Location: Recent Delhi

Employment Type: Full time

Function: Editorial / Research / Scriptwriting

About Rusty Media

Rusty Media is an independent digital media company creating research-led, narrative-driven content across YouTube and social platforms.

Our long-form work covers subjects across Indian entertainment, pop culture, media, internet culture, business, public figures and contemporary India.

We are looking for a Researcher & Scriptwriter who can take ownership of a video from an initial idea to a deeply researched, structurally strong and production-ready script.

This is not a conventional content-writing or copywriting position.The role requires a combination of journalistic research, narrative construction, critical thinking and long-form scriptwriting.

The RoleYou will work closely with the creative team to develop 20–60+ minute YouTube videos.

A typical assignment may begin with a broad question such as:

- How did Indian reality television evolve?
- How did a particular person become culturally influential?
- Why did an industry change in a specific way?
- What actually happened behind a major cultural phenomenon?

Your responsibility is to go beyond surface-level information and identify the story, argument, evidence and narrative structure that can sustain a compelling long-form video.

You will be expected to determine:

- What is the central thesis of the video?
- What are the most important conflicts and turning points?
- Which facts materially change our understanding of the subject?
- Which claims require stronger evidence?
- Which anecdotes deserve significant screen time?
- Where can the story introduce escalation, reversal or surprise?
- What archival material, interviews and primary sources can support the edit?

The final output should not read like a research report converted into a script. It should feel like a story that could only have been written after substantial research.

Key Responsibilities

- Conduct deep primary and secondary research across interviews, archival publications, reports, books, academic material, podcasts, databases, video archives and other credible sources.
- Build comprehensive research documents before scripting, with clear sourcing for factual claims.
- Identify original angles, lesser-known stories, contradictions, historical context and details that go beyond commonly available internet summaries.




- Develop the central thesis and narrative architecture of long-form videos.
- Structure scripts around conflict, stakes, progression, escalation, reversals, open loops and satisfying payoffs.
- Write clear, conversational and natural Hinglish scripts intended to be spoken on camera.
- Translate complicated subjects into accessible writing without removing their nuance.
- Distinguish between verified fact, reported allegation, expert interpretation and editorial inference.
- Maintain rigorous sourcing and fact-checking standards.
- Identify supporting editorial material for the production team, including: interview clips, exact quotes, archival footage, photographs, historical advertisements, newspaper coverage, reports and documents, useful on-screen data and statistics
- Revise scripts substantially based on editorial feedback.
- Collaborate with editors and other members of the production team to ensure the research translates effectively to screen.

What We Are Looking For The strongest candidate will have:
- Exceptional research ability and intellectual curiosity.
- Strong long-form storytelling instincts.
- The ability to identify a compelling narrative inside a large volume of information.
- Excellent written English and a strong understanding of conversational Hindi/Hinglish.
- An instinct for what makes information interesting, surprising, consequential or emotionally relevant to an audience.
- Strong source evaluation and fact-checking skills.
- Familiarity with Indian entertainment, media, internet culture and contemporary popular culture.
- The ability to work independently on ambiguous subjects rather than waiting for a detailed research brief.
- High editorial standards and attention to detail.
- The ability to accept extensive feedback and repeatedly improve a piece of work.
- Comfort working on scripts that may go through several substantial rewrites before publication.

This Role Is Probably Not For You If
- Your experience is primarily SEO, marketing copy, brand copy or short-form social media writing.




- Your research process largely consists of summarising the first few Google results.
- You rely heavily on AI-generated research or writing without independently verifying the underlying material.
- You are good at writing sentences but struggle to structure a long narrative.
- You consider the first complete draft to be close to the finished product.
- You prefer receiving a fully defined structure rather than discovering the story through research.

ExperiencePrevious experience in journalism, documentary research, screenwriting, YouTube, publishing or long-form editorial work is valuable, but not mandatory. We care substantially more about the quality of your thinking, research and writing than your degree or previous job title.

Exceptional candidates with unconventional backgrounds are encouraged to apply.

Application Process

Please submit

1. Portfolio

Share up to three examples of your strongest work.

Long-form video scripts are preferred. Strong essays, articles, documentary work or other narrative writing are also acceptable.

Please submit work that reflects your own contribution clearly.

2. Editorial Taste

Share three long-form YouTube videos that you consider exceptionally well researched or written.

For each, briefly explain what you believe the video does particularly well.

3. Short Research Exercise

Choose one of the following subjects:

- The evolution of Indian reality television
- How Bollywood shaped India's perception of Goa
- Why Indian television became dominated by family dramas

Submit

- A proposed central thesis for the video
- A 5–7 beat narrative structure
- Three non-obvious findings that materially strengthen the story
- Credible sources for each finding
- A 150–250 word opening for the proposed video

We are not looking for the largest volume of research. We are looking for evidence that you can determine what is worth researching, what matters within that research, and how to turn it into a story.

What Success Looks Like A strong researcher-writer at Rusty Media should eventually be able to receive a topic, investigate it independently, challenge the initial premise where necessary, develop the strongest possible narrative and deliver a script that is: deeply researched, factually defensible, structurally compelling and difficult to stop watching.

📌 Long-Form YouTube Researcher + Scriptwriter (India)
🏢 Rusty Media
📍 India