Journalism – Page 29

Baby 81: The Asian Tsunami’s big ‘non-story’

When many journalists chase the same unfolding story, it’s common for them to acquire the ‘herd mentality’. This ‘media pack’ can sometimes lose sense of direction, perspective — and even the truth.

A good example is the story of a Sri Lankan baby who grabbed world media attention for a few days as a “celebrated” Tsunami orphan.

The four-month-old boy, Abhilash Jeyarajah, was picked up by a neighbor who found him under a pile of garbage soon after giant waves lashed Kalmunai on 26 December 2004. The man handed over the child to the Kalmunai hospital. The parents, who also survived the waves, later found their child.

That should have been the happy ending for that family — but it was not to be.

Newspapers, television and news agencies reported how squabbling broke out among several couples over “Baby 81” — as he was dubbed by hospital authorities in Kalmunai, going by the admission number. As many as nine couples who lost their infants in the tsunami all claimed he was theirs — or so the story was spread by the news-hungry media who had descended on tsunami-hit Sri Lanka in their hundreds.

Photo courtesy Reuters

Even the usually cautious New York Times carried the story, referring to him as a “celebrated orphan”.

The story assumed a momentum of its own. One leading American TV network invited the baby and his parents to visit the US to be their studio guests and tell their ‘story’.

It was only many weeks later that the truth began to emerge.

Police denied nine couples had claimed him as their own. Kalmunai hospital authorities confirmed that only one couple had come forward to claim the baby. The man who handed over the child to hospital told police that he had known the child was that of his neighbors — there was no dispute about the parentage.

“Because it had a miraculous escape, a lot of people showed interest in the child, but they never said they were the parents,” chief inspector W. C. Wijetilleka was quoted as saying. “Only one couple claimed the child. No one else has come forward to make a legal claim.”

“As far as the police and the courts are concerned, only one couple is claiming the child,” inspector Wijetilleka said. “We have reported the facts to court and the judge ordered the hospital to release the child to the parents.”

The story was fuelled by the hospital’s initial reluctance to release the boy until he was well enough. The couple then petitioned the court, which ordered on 12 January 2005 that the baby be given to them. DNA tests, presented to court on 14 February 2005 confirmed their claim as biological parents.

Read Lanka Business Online account of what happened: Baby 81 – the story with nine or more lies

Read Reuters AlertNet guest blogger Glenda Cooper’s recent update on the Baby 81 saga

This non-story was discussed during the Asian regional brainstorming on Communicating Disasters that TVE Asia Pacific and UNDP organised in Bangkok, Thailand, in December 2006.

“The young couple was at the centre of endless media coverage for several weeks,” Asoka Dias, Station Director of MTV/MBC Network, Sri Lanka, told our meeting.

He added: “This created public impression that they also received a great deal of money and other help, which was not the case. They have had to relocate to a new neighbourhood, and are struggling to lead normal lives.”

Read the meeting report of Communicating Disasters

Broadcasters united by Tsunami, but now divided again

In the broadcast industry, everybody knows each other — but then each one minds his or her own turf.

The United Nations, humanitarian agencies and advocacy groups have all tried to get media to co-operate more with each other, but these have remained largely token efforts.

Let’s face it: the broadcast media is fiercely competitive. TV networks and channels compete with each other in a given country or region. With channel proliferation there are more offerings chasing the same eyeballs.

But extraordinary situations bring out spontaneous collaboration in extraordinary ways. One such trigger is disasters.

Last December, speaking at a regional brainstorming on Communicating Disasters that TVE Asia Pacific organised with the UNDP, veteran Indian journalist A S Panneerselvan related a heart warming story of Indian broadcasters coming together on one such occasion.

The first hours and days after the Tsunami saw the highly competitive Indian news media organizations sharing each other’s information, visual and contacts in the true spirit of cooperation.

