Going Beyond Poor Journalism that Ignores the Poor - Nalaka Gunawardene

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Going beyond
Poor journalism
that ignores the poor
By Nalaka Gunawardene
Science writer & columnist (Ravaya, Echelon)
At Orientation Workshop for
Media Fellowships on Poverty & Development
Colombo, Sri Lanka: 24 Sep 2016

Crying Wolf in the Global Villagenalakagunawardene.com
Coming up…
 Why is poverty such an important story for
media? And why is it so poorly covered?
 Exploring poverty involves income
inequality, class privilege, policy failures…
 Issues today are highly complex (3 examples)
 Poverty & under-development: source of
many media stories for open-minded
journos
 Challenges in reporting on poverty
 How to stay sceptical (but NOT grow cynical)

2030: End of Poverty?
Is this ever attainable?
All member states
of United Nations,
incl. Sri Lanka, are
committed to 17
SDGs (adopted in
Sep 2015, effective
from Jan 2016)
#1 Goal:
No More Poverty
by 2030

Journalists must be sceptical.
But no need to be…cynical!
Cartoon by
Nath Paresh
Khaleej Times,
Dubai

Covering poverty:
Part of Development Journalism
 “Development journalism
became the last refuge of
mediocre media…It was taken by
many Third World journalists as
an excuse to be third-rate, and
editors’ eyes glazed over at the
very mention of the word
‘development’…”
Tarzie Vittachi
(1921-1993), Lankan
journalist, editor and
dev. communicator

Why should media houses
bother with poverty issues?
“For me as an editor, there is a
compelling case for engaging with
poverty. Increasing education and
literacy is related to increasing the
size of my readership. Our main
audiences are indeed drawn from
the middle classes, business and
policymakers. But these groups
cannot live in isolation. The welfare
of the many is in the interests of the
people who read the Daily Star.”
Editor & Publisher
Daily Star newspaper,
Bangladesh

Poverty: Never a popular topic
for most Lankan media?
Our media has
narrowly defined
poverty = negativity
Many media don’t
want to touch it
Other media just
skim the issues,
never probing them

Most Lankan media very poor
in their coverage of poverty…
 Television: totally avoids
discussing roots of poverty
(except as sad, sob stories)
 Newspapers: gloss over
complexity or reduces it to a a
simple lack of money
 Stereotyping: B&W images of
suffering & tears/sighs

“?
[A world without poor people]

Lankan society’s perceptions of
poor – some shaped by media
 “Poverty is poor people’s own
fault” (said to be: lazy, demanding,
breed too fast, spoilt, etc.)
 “Poverty is poor people’s karma”:
can anything change that fatalism?
 Some blame poverty on long-gone
colonialism or neo-colonialism
 Others wait for end of capitalism to
tackle poverty (a long wait indeed!)

Poverty & Dev Media Fellows’
applications  their views
 Street children, child labour
 Beggars & destitute people
 Chronic kidney disease patients in Dry Zone
 Migrant worker women going to Middle East
 Samurdhi (poverty reduction cash transfers)
 Older people without pensions/income security
 Poverty – alcohol nexus
 ALL valid aspects, but poverty is a complex
topic with many facets!

What you see depends on
where you are!

Poverty & Development:
closely linked, can’t be separated
Cartoon by
W R Wijesoma

Poverty is linked to inequality
Source: Sri Lanka Millennium Development Goals Country Report 2014

Poverty: Global North-South
disparities
BUT let’s not forget…
There are more and more rich people in the South
And also lots of poor people in the North

Poverty: a reflection of
development policies
Cartoon by
Awantha Artigala

Poverty: an indicator of
development disparities
Cartoon by
Awantha
Artigala

Poverty: Reflection of gender
disparities in our society
Cartoon by
Awantha Artigala

Poverty & under-development
reflect state of governance
Cartoon by
Awantha
Artigala

Lot of ‘development’ work is
anti-poor, even anti-people…
Cartoon by
Awantha
Artigala

Poverty numbers: indictment of
failed poverty-reduction progs
Cartoon by
Awantha
Artigala

Poverty: Much more than a
matter of headcounts & incomes
Cartoon by
Suren,
Ceylon Today

Poverty is a
very political
topic: So
don’t try to
avoid it

Poverty is not karma.
It’s not inevitable or destiny.

