Pamela Philipose
May 13 2015
THE continuous and unrelenting pace of the news cycle is the enemy of introspection. The injunction from Camus that “in order to understand the world, one has to turn away from it on occasion”, is a luxury that media in India has never indulged in. So trapped are they in the creation of news that there does not seem to be a minute to spare for the understanding of it or, more to the point, for assessing the understanding of it. Yet if the media do not turn the light on themselves every once in a while — the very light that they are so busy shining on the world — others will do it for them and what gets illuminated in the process will not be pretty.
The bad press the Indian media received for its coverage of the Nepal earthquake would have left many Indian reporters who did great work in reporting on the disaster puzzled and dispirited. But a backlash of this kind does not sift good coverage from bad. It is a swift, unrelenting and in-your-face verdict on a body of work that seen to be marked by bad faith and suffered from serious credibility deficits. The earthquake occurred on April 25 around midday. Within eight days #GoHomeIndianMedia was trending across social media networks. The tweets that constituted this avalanche of opinion were eloquent in their condemnation. One went: “I am more than greatful to your nation for being w/us in darkest time but let’s face it, India has most stupid media”. Some attempted to be sardonic: “Presstitute…It does not carry news on Baba Ramdev adopting ALL the children orphaned by Nepal earthquake.” Others tried to explain what the problem was in greater detail: “It would be great if you don't sent reporters in so close to ongoing rescue site operation. It's an obstruction and distraction for rescue workers to do their job properly and effectively. Do not waste valuable time of the rescue team. You are doing the same thing like you did showing anti-terrorist operation live. Stop it. Stop obstructing. Be Responsible. First change yourself then raise voice for change.”
An open letter, which also went viral, could only be described as a polite hammer blow: “When (I) saw your news and news reports, my heart cried and hurt more than those destruction caused by 7.9 Richter magnitude of earthquake. Like all the medical personnel are taught and trained for potential disasters in future, as a reporter, I hope there is some kind of training on how to report different events. Your media and media personnel are acting like they are shooting some kind of family serials… As a human, show your humanity. There are enough programmes in this world of television where people can see dramatic shows, family serials, horror shows and nonsense reality shows. You do not have to add more at least in this time of crisis.”
This flood of criticism prompted an interesting response from the Indian defence establishment as indicated in an article that appeared in the net edition of the Indian Defence Review on May 4 entitled, “Who feels envy to India’s relief work in Nepal?” It interpreted the outrage directed at the Indian media as synonymous with an attempt to cast the country’s humanitarian efforts in Nepal in a bad light. After stating that “The Indian response and relief work was recognised, noticed and discussed internationally”, the piece goes on to proffer a conspiracy theory. It referred to a “different plot” hatched by India’s “opponents”, who incidentally remained unnamed in the piece, as well as certain sections in the Indian media. In many ways, the article unknowingly touched upon the nub of the issue: The attempt by India’s political and defence authorities to embed Indian media’s coverage of the earthquake into their humanitarian effort in Nepal because they framed it in terms of protecting Indian strategic interests in the region as much as about helping an old-time ally and neighbour in its hour of need.
The first port of call for most Indian media persons covering the Nepal earthquake was the Indian embassy; briefings from the Indian authorities overseeing rescue operations were often passed off by the Indian media as news from the field, and it was various departments of the Indian government in relief operations that expedited the media’s access to remote quake-hit regions. All this in turn shaped the media’s coverage of the tragedy which showcased disproportionately the effectiveness of India’s rescue and rehabilitation efforts.
None of this is really new. Embedded journalism goes back to the days of Lieutenant Charles Nasmyth who filed dispatches for The Times, London, from the Crimean theatre of war in the 1850s. It was with the Iraq war of 2003, of course, that the term “embedded journalism” officially entered the media lexicon. Sociologist David Miller in his 2003 paper entitled “Information Dominance: The Philosophy of Total Propaganda Control” noted how information was now being integrated with military strategising. While traditional conceptions of propaganda involved crafting the message and distributing it to the government and other media, what was different in contemporary times was that propaganda was about incorporating “the gathering, processing and deployment of information”.