“Generally, the Indian news market is highly competitive with 18 TV news channels. They’re not willing to share visuals or co-operate. But something extraordinary happened soon after the Tsunami news broke. For the first time, none of the channels was insisting on exclusivity. They were simply downloading each other’s images, without even bothering about the rights or other issues.

“This was indeed rare. We know how many contracts have to be signed even for broadcasting 10 seconds of a cricket match. The kind of cross-flow of information after the Tsunami was amazing. All channel rivalries were momentarily forgotten.

“The only problem was with the international relief agencies, who are extremely hierarchy conscious. They were not easily available to the news media, and often they spoke only to influential Western news agencies such as Reuters and BBC.”

Panneer is now executive director of Panos South Asia. He was formerly the managing editor of Sun TV and bureau chief for Outlook magazine in India.

Read the full report of the Bangkok meeting on TVE Asia Pacific website

Can media tame the global ‘alms bazaar’?

The Asian Tsunami of December 2004 inspired dozens of cartoons in newspapers and websites all over the world. To me, this was one of the most heart rending Tsunami cartoons.

Without a single word, it said so much about the humanitarian sector’s conduct and priorities. It showed how Asia’s massive disaster drained much needed support from other unfolding emergencies in the world.

This week in Geneva – arguably the humanitarian capital of the world – a leading Swiss journalist once again raised the crucial issue: how best can humanitarian agencies respond to multiple crises without everyone ending up in a needless frenzy?

Edward Girardet, who specialises in in media, humanitarian aid and conflict issues, was speaking at a media workshop on tracking climate change that his non-profit organisation, Media21, organised this week in conjunction with the Global Platform on Disaster Risk Reduction in Geneva (5 – 7 June 2007).

The platform, organised by the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UN-ISDR), brought together several hundred disaster managers, researchers and activists for three days of discussion and debate on key issues and challenges they face.

Ed was outspoken in his critique of the humanitarian sector (which, someone suggested during the week, is the largest unregulated industry in the world).

“Much of the emergency response to the Indian Ocean tsunami in late 2004 was not required, but hundreds of organizations still insisted on being seen, often at the cost of rechanneling humanitarian resources from vital operations elsewhere in the world, bringing some to virtual collapse, notably in Africa.”

Writing an op ed piece in the Christian Science Monitor this week, Ed has expanded on his views. He says:

“What this amounts to is a blatant abuse of public confidence. As one International Committee of the Red Cross representative admitted, if the donating public knew how often personal egos or vested interests call the shots, they might prove less forthcoming in their support.”

Here is how he ends his essay:

Humanitarianism, however, should not “belong” to any one group. What the international aid industry urgently needs is more hard-nosed and independent reporting.

Current initiatives such as IRIN, the UN’s humanitarian news service, and the World Disaster Report of the International Red Cross are excellent in many ways but widely perceived as beholden to their organizations.

Another question is whether one can expect real criticism of the international aid industry if such ventures are themselves cofunded by governments.

The best solution would be the creation of a viable media watchdog capable of reporting the real causes behind humanitarian predicaments, including how the international community responds.

Most mainstream news organizations are unlikely to cover the global aid business on a consistent basis.

On the other hand, a pooling of media, corporate, and foundation support for a specialized reporting entity could prove to be the answer. Any other approach that does not guarantee complete independence would be a waste of time and money.

Read his full op ed in Christian Science Monitor online (8 June 2007 issue).

Read the full report of TVE Asia Pacific’s Roundable meeting on Communicating Disasters, held in Bangkok, December 2006

Sex and the warming planet: a tip for climate reporters

I had no idea that the nice lady seated next to me was described by her publisher as ‘America’s hottest sex therapist’.

Nor had I linked sex with climate change — though, come to think of it, both have something ‘hot’ in common.

Psychologist, journalist and sex therapist Dr Judy Kuriansky came out with practical advice on how we journalists can cover climate change in more interesting ways. And she made a lot of sense.