Inequality: Biggest story of our
times, yet very under-reported?
“The fastest growing phenomenon of
our time is not IT, but inequality. Yet,
many reporting beats crucial to
covering what’s happening have either
been marginalised in or vanished from
the media. The full-time labour reporter
is nearly extinct. The ‘agriculture
correspondent’ is mostly someone who
covers the agriculture ministry and agri-
business, not the farms. New
inequalities are reinforcing the old and
the gaps are growing…”
P Sainath
Rural reporter,
India

Poverty is a complex story…
 Many facets/dimensions
 Many levels and layers (economic, societal,
geographical, historical factors at work)
 Situations are changing fast (so beware of
outdated data or sociological research)
 Not all news is bad or bleak
 Some good news: We need to recognise &
amplify these
 No easy or simplistic solutions to poverty!

Simplistic solutions can’t fix it!
Cartoon by
Stanislaus
Olonde,
Kenya

Tackling complexity
Example 1: Farmer suicides
 5,650 farmer suicides in India
in 2014 (down from 18,241 in
2004, but still quite high)
 Farmers are driven to
desperation by various
factors including: monsoon
failures, high debt, bad govt
policies, mental health issues
& family problems, etc.

This complex
story needs
many inputs...
 Official, verified data
 Survivor family intervus
 expert & activist views
for bigger pix context
 Political awareness
 journalist’s own
empathy ()

Look beyond news events.
Ask what processes shape them.
“Thousands of cotton farmers
have committed suicide in India
because of falling prices and
indebtedness. But each suicide is
covered as an event by the
reporter in the crime beat, and
not investigated as a trend. The
causes are rarely analysed. How
deep are journalists willing, or
allowed, to dig for context?”
Kunda Dixit, Chief
Editor & Publisher,
Nepali Times

Example 2: problems faced by
some (not all) migrant workers
 100,000s of Lankan women going for skilled
& unskilled work in Mid East since 1980s
 Around 5% face problems: non-payment of
wages, physical/sexual assaults, prison,
murder, death sentence, etc.
 Sometimes their children neglected and/or
abused at home
 Media & society tightly focused on these
 BUT they overlook: 100,000s who work
overseas, save money, return & uplift lives

Ban #lka women going overseas
for work? Dr Sepali Kottegoda:
Source: http://kiyanna.lk/blog/2016/06/23/2759/

Dec 2015: Memes capturing public outrage in Sri
Lanka against a migrant worker woman being
sentenced to death by stoning in Saudi Arabia for
alleged adultery (man sentenced to 100 lashes)

WHY do our women go to Mid East?
Think hard before calling for bans!
Cartoon by
Gihan de
Chickera

Example 3 for complexity:
Poverty & Alcohol nexus
 President Sirisena in June 2016:
“LKR 500m/day spent on tobacco &
alcohol in Sri Lanka; poor spending
35% of their earnings on these”
Long-simmering debate in society:
 Do some people drink because
they’re poor?
 Or are they poor due to money
wasted on too much drinking?

Ravaya/Facebook discussion on
poverty and drinking…
 Started by researcher Krishan Siriwardhana
 Others joined with many viewpoints, incl:
 Problem is not drinking per se but some
spending too much of their earnings on it
 Poverty-alcohol co-related, but NOT in a simple,
linear (cause-and-effect) manner
 Govts should not try to ‘nanny’ people’s choices
& lifestyles sustained by own private money
 Health education yes, but bans are ill-advised

Alcohol is a complex story
Don’t reduce it to YES/NO
 Journalists should NOT bring own
viewpoints for/against alcohol
into reportage (except when
writing opinion articles)
 Journalistic discussions would be
enriched if these look at: legal &
illicit liquor; health & sociological
impacts + captures views of
regular alcohol users who happen
to be poor

Poverty is ultimately about
people’s everyday struggles…
Cartoon by
Patrick
Chappatte,
International
New York
Times

Avoid “Poor Journalism” trap!
 Covering poverty in the media is much more
than a numbers game (even though
statistics are an important part of it).
 It requires an integrated approach that
combines macro level factors with micro
level insights.
 More than anything else, it calls for
journalists to keep an open & inquisitive
mind, and an empathetic heart

Pathfinders 1:
Palagummi Sainath
 Indian journalist & photojournalist
 Has blazed new trails in covering social
& economic inequality, rural affairs,
poverty & globalization
 1993: Times of India fellowship:
travelled back roads in 10 poorest
districts of 5 Indian states: 100,000 km
using 16 forms of transportation, incl.
walking 5,000 km on foot over two
years.

