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How safe are media personnel today?

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It is a profession that has been romanticised and dragged through the dirt in equal measures. The media having ‘sensationalised’ a particular piece of news, or having taken sides and  leaned towards a particular faction in the contention for political power, are hotly debated topics at almost every dinner table. Well, all Arnab Goswami knows is to shout and newspapers these days are making news out of all sorts of silly things, the Uncle next door is always quick to observe while Dad watches television. The fact that the profession is also fraught with danger is easy to overlook.

The beheading of journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff by the ISIS are probably the most well known recent incidents of violence against journalists. Similarly, Daniel Pearl, a journalist with The Wall Street Journal, was abducted and killed by a terrorist outfit in 2002 on grounds of being a spy while he pursued a story. Though these attacks were not specifically targeted against the profession, and the ISIS has beheaded several aid workers and civilians as well, these instances of violence serve the purpose of reiterating the fact that reporters, photojournalists and other media personnel in conflict-ridden areas are extremely vulnerable and prone to attacks and kidnapping.

In countries facing civil war or unstable political authority, the law and order situation is in a state of chaos and arbitrariness. Therefore, chances of journalists being protected by the correct enforcement of legal procedures is also unlikely in such states where the administration itself is in shambles. War-torn Iraq and Syria are, not surprisingly, considered to be the most dangerous countries for journalists, where journalists are often caught in the crossfire between the different groups involved in the conflict. Non-state groups like the Islamic State and Al Qaeda are largely responsible for attacks in such countries.journalist-image-2-in-the-article

According to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), 110 journalists have been killed in 2015. These killings have not been restricted to conflict-ridden areas. On the contrary, the majority were killed in supposedly ‘peaceful’ countries. For instance, the attack on the Charlie Hebdo office in Paris by jihadist gunmen killed 12 individuals, including 8 journalists, in response to a controversial cartoon published by the satirical magazine. Jordanian writer, Nahed Hattar, was recently killed over a cartoon that allegedly insulted Islam. The question of freedom of speech and expression is inextricably tied with that of the murder of journalists in countries that are otherwise not at war, India included. India was ranked third in the list of countries considered to be the most dangerous for journalists in 2015, with 9 reporters losing their lives in the same year. The report by RSF states that Indian journalists covering crime and its relation to politicians have been particularly susceptible to violence.

The question of violence against women journalists is not restricted to areas of conflict. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) finds that gender based violence against women journalists is an everyday affair that has a severe impact on the freedom of press. Threats of rape and death are common occurrences in the lives of women journalists. In countries where the freedom of women over their own bodies is questioned, the rights of female journalists become harder to defend. Journalists belonging to the LGBTQ+ community are just as liable to be attacked and shamed.

Government regulations strictly enforcing the freedom of press alongside training imparted to journalists in conflict ridden areas may possibly contribute to reducing violence against personnel associated with the media. More importantly, it is the mindset and attitude of people in most countries which requires a drastic change. Safety of women journalists can hardly be protected if women do not feel safe out on the streets or are not even given the basic freedom to wear what they please.
Here’s an interesting article on female photojournalists working in areas of conflict:
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/may/25/female-photojournalists-visions-of-conflict-war-reporting

Featured image credits: southasianmedia.net

 In-line image: Forbes Magazine

Abhinaya Harigovind

[email protected]

 

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Bad Journalism and Sexism: What was wrong with the media coverage of Rio Olympics?

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With media coverage of the 2016 Olympics rife with sexism, it’s time to call out the perpetrators and resolve to treat female athletes better.

The 2016 Olympics has not been short on controversies or things that got people talking. From Phelps winning 28 Olympic medals and breaking records to his team-mate Lochte getting entangled in legal hassles for alleged vandalism, from Simone Biles’ feats in Gymnastics to Deepa Karmakar and P.V. Sindhu making history for India, all this with numerous doubts about Rio as an Olympics location in the background. Another major talking point during the Olympics was the incredibly sobering reality about gender equality revealed through numerous instances of sexist media coverage by major newspapers and news portals.

In a move that wasn’t just bad journalism but also generally nonsensical (but strangely not uncommon), The Chicago Tribune announced Corey Cogdell’s bronze medal win in the women’s trap shooting event by citing that she was the wife of Bears’ lineman Mitch Unrein. The Olympic medallist’s name didn’t even originally figure in the headline of an article about her win while her husband’s name did. Corey’s name was added later after backlash on social media. The situation made as much sense as it would have if Nicole Johnson, Michael Phelps’ fiancée, was congratuled for his wins, which is exactly what several news portals online did in online to prove the point.