The Nepal instance was not about a war being waged but an ongoing humanitarian effort. Yet in an age that frames such initiatives in terms of the projection of the contributing nation’s soft power and where offering assistance to vulnerable countries in the grip of a crisis has become part of foreign policy, the deployment of information becomes a valuable input. But there is such a thing as information overkill. The Nepal experience showed how the indiscriminate use of information could lead to an ugly recoil and the country’s foreign policy wonks would need to deliberate upon this.
Meanwhile, Indian mediapersons have to grapple with an entirely different set of questions: Should an independent media be acquiescing to a working relationship with the various government departments overseeing the country’s relief operations? Would this not amount to breaching the time-honoured firewall between the establishment and the newsroom that is usually maintained at home? While there is no denying that embedding journalists is a mutually useful arrangement and helps to cut the costs entailed in travelling to far-flung locations in cash- strapped times — in fact, sometimes, there is no way to reach an affected village in a distant mountainous region apart from hopping on to an Army aircraft — professionalism demands that the normative checks and balances of good reporting be retained even in such circumstances. This would require the open acknowledgement of the assistance gained from extra-journalistic forces so that readers and audiences can factor this in while absorbing a story. Providing context and drawing from variegated sources of information, not just establishment ones, are also necessary to infuse the necessary balance and independence into the content. Avoiding sensation and speculation are vital for a story’s credibility is also an important principle. The very fact that an episode like an earthquake destroys lives, not just in the instant of its occurrence but for days, weeks, months, years thereafter, requires a sensitive, informed and empathetic media discourse, not journalism that chases TRPs. This is putting out information that elicits the approval of the affected people, not those handing out media awards.
Invasion from the skies
Revisiting earthquake coverage by the Indian media will provide an understanding as to why the earthquake-hit in Nepal responded as they did to this “invasion from the skies”. The hyped-up “Dance-of- Death” headlines, the synthetic musical accompaniments with their funereal air, the insensitive and repetitive questioning, the inherent presumption that the story and its deadline are more important than the convenience of the survivor, all this lent an air of opportunism and cynicism to the coverage. Certainly there were many sensitive stories as well. As one Indian mediaperson tweeted in the aftermath of the backlash: “Can only speak for my team and me in saying we don't sensationalise tragedy like this. Not at all.” Unfortunately for professionals like this tweeter, all the media coverage, good or bad, got tarred by the same brush this time. But would the Indian media have handled a similar crisis in their own country any differently? Probably not and the recent frenzy over the jail-or-bail prospect facing Salman Khan indicated as much. If there is one lesson that the #GoHomeIndianMedia episode sends out, it is this: the Indian media had better understand that the kinetics that pass off for news gathering within India will not work elsewhere. If the media are not prepared to play by the book in its professional assignments, especially while covering developments in foreign locations, the backlash will not be long in coming and next time the hashtag may read #IndianMediaStayOut.
The heart of face-to-face
The interview is at the heart of much of journalism because it helps fill out the who, what, where, how, when and why blanks. Interviews are not just about shooting random questions in the dark, it is about consciously and skillfully framing queries in order to draw the responses that could make or break a story. This also requires the interviewer to prepare for the session and understand the context in which the subject is speaking. In situations of tragedy and disaster this becomes even more important because it is about retrieving information lost in the rubble of an earthquake or in the swirling waters of a hurricane.
In all interviews, it is important to remember that the interviewee is prime. His or her comfort must always be kept in mind. This, of course, means that if the interviewee prefers not to speak for some reason, persisting with the questioning is not just bad form, it is a betrayal of the spirit of professional journalism which is always about voluntary disclosure of information. You as a journalist come and go, but the person whose story is being conveyed has to live with the fact that the information revealed will go public and perhaps have lasting consequences. If the interviewee gets emotional, breaks down or weeps, it is important to wait until he or she is in a position to pick up the thread of the conversation again. Rushing through interviews in dire circumstances is always a bad idea.
The interviewee often gets courage and encouragement from her interlocutor therefore active listening is important. But most important of all is the quality of empathy that the intyerviewer brings to the conversation, a sensitivity to a person who has lost everything that made life meaningful.
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