P Sainath investigates…
 Realities of education and healthcare in
rural India.
 How rural, small scale farmers are
trapped by debt, weather anomalies &
uncertain market
 How caste & bureaucracies are blocking
rural poor from improving their lives.
 Impacts of droughts & floods: how
communities coped with these
disruptions.

P Sainath: Going where few
journalists care to travel…
 Raised broader questions, e.g.
rural people’s access to forests,
& women’s right to income and
property ownership
 Won 2007 Magsaysay Award for
his “passionate commitment as a
journalist to restore the rural
poor to India’s national
consciousness.”

Pathfinder 2:
Kalpana Sharma
 “Journalists are simply good
or bad, professional or
unprofessional. I am not sure
if other labels, such as
‘environmental’ or
‘developmental’, ought to be
tagged on to journalists!”
Kalpana Sharma

Kalpana Sharma investigates…
 Many issues like female infanticide, farmer
suicides, religious fundamentalism and
patriarchy
 Particular focus on how it impacts women
 How invisible ‘superwomen’ (domestic
maids) hold India’s social fabric together
 Field reporting from disaster zones: how
these events magnify existing disparities

Probing urban poverty &
resilience of poor in Mumbai
 Equally concerned with Mumbai’s
poverty, gender disparity, env.
mismanagement and governance.
 2000: wrote about Dharavi slum
in Mumbai, Asia’s largest, looking
at both its social inequalities and
the people’s admirable resilience.
 Better insight than Slumdog
Millionaire movie (2008)

Sri Lanka’s own rural chronicler:
Maya Ranjan (1913-1968)
While serving as a school
teacher in rural areas of Sri
Lanka in mid 20th
century,
Mahanama Rajapakse (using
pseudonyum Maya Ranjan)
wrote extensively about the
realities he experienced.
Though not strictly a
journalist, he is a pathfinder
of sorts for rural chronicling
in local languages.

Lankan example: Benedict
Dodampegama (1928 – 2004)
 Outstanding feature writer for
Silumina & Dinamina in 1950s-70s
 Travelled across Lanka extensively,
capturing many social, cultural &
developmental stories
 Wrote on North & East for Sinhala
readers: vital cross-cultural bridge
 Indigenous tribes, caste issues, etc.
 http://benedict-dodampegama.tripod.com/

What if poverty was seen &
covered differently in media?
Among many ways of looking at it:
Income inequality & social injustice
 Resilience of poor people
 Frugal innovation (so much with so little)
 Opportunities for social enterprise
 Human rights/human dignity issue
 Other angles?

Innovation @bottom of income
pyramid (lots of good news!)
 “One resource in which
economically poor people may be
rich is their knowledge and
innovative potential. India’s Honey
Bee Network has created a new
benchmark in the field of scouting,
documentation, dissemination,
value addition, protection of IPR and
benefit sharing.” – Dr Anil K Gupta

Capturing poverty in media:
Different approaches
 Data-driven: latest official statistics +
researcher insights
 Field-based: findings from field visits,
talking to people coping with poverty &
inequalities on a daily basis
 Personalised: using a strong character to
bring out issues (social activist,
entrepreneur, uncommon public official)

Capturing poverty in media:
Different approaches - 2
 Travelogue: stories of journeys to rural
AND urban areas, exploring subtle realities
of poverty (told like a story, less analytical)
 Photo/video explorations: In search of
many faces of poverty, beyond
stereotypes. Amplifying unheard voices.
 Infographics: Bringing data and analysis
into life, easy to understand

….and Cartoons!

Challenges in understanding and
reporting on poverty…
 Beware of official data
 Also question academic & charity data:
 Watch out for ‘source manipulation’:
 Remember, people are not numbers:
 Avoid stereotyping:
 Consider gender perspectives
 Consider societal and cultural factors
 Things change (over time)

May you have
inspiring explorations!
Email:
alien@nalaka.org
Twitter:
twitter.com/NalakaG
Ravaya column archive
nalakagunawardene.com/ravaya-column/
All images used in good faith for this non-commercial purpose

Going Beyond Poor Journalism that Ignores the Poor - Nalaka Gunawardene

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