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Simone Biles emerged as a star, dominating almost all Gymnastics events, yet was reduced to being called “the Micheal Jordan of Gymnastics” by the People magazine. Biles weighed in on the comments comparing her to successful male athletes in other sports by saying, “I’m not the next Usain Bolt or Michael Phelps. I am the first Simone Biles.” The statement, simple enough, also makes an important point – it is enough for female athletes to be acknowledged as successful by themselves. They needn’t be labeled as female versions of their male athletes for their achievements to count.

 

Other damning evidence came in the form of an actual debate by male sports presenters on Fox Sports on whether or not Olympic athletes should wear makeup, with one of them saying, “Why should I have to look at some chick’s zits? Why not a little blush on her lips? And cover those zits! I like to see a person who wins that gold medal go up there and look beautiful.” While it’s amusing and horrifying in equal parts that Arnab Goswami’s Newshour isn’t the only redundant news debate segment around, one can’t help but be appalled at the amount of male privilege that the presenters enjoy that made it possible for them to criticise actual Olympic athletes about their looks, which is possibly as least possible a matter of concern to an Olympic athlete as it can get. Looking pretty is not something female athletes, or women in general, owe to anyone in this world.

Media Sexism

These instances aren’t all. A recent picture has been doing the rounds of social media wherein Katie Ledecky’s world record win is the sub-heading of an article, as opposed to the headline of Michael Phelps not winning his race, which was tweeted by a woman with the caption, ‘This headline is a metaphor for basically the entire world.’ True words, indeed, when media across the world would rather focus on literally anything else other than achievements of female athletes.

While the sexist media coverage of the Rio Olympics definitely grabbed eyeballs, it is far from the first or the only time female athletes have been undermined despite excelling at their respective sports. It’s the same as women getting paid $0.75 for every dollar that a man makes, and being treated as second-class citizens. While the Rio Olympics will soon be over, they need to become a turning point in media culture towards recognising that media (and hence narratives of women in the media) is still mostly controlled by white men, and that female Olympians and the women of this world deserve to be treated better, and that the people of this world deserve better journalism.

Image credits: cbc.ca

Shubham Kaushik

[email protected]

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DUB Speak

Still fighting to be heard – The Assam flood situation

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At the outset, here are a few facts about the current Assam flood situation:

• Assam is suffering under heavy floods which have affected at least 22 districts in the state and almost 3,300 villages.
• The Kaziranga National Park, home to more than half the world’s population of one-horned rhino is under 80% of water. Poaching activities now have more than the required advantage.
• These have been the worst floods of Assam since the year of 2004.

In India, floods have also struck states like Gurgaon, Delhi, Bengaluru, Bihar, Arunachal Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh and it has been devastating everywhere. But none of them have been as devastating as the floods in Assam. A World Heritage Site is under water and a great number of protected animals are dying with each passing hour. Villages have disappeared and people are fighting to survive. Even agriculture, which is an occupation of the majority of the people in Assam is under a threat as the silt from the Brahmaputra is washing over the fields. An entire region is barely surviving but the national media deemed it worth of a nominal mention.

Only after gaining widespread attention on social media has the situation of Assam started being covered by every major media house. It’s been barely a week since the ground reality has come to light while floods had begun from late April onwards. Thus, it becomes apparent how much the state has been ignored.

Why is it so? Why is it that even after so many assurances and promises, people from Assam have to scream and rebel to be heard? It’s only after all the social media portals began to be flooded with angry comments did the national headlines start trickling in. “The devastating floods in Assam have brought the rural and urban life to a standstill. The psychological agony of displacement of an infrastructural loss makes the situation even grimmer. The ‘responsible’ news media have done a great job of reflecting the woes of the people,’’ says Barnika Bhuyan, a student of Ramjas college. Assam floods are therefore, thought of an annual phenomena that does not require ‘repetitive’ coverage by the national media.

If you search ‘Assam flood’ on Google, all results from 2012 till 2016 may appear. Yes, it does occur annually but it also shows how responsible the governments have been to make the flooded state safe for everyone. Another problem is that the national news channels have no offices in that particular region and the national newspapers have a very weak presence in the state. The six or so regional news houses are only present when it comes to reporting grave issues at the ground level. This is another reason why journalism has such a weak scope in the region. The Assam floods have thus, again proven how our media turns a blind eye to the problems of the North-Eastern side of our country.

Inputs from: TimesofIndia.indiatimes.com, NDTV.com
Image credits: huffingtonpost.in

Arindam Goswami
[email protected]

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Arts & Culture

Why Anyone Looking For An Internship Opportunity In Journalism Needs To Connect With SUNO

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We demand freedom of speech but do not realise that the information we get through the mouthpieces of mainstream media reach us through a process that is not exactly free. The stories we hear, read or see are often biased. They are presented to us through the prism of the media house’s own lens created from a mixture of political, geographical, ideological and pecuniary elements that the house could be influenced by.

