By, Md.Ali, TwoCircles.net
A media workshop “Media Consultation for Strategies to strengthen Role of Media during Disasters with Particular Reference to the Issues Related to Children and Women” was organized on September 22, 2008, at Gandhi Sangrahalay by NGOs Save the Children and Charkha, which is a development communication Network.
Lydia Baker, the representative of Save the Children, UK, and various senior journalists like Abhaya Kumar senior Journalist TOI, Nivedita Jha and Chandan senior Editors of Rashtriya Sahara, Raghewander Dube, Feature Editor, Dainik Jagaran, Aneesh Ankur, freelance journalist, social and theatre activists, Sultan Ahmad Associate Editor, Charkha Feature Services were the speakers who highlighted various topics related to the coverage of disasters.
The participants were young journalists from different print and electronic media establishment including TOI,HT, Dainik Jagaran, I-Next,India TV and many social activists and writers.
The work shop started with Sultan Ahmad pointing out its objective which is to build strategies to enhance the role of media and lead to wider and a more meaningful coverage of issues of children in the current environment.
Also to bring together senior media persons drawn from the print and electronic media, grassroots writers, development journalists and media students and provide a forum to share perspectives on reportage of children’s issues in the current calamity:with the intention to disseminate information and improve the effectiveness of relief organizations, including state agencies, so that the specific concerns of children are addressed.
Every one including the speakers and the participants journalists actively took part in the brain storming sessions which was centered on the way media treats the Disaster stories particularly in the context of issues related to children and women and the need to change this kind of apathetic and indifferent attitude to more socially responsible and committed approach to the issues related to the children and women.
In the first session Mr. Abhaya Kumar pointed out the insensitivity of media in dealing with the disasters like the recent flood which occurred because of the breach in the Kosi embankment.
Instead of sensible and sensitive treatment of the human interests’ stories of the flood, media resorted to clichés and stereotypical representation of the flood victims.
He later pointed out that around 19 % of the populations of Bihar are children. In any disasters women and children are the most affected and the worst sufferers but their share in the news published and aired is very less.
Criticizing heavily the media he said that it is an industry which doesn’t care for the women and children.
He also advised the young participant journalists to be ideologically sound in order to survive in the money driven corporate media in order to peruse journalism with social commitment.
Finding fault with the way media treated the flood victims Aneesh Ankur pointed out that the media approached the flood victims with an air of superiority and patronizing. Instead of looking at their epic difficulties, suffering and pain as the continuous acts of heroism, it treated them as passive entity worth only deserving pathos and sympathy.
He also presented the report of the media monitoring on the issue of how much coverage do various news papers in different languages give to the issues related to children. He pointed out that the Urdu daily Roznama Rashtriya Sahara is at the highest with 20% and the Hindi daily comes second with its 13% coverage. English dailies like TOI and HT are among lowest ranks with their 9 and 7 percent respective coverage.
In the second session, speaking on the “Scope of Development Journalism in Current Media Trends” Nivedita Jha pointed out that women and children are the two sections which usually constitute more than 50% of the total population, but in the present day media scenario they are not the priority.
They don’t come even on second or third rank. If any space is spared after politics, crimes, sports, infotainment then news related to the children and women will be published in the capsule form. So it is really a challenge to talk about them and survive in the present day media.
But at the same time she took pains to point out that it may be difficult though but not impossible and people are doing it. And those who are doing it with passion commitment and conviction have carved out new paths and have forced people to change their approach towards the very elitist definition of news.
P Sainath, the Magasasya awardee and the rural affairs editor of the Hindu stands out as a towering figure in the journalistic fraternity who has done and has been doing path breaking work.
After that the participant journalist made three groups and among them discussed and highlighted some of the issues and questions related to the plight of women and children in the Kosi flood which were not reported in the media.
Prominent among them are mentioned below
1- Whether the pregnant, disabled women and children managed to flee and save their lives or not in that panic of flood
2- What about the delivery in the relief camps, are there any medical facility or for that matter any medical kit available in the relief or not kit.
3- The problem women face as far as the issue of their bath and toilet in the relief camps is concerned. They can’t do these things in open space. There were some reports of women having skin diseases because they hadn’t bath for many weeks.
4- The issue of sexual exploitation of women and children in relief camps. According to some reports child and women traffickers were active during the recent Kosi flood.
Apart from these issues there were many more issues which the media failed to report but the speakers and the participant journalists pointed out that still it is not late. Instead it is the time when we at least in our individual capacity as reporters and editors can do a lot to correct the ignorance of media in the post-Kosi flood period.
In the last session Raghawender Dube, the feature Editor of Dainik Jagaran spoke on the how media in its reporting, failed to highlight certain very important facts regarding the recent flood.
For instance it didn’t focus on the fact that the Kosi flood is not a natural calamity but a man-made disaster- a disaster for which the current political dispensation of the state and the bureaucracy are responsible.
From the very beginning the response of media was to “weep” and sympathize with the plight of the victims.
This kind of approach was very much a conscious decision by the corporate media to stop the issue of the failure of the government from becoming a political agenda.
The workshop concluded with vote of thanks by Sultan Ahmad the Associate Editor of Charkha Features.
Save the Children, Bal Raksha Bharat works in India on issues of child protection and empowerment and at present it is focusing on improving lives of children particularly during emergencies and its aftermath.
Charkha Development Communication Network, a Delhi based NGO works to connect issues of the rural communities particularly the poor and marginalized to the media.