I had an ‘aha!’ moment last week during the session on ‘Reporting the world through a gender lens’ at Asia Media Summit 2007 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Ammu Joseph, the passionate and articulate Indian journalist and women’s rights activist, was speaking on gender sensitivity in disaster related coverage in South Asian media. She always speaks drawing on her rich and varied experiences, and offers refreshing perspectives on oft-discussed topics.
At one point, she quoted one of my journalism heroes, Bill Moyers, as saying:
“We journalists are simply beachcombers on the shores of other people’s knowledge, other people’s experience, and other people’s wisdom. We tell their stories.”
How very true!
I researched where Bill Moyers said this, and it turns out it was part of his speech accepting Harvard Medical School’s Global Environment Citizen Award in December 2004. Read the full speech, which is highly inspiring.
Reading further, I came across another Bill Moyers gem:
“One challenge we journalists face – how to tell such a story without coming across as Cassandras, without turning off the people we most want to understand what’s happening, who must act on what they read and hear.”
That is more relevant today than when he first said it: with climate change becoming the latest worldwide scare, it is indeed a huge challenge for us to report, analyse and explore issues without crying wolf.
But crying wolf is what characterised a good part of the session on reporting climate change during the Asia Media Summit. It had some good speakers, who knew what they were talking about, but was very poorly moderated by a man who had no idea what he was taking on.
That’s when I so wished we could clone a few more Bill Moyers — this planet is seriously in need of more like him!
And we need more like Ammu Joseph to tell us jouralism and broadcasting are not just industries or professions; that they involve and require more. Here’s her short profile:
Ammu Joseph is an independent journalist and author based in Bangalore, and writing primarily on issues relating to gender, human development and the media. Her publications include five books: Whose News? The Media and Women’s Issues (Sage, 1994 and 2006 — revised edition, co-authored/edited with Kalpana Sharma), Women in Journalism: Making News (Konark, 2000 and Penguin India, 2005 — revised edition), Terror, Counter-Terror: Women Speak Out (Kali for Women, 2003, co-authored/edited with Kalpana Sharma), Storylines: Conversations with Women Writers, and Just Between Us: Women Speak about their Writing (Women’s World India/Asmita, 2003, co-authored/edited with Vasanth Kannabiran, Ritu Menon, Gouri Salvi and Volga).
Read Ammu Joseph detailed profile
Read some of Ammu Joseph’s recent writing on India Together
Open Minds! 
I’m a little late reading and commenting on this, but wanted to commend you nonetheless on a rather interesting comparison of two of my own favorite activist journalists. I especially appreciate Ammu’s work, which may contain many of the same sage nuggets that Moyers’ does but is actually much better informed in relation to international events and gender perspectives. She also seems to be everywhere, owing to an active travel and writing schedule. So thank you for helping to make readers more aware of her work and, again, of placing her alongside one of our wonderful home-grown top journalists.
Carolyn M. Byerly