A journalism student who lands in any of such media houses might end up becoming another automaton programmed to work in the assembly line of the house and forced to follow a coloured thought-process. Imagine the future of journalism in such a scenario. This makes the need for a fair, free voice for everyone exceedingly important, and this is why we created SUNO.

SUNO is a unique app that lets the user tell stories to a fast expanding readership comprising new age, educated men and women from around in the world. It won’t be an exaggeration to state that SUNO could be like the Oracle of Delphi in the hands of a journalist who has a nose for news. Its advanced features empower the user to present the story in an interactive and attractive way too.

An intern will learn the ropes of journalism better with an app that lets them at least report on whatever they think is worth reporting. At SUNO, an intern learns the two most important aspects about journalism – fairness and impartiality.

So why wait? Join the SUNO Internship Programme here.

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DUB Speak

Pakistan v Brussels: Dawn of (In)justice

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You’re probably thinking that this article will go on to harangue you about how we as a race are becoming increasingly biased and hypocritical, “praying for” Brussels and not for Pakistan. Not exactly. The aim of this article is more to provide some insight into why we tend to do this rather than why we should not do this.

So let’s discuss the media. I won’t even bother focusing on the Indian media, which feels that the weekend T20 match cannot be pushed back a page but MUST share the front page with the not-as-important Lahore bombings, but instead talk about the media in general.

In November 2015, when ISIS attacked Paris and Lebanon almost simultaneously, people began to ask why the former gained widespread international coverage whereas the latter was given more of a casual mention. One particular American newspaper even tried to justify this by stating that France is an “unusual” target, a popular tourist destination (FYI America we can’t really visit too many places in the “Middle East” thanks to you guys) and that there were “shocking” tactics used (the attack on the football stadium was particularly shocking but the attack on a football field in Lahore a couple of days ago was seemingly not). This is essentially the West confirming suspicions that to them Arab lives do indeed matter less.
What happened in Brussels was indeed devastating but so were the equally devastating attacks in the Turkish cities of Istanbul and Ankara (both of which are also “unusual” and popular tourist destinations for the record) that happened just a few weeks prior and received no more than a day’s coverage in newspapers worldwide. If you still think I’m overreacting ask yourself how much you really know about what statistics have revealed to be the most dangerous terrorist organization in the world. I’m not referring to ISIS, but to Boko Haram, who haven’t received their own spotlight since they kidnapped 276 school girls two years ago (219 still missing at last count), and have claimed thousands of lives since then including 65 in a village attack two months ago because (I’m guessing) they don’t really care about killing white people.

So do we have a tendency to turn a blind eye towards tragedies that don’t involve, the developed nations of the West or, are we merely indifferent to those that affect Arab lives? Maybe a little bit of both but not due to any form of malice in our hearts. If we see hundreds of Facebook posts, read minute to minute analyses of how the incident took place, follow the story of who the attackers were and whether they’ve been caught, listen to survivor’s tales and politician’s reactions about what happened in Paris or Brussels and only receive an update of sorts of what happened in Lebanon, Turkey or Pakistan then its almost natural that our compassion will direct itself towards the former as opposed to the latter. So by all means do pray for Brussels but also try and pray for the less popular non-white cities being affected on a more frequent and much larger scale too, and not let the media influence your thought process in any way whatsoever (ironic, I know).

 

Shraman Ghosh
[email protected]

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Indraprastha College for Women

Parampara 2014: Nagesh Kukunoor, Anand Patwardhan and more

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The annual fest of the Mass Media and Mass Communication department of Indraprastha College for Women – ‘Parampara’ was held on 3rd March and went on till the 8th. A national seminar was held on the 3rd comprising of several well known panelists from the media industry. The discussion comprised of two sessions, the topic for the first session was ‘New Challenges before Media in Democracy’. Mr. Anurag Batra, CEO Exchange for Media group was the chairperson as well as the keynote speaker. Amongst others were Sangeeta Malhan, former journalist and author of ‘The TOI Story’ and Anjali Bhardwaj, co-convener people’s RTI campaign. The topic for the second session was ‘Reporting from Conflict Zones’ and Kishalay Bhattacharjee, a former NDTV reporter of the Naxal movement was the chairperson. Preeti Mehra, associate editor of The Hindu and Ajith Pillai, former Correspondent for The Outlook were the speakers.

media seminar

The second day comprised of the student session which was chaired by the head of the department and Principal Ms. Babli Moitra Saraf. The topic was ‘Attitude of Media towards Nascent Horses in Politics’. Students presented on this topic and the session was enlightening. The topic was mainly interpreted in the AAP context and how media built their image.