“You have to make the climate story appeal to the average reader or viewer,” the Professor of Clinical Psychology at Columbia University Teacher’s College, USA, told us participants at a global media workshop on understanding and reporting climate change in Geneva this week.

In some ways, attracting audience attention is comparable to getting a new date, she suggested.

Dr Judy Kuriansky

“If you want to attract a man or woman’s attention, what do you do? You can go for a walk in the park…and take a child or dog with you. It doesn’t have to be your child or your dog, as long as you have one. That makes it a lot easier for you to start a conversation with an attractive stranger.”

Likewise in covering climate change. Bring out the children or animals. These always help audiences to relate to otherwise dull or dreary stories.

People across cultural and educational divides share a love and concern for children and animals. And how climate change is going to impact our children is something that most sensible adults would pay attention to.

Some communicators are already heeding this advice. The Great Warming, a compelling, Canadian-made documentary released in 2006 and narrated by actors Alanis Morissette and Keanu Reeves, reveals how a changing climate is affecting the lives of people everywhere. Using breathtaking visuals filmed in eight countries on three continents, this production ‘taps into the growing groundswell of public interest in this topic to present an emotional, accurate picture of our children’s planet’.

‘Our children’s planet’ – a simple yet powerful phrase that never fails to move sensible and sensitive people. As I wrote in a recent review, it’s precisely that kind of appeal to our hearts and emotions that many climate change (and indeed, environmental) documentaries lack.

But who else could have linked all this to the art and science of dating? Dr Judy knows a thing or two about this subject, having written The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Dating, now in its 3rd edition.

Dr Judy he was in Geneva representing the NGO Committee on Mental Health, a US-based charity, which ran a session during the Global Platform on Disaster Risk Reduction in Geneva (5 – 7 June 2007).

Her group ran a session on mental health needs of disaster affected people — an aspect largely neglected by the UN and humanitarian organisations that respond to disasters.

Experts warned this week that climate change is set to increase both the intensity and frequency of disasters. This will mean more people than ever will be affected physically, pshychologically, economically and other ways.

Chatting to her later, I discovered Dr Judy and I had more things in common than an interest in, well, climate change.

For one thing, in the aftermath of the Asian Tsunami of December 2004, she had visited Sri Lanka with a team of psychologists to provide much-needed help to survivors to overcome their trauma. Unlike many relief agencies that stayed within the ‘comfort zones’ close to the capital Colombo, her team went all the way to Batticaloa on the east coast, a good 12 hour car journey away.

I also discovered that she and I had both been speakers at the 59th Annual NGO Conference organised by the UN Department of Public Information in New York in September 2006.

And we are both associated with Light Millennium, a non-profit group in New York dedicated to culture and peace. We have a mutual friend in its founder, Bircan Unver.

Here’s a bio note on Dr Judy from one of her websites:

Dr.Kuriansky is a world renowned radio advice host, clinical psychologist and certified sex therapist, popular lecturer, newspaper columnist, TV reporter and commentator and author of many books on relationships. She is a pioneer of radio call-in advice, and more recently of Internet advice. An adjunct professor at the Clinical Psychology Program at Columbia University Teachers College and at the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia Medical Center, she is also visiting professor of Peking University Health Science Center in Beijing. She is a frequent commentator on TV on various news issues, particularly on CNN, and columnist for the New York Daily News, Singapore Straits Times and South China Morning Post.

Lions and community radio: part of Sri Lanka’s mythical lore

Even well-meaning, usually balanced media organisations can occasionally slip, and fall for traps that damage their credibility.

I have always had the highest regard for Inter Press Service (IPS), the news agency of the majority world that presents the Southern voice and perspective. In the early days of my career, I shared an office with IPS bureau in Colombo, and still count many good friends who work or report for IPS from different parts of Asia.

