kalyan told me he had spent two years waiting to capture this elusive creature on film, it reminded me of the struggles journalists go through to get that one piece of information.
It is my third week as the managing editor of The Xylom, and it's my first time being on the other side. As an independent journalist, I felt grateful whenever I received a reply (even a rejection mail) from an organisation. I am holding to that emotion and responding to the journalists from across the globe who are sending pitches to us.
In Pulicat Lake off Chennai, one can witness a fascinating display of teamwork among birds. Thousands of cormorants form a single line, as Kalyan described, like an army marching ahead to drive fish into a corner. This feat makes it easier for other birds, such as painted storks and spot-billed pelicans, to feed on them.
At The Xylom, we provide a similar ecosystem for our reporters to deliver cross-border stories on environmental health and democracy. To move together in one direction requires a lot of discipline: we ask contributors to sharpen the pitches and try hard to bring in new angles and information; I’m learning the difficult skill of saying “no”.
Pulicat Lake has at least 200 species of birds, with every species having a unique feeding mechanism with different shapes of the beaks. It is a perfect testimony of how biodiversity thrives when roles are distinct yet interconnected. Each freelancer of The Xylom brings a unique skill, and together, they weave a larger narrative.
There are some wild behaviours as well. As the search for food gets tough in rainforests, Lion-tailed macaques wait patiently for giant squirrels to open up the jack fruits. They slap the squirrels away and eat the food, something that is witty and resilient. The Gulf of Mannar, known as the most biodiverse oceanic region in Asia, is home to rich seagrass meadows and placental mammals such as sea cows. Kalyan waited for years to get the shots of these unique animals on camera in vain. Yet, his effort speaks volumes about his resilience.
Watching Tamil Nadu’s wildlife reminded me that resilience is important for survival and growth. In my new role, I carry that lesson to build a thriving ecosystem where our storytellers can thrive with award-winning stories.
Yours sincerely,
Laasya Shekhar
Managing Editor
THINGS YOU SHOULD READ
✨ NEWS BEHIND THE NEWS
✍️ Thank you to everyone who gave $18,515 to our fundraiser to hire me full-time, especially new major donor Sam Sun! Also, check out Alex’s interview with the Institute for Nonprofit News, “Can tiny nonprofit news outlets survive the current financial flux?”
🧠 Congrats to our alum Burcin Ikiz, who was named to the 2025 edition of Grist 50!
📱 ICYMI: We’re piloting a WhatsApp channel, which would help reach users who stay off social media, and curb misinformation at the source (share it with your immigrant parents, aunties, or uncles!)
📖 From our alumni network, check out Katrina Miller’s interview with mathematician Eugenia Cheng, who wrote a new book, “Unequal: The Math of When Things Do and Don’t Add Up.“
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🍑 A SOUTHERN FLAIR
HIGH SPRINGS, Fla. — Waterlogged and contaminated: In rural Florida, locals suspect a mining company is to blame for their flooding troubles (Sachi Kitajima Mulkey and Ayurella Horn-Muller, Grist and The Marjorie)
“You would have had to experience it, because everybody just thinks you’re a conspiracy theorist and you’re nuts, and I’m not at all a conspiracy theorist,” Blais said. “By the time we actually find out how badly [Chemours has] ruined the river and the wetlands around them… It’s going to be bad.”
MILLER COUNTY, Ga. — As Georgia Returns to Electing Its Utility Commission, Worries over Democracy Linger (Camille Squires, Bolts)
Election Supervisor Jerry Calhoun wasn’t expecting much turnout. This is an area where the vast majority of residents vote Republican, and there was nothing on the ballot other than this Democratic runoff for an under-the-radar office. Still, eight voters represented a steep drop off from the roughly 160 who took part in Democrats’ last primary for a statewide office.
CHARLESTON, S.C. — Building toward disaster: Growth collides with rising seas in Charleston (Ames Alexander, Floodlight)
“The gentry of Charleston have connections, they have money, they have a voice,” Mikell said. “These communities are voiceless.”
🗺️ WHAT ELSE WE'RE READING
‘I’m so dehumanized’: Journalists say U.S. newsrooms treat Palestine with fear and contempt (Laura Albast, Prism)
Even though she didn’t mention Palestine in her pitch, she said her editors told her that readers would still assume it was related. The reason they gave, according to Nadia, was because the story would be published after Oct. 7—and her name would be in the byline.
The Floods Kept Coming. He Needed to Grow a Crop That Would Thrive in Water — or to Quit. (Julia Rendleman for ProPublica, Molly Parker, Capitol News Illinois, and Lylee Gibbs, Saluki Local Reporting Lab; featuring a quote from The Xylom alum Silvia Secchi!)
“Everything’s stacked against it,” said Jonathan Coppess, a former U.S. Department of Agriculture official and current farm policy expert at the University of Illinois. “Nobody says no, but the system doesn’t know how to say yes.”
When governments own tobacco companies, who watches out for your health? (Jason McLure, The Examination)
Indeed, we learned that there’s no simple takeaway when examining the relationship between government ownership of tobacco companies and health outcomes. Despite the WHO treaty, our reporting for these stories and others shows that policies are influenced by the pursuit of tobacco profits – whether by state-owned firms or the private sector.
A Question of Conflicts at America’s Top Pediatrician Association (Michael Schulson, Undark)
“The process here clearly is not in line with international gold standards for producing trustworthy guidelines,” said Quinn Grundy, a researcher at the University of Toronto who studies industry influences on health systems, after reviewing details of the AAP guidelines covering weight-loss medications. But, she added, the organization was not an outlier …
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