In the second half of the day, several competitions were held. VJ Hunt was judged by RJ Abhilash from Fever 104 FM. The 1st prize went to Khyati Sharma and second to Sampada Jagga. Q-Mat, the quiz competition was won my Netijayata Mehendru and Arzoo Bhel.

vjhunt

Apart from these, the photography competition, Frame Politik had two themes Market and Emotions. The 1st prize in the Market category went to Sahil Ali and the 2nd prize was won by Abhishek Gupta. In the Emotion category, the first prize went to Akanksha Chitkara and the second one went to Sakshi Jaiswal.

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Mise-en-scene, the movie screening event was inaugurated by the celebrated documentary writer Mr. Anand Patwardhan and his film ‘Jai Bhim Comrade’ was screened on 5th March, followed by an interactive session with him. 2 p.m. on wards, films made by students were screened. The fiction category was won by LV Prasad College and the second Position went to National Insititute of Fashion Technology (NIFT). The Non-Fiction category was won by Jamia Milia Islamia and second prize went to I.P. College. On the Spot film making was won by JIMS, Vasant Kunj.

The event ended with a talk by Mr. Nagesh Kukunoor and the screening of his film ‘Laxmi’ on 8th March. Having faced trouble with the censor board and being forced to delete many scenes and dialogues, he wanted his film seen uncut before it gets released in theatres. So he came to IPCW to get his message across to students. The movie was about a young girl Laxmi who was sold by her father and how she gets over hundred people caught by testifying against them.

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DUB Speak

Indian Media: The spoilsport or the kingmaker?

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Politics was not so murky and abysmal before the 1990s, or apparently it didn’t look so, but with the evolution of media, a wave of transparency has transcended on each decision-making body and also on the decision makers of this country. The 21st century has seen the advent of investigative journalism, and with it, that of blame games and revolutions.

The past decade witnessed the trend of ‘an uprising media’, which has now become the face of India. More appropriately, it is the tool in the hands of citizens, to check the wrong-doings of the so called ‘public workers’. Many scams have been unearthed, many bad policies reviewed and many politicians sent to jails for their ill work , all has been made possible due to the ever-efficient media and its wide outreach.

The polity of India is now as lucid as a diamond. Every new policy is now checked, if not by the policy-makers than by the media, the fourth pillar of democracy. Well, we all know what happened with the Augusta-Westland deal. Every strand of the deal was reviewed and put in front of the people to decide. What if media had not been there? The corrupt in this case would have run away with all the black money. Fortunately it was present, and thus the deal was put off for an internal inquiry.

This is just one example of the power of media when it comes to being a critic of Indian politics. There is another side to the story, wherein media has also helped the politics to incur a never before seen boom. Parties now reach people through the media. A 500 crore image makeover for the scion of one of the major political parties in India is not a lie. Political parties have been on both back foot due to the media revolution and at the front foot when it comes to improving their public image. The ‘Development model of Gujarat’, and ‘Chai pe Charcha’ are two such examples of the same, where through media, interested parties have tried for an image makeover. Not only makeover, media has also helped some budding parties to come at par with national ones as we saw in the AAP phenomenon.

So, it is understandably clear, how media can shape the politics and with it the future of this country. What has to be borne in mind is the limit in which it has to work. The past has shown us how media can change scenarios, what has to be ensured is such a change in the status quo is for the betterment of the people of this country. As ultimately, media is by the people, of the people and for the people.

Illustration credits: Megha Saraogi for DU Beat

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Cluster Innovation Centre

CIC concludes certificate course in media and communications

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The Cluster Innovation Centre (CIC) at Delhi University had recently launched a new course in Media and Communication. The closing ceremony will be held tomorrow, on the 5th of February in the presence of the Registrar of Delhi University, Ms Alka Sharma.

25 students from CIC had been selected for this course. The course was a 10-class, or a 30-hour credited programme that was instructed by Brij Bakshi, the former Additional Director General at Doordarshan, joined by Gouran Dhawan Lal as senior faculty and Mike Pandey, a green Oscar winning wildlife film maker, L V Krishnan, CEO, TAM Media Research and Ashok Raina.

The aim of the course was to improve presentation and communication skills of the students while giving them knowledge about various aspects of media in an interactive manner. A wide range of topics including environment and wildlife programming, understanding TRPs, art of video editing were covered.

Sahil Mathur, a B. Tech student who participated in the programme said, “This course allowed me to understand various facets of media, from film making to editing, from technology to understanding how to present an idea to an audience. The course has made me much more aware in the field of media and communication.”

Image Credit: Official Facebook page of CIC

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