Imagine my dismay and surprise, then, when this news story was carried by IPS earlier today:

MEDIA-SRI LANKA:
Building Ethnic Harmony With Community Radio

KOTHMALE, Jun 4 (IPS) – In this tea-growing hill country, about 150 km from Colombo, a state-run community radio station is creating harmony among the country’s Sinhalese, Tamil and Muslim ethnic groups by broadcasting from the villages and opening up the airwaves to people’s participation.

”People all over Sri Lanka are talking about peace, but this community radio has been doing it from the beginning,” P. Pavitheran, an announcer at the Kothmale Community Radio (KCR) told IPS.

“We don’t have any community divisions here,” added the Tamil broadcaster who also speaks fluent Sinhalese and switches smoothly between the two languages on air. “All my (assisting) staff are Sinhalese, but we’re all working together as a team.”

KCR on FM band was set up by the government-owned Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation (SLBC) in 1989 with 3 hours of transmission three days a week. Today, it broadcasts 12.5 hours a day on weekdays and 8 hours on weekends in both Sinhalese and Tamil. It covers a modest 20-km radius that includes 60 villages and 3 rural towns and reaches a population of 200,000. Read the full story here

IPS

This is one of those feel-good stories that news agencies like to publish once in a while, so that it counter the mainly negative stories that they carry as mirrors of society.

But in this instance, IPS has – perhaps inadvertently – peddled a pervasive myth that has been fabricated and distributed by UNESCO for over two decades about there being community radio stations in Sri Lanka.

I have lived and worked in Sri Lanka all my life, and never once come across a community radio station. In fact, this is a rare instance where successive governments for the past 20 years stand united: all have stubbornly refused to license any community radio.

There has never been, and there isn’t, any community radio in Sri Lanka in the sense the rest of the world understands that term. The fully state-owned and government-controlled Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation (SLBC) has several rural transmissions which masquerade as community radio, hoodwinking gullible development donors and naive foreign journalists.

As I have written in many places over the years, local communities have no control over content or management of the station. And no political content is allowed in the programming — try criticising the government in office and the jackboot of the Big Bad Babus of SLBC will come down with thunderous effect!

Let me quote from one of my published articles:

“SLBC broadcasts from all corners of the country, including stations located in remote areas. The channel involves local people in programme production, and it maintains a strongly agrarian audience. But listeners have no say in running the stations – these are managed by a tight bureaucracy in the capital Colombo, whose rigid guidelines control content: strictly no politics, and nothing remotely against the government in office.

“But, although touted as such, SLBC is not community radio, which is supposed to promote access, public participation in production and decision-making and listener-financing – where each listener contributes a small amount towards the running of the radio station.”

Read full article in Panos Features: Radio in Sri Lanka suffers as Colombo bosses call the shots

Despite all this, if someone still insists that there is community radio in Sri Lanka, I can argue that by the same token, lions roam free in Sri Lanka’s remaining jungles. After all, the Sinhalese have a folk lore suggesting they descend from a lion.

Both prospects are equally fantastic. At least there are a couple of lions in the zoo.

Individuals are free to believe in fabrications coming out of that Paris-based myth factory called UNESCO. But responsible news organisations like IPS need to fact-check their stories lest they legitimise these dubious claims that contribute to suppressing genuine media freedom and media pluralism in Sri Lanka.

Bill Moyers & Ammu Joseph: Journalists are beachcombers…

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!

Bill Moyers Ammu Joseph

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

Communities are not what they used to be…so let’s get real!

I like busting myths when I see them. That’s probably the result of my training as a journalist to be evidence-based, open-minded and always ask probing questions.

This makes me popular in some circles and very unwelcome in others!

I took a few shots at persistent development myths while speaking last week to a group of Asian broadcasters gathered in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, for a workshop on ‘Connecting Communities through Community Broadcasting and ICTs’ in the run-up to Asia Media Summit 2007.

I was speaking during a session on ‘ICTs – Bringing Added Value to Community Radio’. ICT stands for information and communication technologies.

The first myth I exposed was what I call the development community’s ‘rural romance’ — almost exclusive obsession with the rural poor to the exclusion of similar, or even more compelling, needs of the urban poor. I have already devoted an entire blog post to this topic, so won’t repeat it here.

