On the day of Donald Trump’s inauguration as the President of the U.S., the newspaper retracted a story that dealt with a possible shift in the foreign policy. We offered a lengthy clarification explaining the reasons for the withdrawal. It is a moment when the American media is trying to work out new methods to cover a hostile President and a reluctant White House. Though the underlying tension is a metaphor for the number of challenges facing journalists, I would like to explore one eternal trial a foreign correspondent faces.
The ability to read, listen and converse is the key for effective journalism. During foreign postings, most journalists depend on translators and interpreters. Learning a new language with all its nuances takes time. The relationship between the interpreter and the reporter has an unwritten compact based on mutual understanding and respect. But despite best intentions, at times something gets lost in this process of translation.
Lost in translation
I had my own share of these vulnerabilities in reporting from places where I needed a translator. In 1988, Sri Lanka was witnessing two civil wars. In the Tamil-speaking area, it was between the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). In the Sinhala-speaking areas, the strife was between the Sri Lankan armed forces and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP). I travelled to Sabaragamuwa Province to meet second-line JVP leaders who spoke mainly in Sinhala. During the course of the lengthy interview, JVP leaders wanted me to take a look at their official description of India and its armed forces. My interpreter promptly translated three operative paragraphs from a small booklet. I filed my report based on this translation.
A week later, Gamini Navaratne, Editor of Saturday Review , pointed out the error in my reporting. He explained that the description I had cited in my report was JVP’s analysis of India after the failed 1971 insurrection in which the Indian armed forces played a major role. It was not about the IPKF-LTTE confrontation. A correction was subsequently published.
The Corrections and Clarifications column is meant to address these types of inadvertent errors and rectify mistakes. In the case of the report from Beijing, which was subsequently withdrawn from our Internet edition, the mistake was not about the content but wrong attribution. It is the ethical compass of the newspaper that gives space for acknowledging errors and amending them. I am surprised by the self-contradicting criticisms against this commitment to set the record straight.
The Pillsbury story
First, some facts: Michael Pillsbury was in China recently and spoke at Pangoal Institution, a Beijing-based think tank. The deliberations at Pangoal Institution are important to India because of its proximity to the Vivekananda International Foundation (VIF), whose former director is Ajit Doval, presently the National Security Adviser to the Prime Minister of India. The VIF website says: “Leading a four-member delegation, Mr. YI Peng, founder President of the Pangoal Institution, a Beijing-based non-governmental think tank, visited the Vivekananda International Foundation on 20 Sep 2016 for an interaction, targeted at exploring potentials for expanding economic cooperation between China and India, especially in the private sectors.” This establishes the need to report to Indian readers Mr. Pillsbury’s comments.
The second issue is the status of Mr. Pillsbury: is he an adviser to Mr. Trump or not? Though in his letter to the Editor, Mr. Pillsbury denied being an adviser to either Mr. Trump or his transitional team, and said that he only offers informal advice by answering questions from Mr. Trump’s staff, many major publications have described him as an adviser. The public broadcaster, NPR, during an interview, introduced him as an adviser to the Trump transition team. The Washington Post called him an adviser to Mr. Trump. Interestingly, Mr. Pillsbury himself tweeted a story from The Tibet Post that was critical of The Hindu report whose headline ironically read: “Trump’s top advisor slams The Hindu for ‘Fake News’ story on Tibet.” I am confident that readers will arrive at the right conclusion about his status.
The third and crucial issue is what he said about the Dalai Lama and President Trump in China. We have the audio recording of his speech at Pangoal Institute. Here is the operative part of the speech in translation: “Third, Dalai Lama held a press conference in India. He said, I really want to go to Washington to meet Obama... besides Obama... he has already met Obama... wants to (meet) Trump. Trump does not accept it. Should he accept it?” The dots signify the pause in his speech and no words of his have been skipped. This speech firmly establishes the content of The Hindu story.
Despite all these facts, the story was retracted because there were grey areas in attribution. Mr. Pillsbury, in his letter to The Hindu , denied talking to CCTV and the newspaper’s report attributed it to an interview to CCTV as reported on a Chinese language website. As we could not find a conclusive answer to the question whether he said what he said on CCTV or not, the remedial measure was taken. Being a foreign correspondent is an unenviable distinction.
readerseditor@thehindu.co.in
