‘Unearthing rights abuses, the real challenge for journalists’

Challenges for human rights reporting in India and elsewhere are both journalistic and structural, said N. Ravi, former Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu , whiledelivering the keynote address at a seminar “Media Reporting of Human Rights — experiences and best practices from Europe and India” here on Tuesday.

Explaining the two sets of challenges that he mentioned, Mr. Ravi said the journalistic challenge existed at the training level itself.

“One has to look at how journalists are trained to spot, report and analyse human rights violations. Reporting on poverty and deprivation is regarded as a particularly virtuous form of reporting. Most journalism schools stress the importance of sensitive journalism and of reporting on human rights violation but the knowledge and skill required for the same do not form part of the regular tool kit of most journalists,” he said.

Human rights reporting becomes event-based with issues being raised by activists or some group becoming the focal point, Mr. Ravi said. “The real challenge is to go out on the field and unearth rights abuses — not just the more obvious ones. A hard look at violations going on in society and issues of deprivation is needed,” he said.

On the structural issues concerning human rights reporting, he said, the target audience and the organisation’s own stance on certain issues become the determinant.

“Human rights reporting has to compete with other news from civil to international and even entertainment. No one can assert that it should be more privileged than some of the other news. A lot of times the mix depends on the organisation and the kind of audience it caters to. At times the same story can have multiple angles and the focus may differ,” said Mr. Ravi.

Explaining his point using the Ishrat Jahan case and the lines taken by different media outlets, he said: “The controversies surrounding the Ishrat Jahan killing is a mix of political dispute and possible human rights violation. At one level there is a question about whether it was a genuine encounter or a fake encounter, staged after she was taken into custody. The other issue is whether it was a political conspiracy by the government of the day which changed the affidavit after first declaring that she was a part of a terrorist group. Some want the focus on the encounter while others want it on the affidavit.”