The next myth I tackled was the popular notion of ‘communities’.

I told my audience of researchers, activists and broadcasters: Communities are not just rural and unspoilt as some of you might imagine.

Here’s the relevant excerpt from my remarks:

What does ‘community’ meant to many card-carrying members of the development community? For starters:
• To begin with, people must be remote and rural, and in a geographically confined location.
• They are invariably poor, under-developed and living on the edges of survival.
• If they also have unique cultural artefacts or performances, that would offer convenient photographic or videographic opportunities to the development workers travelling from the city bearing gifts.

You get the idea. Now I ask you to get real.

Yes, such idyllic, hapless and romanticised communities probably exist in some endangered form in a few locations. But in most parts of the Real World (at least in Asia), communities -– both urban and rural -– are undergoing rapid transformation:
• People are on the move in search of jobs and opportunities.
• Technologies are on the move — especially mobile phones that no development agency put their money on!
• People are discerning and demanding, not blissfully ignorant or willing to settle for any offering from the outside!

These may seriously shatter some of your visions of an idyllic and ideal community, but these are essentially positive changes.

And communities no longer need to be defined merely by geographic proximity.

Newer ICTs now allow individuals scattered over larger areas to be connected via the airwaves or the web. This enables the creation and sustaining of:
• communities of practice;
• communities of shared interest/need;
• single issue agitation such as rallying around for constitutional reform, or repeal of an unfriendly law; and
• clamouring for political or democratic reforms.

So please move away from your narrow understanding of communities. Members of any of the above kinds of communities can benefit from community broadcasting.

I added that broadcasting itself isn’t what it used to be. The days of centrally manufactured content being imposed upon a hapless audience are now over.

Interactivity and user-generated content are IN.

Pompous, know-all anchors and presenters are OUT.

My plea to all my colleagues was: Things have moved on in the media world. So must we!

Read full text of my remarks to the workshop (cleaned up after delivery)
ams-2007-connecting-people-via-icts-ng-remarks.pdf

Read my op ed on Media: Step-child of WSIS? published by OneWorld in Nov 2003

Has Al Jazeera left the building?

Where is Wadah Khanfar?

This is the question that everyone kept asking as Asia Media Summit 2007 started off with what turned out to be a feeble and lop-sided panel on participatory media.

Khanfar, listed on the programme as Director General of the Al Jazeera Network, had confirmed participation and a seat was kept reserved for him on stage even as the opening panel kicked off.

The amiable moderator, Jennifer Lewis from Singapore, kept on asking for Khanfar to please come on stage. He never did.

The seat assigned for him remained empty all through the inaugural session. Some speculated if that was due to the recent reshuffle at Al Jazeera, which some interpreted as a pro-US coup in what until recently was regarded as the world’s most outspoken broadcast media network from the majority world.

I myself have been a cautious cheer-leader for Al Jazeera International. For example, on 18 April 2007, I wrote about AJI placing its content on YouTube to enable US-based viewers to watch the channel that was blocked out of many US cable networks.

AJI has been on the air for only six months, so we must reserve judgement on its performance for a while longer.

Many of us media-watchers were optimistic and hopeful that AJI would offer a much-needed counter to the blatantly one-sided and self-righteous coverage of the dominant international news channels, BBC World and CNN International.

AJI set out with a lofty agenda, saying it wants to ‘balance the information flow from South to North, providing accurate, impartial and objective news for a global audience from a grass roots level, giving voice to different perspectives from under-reported regions around the world.’

It also wanted to revolutionise English language TV in the same way it turned Arabic TV upside down, ending the monopoly of the airwaves by state broadcasters and governments.

Writing an op ed within days of AJI starting its broadcasts on 15 November 2006, I reacted to these stated ideals as follows:

“Noble ideals, indeed — and we fervently hope it succeeds, but unless it’s very careful and thoughtful, AJI runs the risk of falling into the same cultural and commercial traps that its two rivals are completely mired in.

