Is it possible to think clearly when violence takes its toll? How to report on violence without contributing to excess and minimise harm? How to make sense of the senselessness that propels people to destroy fellow human beings? More than 30 news ombudsmen from 18 countries met last week at Cape Town, South Africa, to discuss a range of issues confronting the media. The captivating beauty of this port city could not hide the tension emanating from the anti-immigrant riots that was hurting the rest of South Africa. What should the media do in the present climate where challenges are huge, resources are limited, digital platforms are confounding some of the issues, and the state-apparatus does not have the wisdom or ability to curb violence?
Some of the key questions we tried to deliberate on and find some answers to were: the responsibility of being ethical, Conflict of Interest — the news Ombudsman and the Organization, Why Independence and Accountability for Journalists? The Challenge for the Media in Developing Countries, Terrorism and the Ombudsman — Maintaining Standards in Apprehended Danger, The Oscar Pistorius Case: The Twitterverse, New Story Formats and the Ombudsman, The Right to be Forgotten — Perspectives on the Permanence of the Internet, Correcting The Record: New Models, Ombudsmatters in an Age of Financial Restraint, Trials and Tribulations in the Digital Age — The Charlie Hebdo Shootings, the Tension Between Free Speech and Religious Respect, and the Challenge for Ombudsmen.
These were the questions posed by practitioners drawn from their own experience. There were empirical details and political realities. There were contending needs and conflicting compulsions. Most of the ombudsmen were also journalists till the other day, giving us an idea of how particular news would be handled by the newsroom. For years, many media scholars felt that a diverse newsroom offers better solutions to some of these problems. The recent study by the American Society of News Editors (ASNE) of newsroom diversity however revealed a steady decline in minority journalists and stagnation in prior progress. “The last 10 years has been somewhat of a challenge when it comes to the issue of diversity in journalism,” Dori Maynard of the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education said in an interview. “As one industry leader said a few years ago, ‘When it comes to diversity, it’s not only on the back burner — it’s not even in the kitchen.”
Rainbow picture There has been no systematic study about newsroom diversity in India. But, as a journalist, I have been witnessing a major change in the composition of staff. The gender quotient has definitely improved over the past three decades. Caste and linguistic balance has improved a lot, though the participation of the professionals in the newsroom from less privileged sections — both socially and economically — does not reflect the social reality. The recruitment has also focussed on new domain expertise to address emerging issues. A quick glance at a modern Indian newsroom gives a rainbow picture. But, it effectively glosses over one major shortcoming — their ability to deal with issues concerning religion. Most of the staff — despite their gender, caste and class divide — belong to a particular social conditioning where faith is of peripheral importance.
In other words, most journalists are like myself. We tend to represent the aspirational Anglicised middle-class. We were trained to look at political institutions, to question the way the market functions, to look at the legal framework, to evaluate the affirmative programmes, to understand the rules that govern our international relations, and a host of secular arrangements that define our sociopolitical environment.
In this era, when religion is getting rapidly politicised, newsrooms suffer from lack of journalists who are engaged with the issues concerning religion and faith. There are no informed in-house religious experts for a reporter or a desk person to run through a story, dealing with a range of tricky issues concerning faith. Journalists, including ombudsmen like myself, are not really equipped to address some critical questions raised by cultural commentator Rustom Bharucha in his book, The Question Of Faith : “it should be acknowledged that there is a communal potential in every representation of religiosity, but this does not necessarily make the representation communal…. As in narratives and fictions, I think we need to ask ourselves when our intolerance of another community becomes malicious. When does prejudice cross the limits of acceptance, when does satire, as in the case of Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses , become ‘blasphemy’? These are the gradations that need to be more carefully probed instead of blanketing condemnations and endorsements of faith.”
In his novel, Murther and Walking Spirits , Robertson Davies created an exceptionally lively newsroom for the fictional newspaper, The Colonial Advocate. And one of the central characters through which the novel gets it final denouement is Hugh McWearie, the writer on religious affairs. McWearie reminds us the need for a process “that is to say, a fine credulity about everything, kept in check by a lively scepticism about everything.”A McWearie-like presence would certainly help newsrooms to become more diverse and to draw that fine line dividing faith from bigotry.
readerseditor@thehindu.co.in
