Vinod K. Jose, or Vinod Kizhakkeparambil Joseph, (born 1980) is a journalist, editor, and magazine founder from India. In 2009, Jose was hired by Delhi Press to re-launch the company's 70-year-old title The Caravan, which was discontinued in 1988. He was the executive editor of The Caravan from 2009 to 2023, which calls itself "India's only narrative journalism magazine" and is published in the English-language in New Delhi. Earlier, he was the founding editor of the Malayalam-language publication Free Press. Jose's contributions to Indian journalism are in the area of narrative or literary journalism, similar to the style of Granta, The New Yorker, The Atlantic and Mother Jones. He has won several national and international awards for his work. Jose also faces ten sedition cases for his journalism. Since he left The Caravan, Jose has been working on an investigative book on how political and economic power works in India.
Education
Vinod Jose Graduated with a degree in Communications from Manipal University in 2001. In 2008, he graduated with an MA from Columbia Journalism School, Columbia University, New York, where he was a Bollinger Presidential Fellow. He was awarded his PhD in Sociology in 2012 from Jamia Millia Islamia in New Delhi, India.
Career
Vinod K. Jose started as a city reporter with the Indian Express in New Delhi in 2001. He has worked as a foreign correspondent in South Asia for the American public radio network, Pacifica Radio, from 2002 to 2007. Jose was also the founding editor of Free Press, a long-form investigative magazine published between 2003 and 2006 in the Malayalam language. At 23, Jose became one of the youngest editors-in-chief of any current affairs registered magazine in India when he started Free Press (Office of the Registrar of Newspapers for India). In 2009, Jose was hired by Delhi Press to re-launch the company's 70-year-old title The Caravan, which had been discontinued in 1988.
In defence of narrative journalism, The Caravan ads a long-term perspective that it says other magazines are not providing. Jose told The Hindu, Magazines are being unable to take advantage of the seven-day cycle. After watching 200 hours of results [in TV], news and analysis of UP elections, what is it that I gain by having five magazines on my desk at the end of the week? Editorial leadership is not being able to address this core issue, and advertisers can see it.
Notable works of journalism
Vinod K. Jose first received attention for his reporting about those accused and those convicted in the 2001 Indian Parliament attack. As a reporter, he covered the attack the day of the attack, but he said his story was not published in 2001 because he had found so many contradictions. In 2005, Jose, who was at the time editing the Free Press, was questioned by the Crime Branch in New Delhi about articles that he had written about SAR Geelani, who had been accused and acquitted in the 2001 Indian Parliament attack. In 2006, Radio Pacifica correspondent Jose conducted an exclusive interview with Mulakat Afzal Guru while the convict awaited his execution inside the Tihar Jail. Later in 2006, he published a response on behalf of the Society for the Protection of Detainees' and Prisoners' Rights, which was seeking clemency for Afzal Guru. His original interview with Afzal was reprinted multiple times between 2006 and 2013, translated into 11 south Asian languages and other European languages such as Italian, and included in an edited book about the attack.
In the course of his reporting for Caravan, Jose filed a "Right to Information" application to make public the holdings of Kalanithi Maran's private holdings, which was eventually supported by the Central Information Commission in 2012. Maran's brother is former Telecom Minister Dayanidhi Maran, and India's Ministry of Information and Broadcasting initially denied the request until the CIC reversed the decision. The issue was reported widely at the time saying the CIC decision on the appeal was landmark by setting a precedent in India for opening up the private sector to public scrutiny.