“While CNN can’t get out of its US-centric analysis even in its international broadcasts, the BBC news team is more like a hopelessly mixed up teenager: one moment they are deeply British or at least western European; the next moment they are more passionate about Africa than Africans themselves.

“Desperately seeking legitimacy and acceptance in wide and varied circles, these two global channels have sometimes traded in their journalistic integrity for privileged access, exclusives or – dare we say it? – to be embedded.

“They have increasingly come to epitomise a disturbing trend in international news and current affairs journalism: the end justifies the means.”

Read my full essay in Media Helping Media (UK)

I argued in my essay that the end does not justify the means of gathering news.

“If products of child labour and blood diamonds are no longer internationally acceptable, neither should the world tolerate moving images whose origins are ethically suspect.

So that’s the real challenge to Al Jazeera: to usher in real change, it needs to transform not just how television news is presented and analysed, but also how it is gathered.”

We have been watching — whenever we can catch it, that is — how AJI is covering the complex and nuanced world we live in. So far, the impressions are not encouraging. We have to look long and hard to tell the difference between BBC World, CNN International and AJI.

We will keep watching, and give the new kid on the block a bit more time to prove itself.

And we look at not just what’s shown on AJI, but how those pictures get there.

Read earlier post: Banned in the USA, Al Jazeera now on YouTube

Asia Mediasaurus Summit 2007 now on in Kuala Lumpur?

As the Asia Media Summit 2007 started this morning at Hotel Nikko in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia, I had to kick myself hard to make sure it was not a bad dream concocted by my often over-active imagination.

The first plenary session was on ‘Era of participatory media: Rethinking mass media’. It was a response to what many of us had urged the organisers, Asia Pacific Institute for Broadcasting Development (AIBD), to do this time around: take a closer look at how the citizens’ media are evolving and impacting mainstream media.

The session had three speakers — the Director General of Deutsche Welle (DW) of Germany, Director General (international planning) of NHK Japan, and an Editor Emeritus (no less!) from The Toronto Star newspaper in Canada. (The fourth speaker, Director General of Al Jazeera Network, didn’t show up – is it because he no longer holds that job after a recent shake-up of the network’s top management? See: Pro-US coup at Al Jazeera?)

Image courtesy AIBD

The panel was chaired by Jennifer Lewis, who edits Singapore Straits Times Online, Mobile and Print offering — better known by its abbreviation STOMP. She was the only interesting speaker and, tellingly, the only speaker who had any direct experience with the new media or participatory media.

Age has something to do with it, I guess. I’m 41 years old, and I don’t consider myself a digital native. I didn’t grow up with computers and mobile phones like my 11-year-old daughter is now doing. For all my interest in the new media, I remain a digital immigrant trying to find my way in the digital world.

For sure, DW, NHK and The Toronto Star are venerable media institutions that have long served the public interest. No argument there. But why were their chiefs pontificating on the limitations of new media — especially blogs — while there was not a single new media practitioner on the panel (not counting Jennifer, who as moderator didn’t get to share her own experience)?

We sat there hearing from the worthies of the old media that bloggers have limitations of outreach, legitimacy and credibility. They grudgingly acknowledged the existence and some advantages the new media have over their own (old and tired?) media. But all of them failed to say anything new or interesting.

Some, like the emeritus Canadian editor, in fact could not understand why there was no business model in blogs. (Yes, we know it stumps the commercialised media to see so many of us working for no gains or perks of any kind!). He then ventured to make sweeping generalisations about all new media by trying to make a tenuous link between new media platforms and their use by terrorist groups. That was so off the mark that does not warrant a response. The moral is: Elderly editors must stick to what they know best.

During question time, a few audience members tried to point out the complementarity of the old and new media, but by then the tone had already been set: this is going to be yet another gathering of the now rapidly endangered mediasaurus – about whom I have talked about in this previous post.

AMS 2007’s first session showed us well and clear the great divide between the old media and new media. The panel failed miserably and completely to find any bridge across the two. It was doomed from the start because there was no representative of the new media on it.

Asia’s largest gathering of media managers and policy makers has got off to an inauspicious start.

I don’t want to spend three days of my time if this is going to be Asia Mediasaurus Summit.

Source: http://www.indcjournal.com/archives/ariaillg2.jpg

Radio Sagarmatha: Kathmandu’s Beacon of hope on 102.4 MHz turns 10

Today, 23 May 2007 is a very special day for broadcasting in South Asia.

Radio Sagarmatha, the first independent community broadcasting station in South Asia, completes 10 years on the air today. It’s certainly a moment to reflect and rejoice for all of us concerned with broadcasting and the public interest in Asia.

Image courtesy Radio Sagarmatha

Here’s how the station introduces itself on its website:
Broadcasting daily from the center of the Kathmandu Valley on FM 102.4 MHz from 5 am to 11 pm, the pioneering radio station has earned a name as a free, independent and highly credible radio station in keeping with its objectives of producing a cadre of professional journalists, addressing the information needs of audiences, stimulating awareness and participation in public issues, and facilitating democratization and pluralism.

The Sagarmatha story is of particular interest to me personally.

Firstly, many involved in founding and running this station are good Nepali friends whose resolve and professionalism I salute on this 10th birthday.

Secondly, this radio station exposed to the whole world a persistent myth that was fabricated and distributed globally by Unesco and its local cronies: that community radio has been thriving in Sri Lanka from the early 1980s. I’ve lived all my life in Sri Lanka, and I’ve spent the past 20 years working in the media, but I have yet to find a single community radio station there — simply because no government has allowed any to be set up! I’ve been writing about this for years, but I’m a lone voice against Unesco’s well-funded ‘myth factory’ working overtime! Read my Panos Feature: Radio suffers as Colombo bosses callthe shots (October 2003).

But enough of that old hat. Today is Sagarmatha’s Day! Happy birthday to the courageous public radio station and everyone involved, past and present.

Recently, supporting the radio station’s nomination for an international media award (to be announced soon), I wrote a brief account about Sagarmatha. It has not been published until now, so here it is, with minor edits:

Kathmandu’s Silent Revolution

Almost a decade ago, a silent revolution started in the Nepali capital of Kathmandu. One day in May 1997, a senior official of the Ministry of Communications handed over a piece of paper to Raghu Mainali, representing a group of Nepali journalists and civil society organisations. It was the broadcast license permitting the first-ever citizen-owned, non-commercial, public interest radio broadcasting station anywhere in South Asia. Soon afterwards, Radio Sagarmatha (RS) was on the air, using the FM frequency 102.4 MHz.

The airwaves will never be the same again in the world’s most populous sub-region, where governments had a strict monopoly over broadcasting for decades.

The broadcast license did not come easily: it was under consideration for over four years, and entailed considerable lobbying by Nepali journalists and civil society groups. At the forefront in this quest was the Nepal Forum of Environmental Journalists (NEFEJ), a non-governmental organisation and a collective of journalists strongly committed to sustainable development, human rights and media freedom.

The senior and highly respected Nepali journalist Bharat Koirala provided advice and leadership for setting up RS, which was cited when he was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award — ‘Asia’s Nobel Prize’ — in 2002.

Read a brief history of Radio Sagarmatha on its website

As a long-standing partner of NEFEJ, we have had the opportunity to observe the evolution of RS from humble beginnings to what it is today. Remarkably, NEFEJ colleagues had laid the groundwork for the radio station in anticipation of the license: the hardware, manpower and institutional framework were ready to go on the air soon after official sanction. Beginning with an initial two hours of broadcasts, RS gradually increased its transmissions, providing a mix of music, news and current affairs, sports and cultural entertainment to the Kathmandu city and valley — home to nearly 2 million people. While broadcasting primarily in Nepali, it also carries programming in minority languages and English. In recent years, RS has also rebroadcast selected programmes from BBC World Service Nepali transmissions.

Image courtesy BBC Online Image courtesy Radio Sagarmatha

RS blazed a new trail in broadcasting in Nepal, and in its wake a large number of commercial FM stations and other community broadcasting stations have been set up. The Kathmandu valley’s hills are alive with a cacophony of voices, offering the people a greater choice than ever before. Across Nepal, RS has inspired a plethora of community-owned, community-based radio stations, who are enjoying different degrees of success. RS has also trained a significant number of radio professionals – from announcers and producers to technicians – some of who have moved on to employment with other channels. This commitment to capacity building continues.

In today’s multi-channel environment, RS retains its strong commitment to the public interest, good journalism and high production values. Among others, the following distinguishes this station:

• RS increases people’s participation in debating important day-to-day issues that directly affect their lives and jobs. Roaming producers talk to not just city dwellers but to people living in the most remote areas of Kathmandu.

• RS serves as a people’s forum to examine the merits and demerits of various development policies, efforts and approaches in Nepal, undertaken by government, development donors, civil society and others.

• RS has played its part to bridge Nepal’s digital divide. Suchana Prabidhi dot com (meaning ‘Information technology dot com’) is a popular programme that browses the Internet live on radio, connecting the unconnected radio listeners with information available online.

• In spite of being supported by a large number of development donors, including some UN agencies, RS has maintained its editorial independence, without allowing itself to become a propaganda outlet for any entity.

But it was in Nepal’s recent pro-democracy struggles that Radio Sagarmatha’s commitment to the public interest was truly tested and reaffirmed. The station joined human rights activists, progressive journalists and civil society groups in the mass movement for political reform, including the restoration of parliamentary democracy suspended by the King’s autocratic rule. The regime – seeking complete control over Nepalis’ access to information and independent opinions – imposed a blanket ban on private broadcasters carrying news. Soldiers were posted inside and around Radio Sagarmatha for eight days. Even after they withdrew, the spectre of absolute monarchy hung over all media for months.

Read BBC Online story: The Muzzling of Nepalese Radio (22 April 2005)

Read IPS story: Nepal plunged into the Dark Ages, cry dissidents

Soldier outside Radio Sagarmatha station - bad old days, now gone

That seige continued for much of 2005. On 27 November 2005, I was with some NEFEJ colleagues at a regional media workshop in Siem Reap, Cambodia, when the disturbing news reached us that RS had been forced off the air after police raided the station, seized its transmission equipment and arrested five journalists and technicians. The incident had happened while RS was relaying BBC Nepali Service live from London.

Fortunately, the judiciary intervened. Two days later, responding to a massive outcry from within and outside Nepal, the Supreme Court ordered the authorities to allow RS to continue its transmissions. The station started broadcasting news and current affairs again, and other stations soon found their courage.

The next few months leading to April 2006 were crucial for all associated with the pro-democracy movement. During this period, amidst various pressures, threats and obstacles, the managers and journalists at RS played a pivotal role in ensuring the free flow of information and plurality of views in Nepal. When broadcasting news was banned, RS resorted to innovative ways of getting information across while getting around the jack-boot of bureaucracy.

One method: singing the day’s news — as there was no restriction on broadcasting musical content!

The unwavering resolve of RS, other independent media and pro-democracy activists led to the restoration of parliamentary democracy in April 2006 and the subsequent marginalization of the monarchy. Now the pioneering radio station is working hard to ensure that Nepalis would make better use of their ‘second chance’ in democracy in less than two decades.

As Radio Sagarmatha now enters its second decade, there is much unfinished business: Nepal is one of the most impoverished countries in the world, held back by a decade of civil war. A free, independent and responsible media – epitomized by Radio Sagarmatha – will be essential for Nepal to break from the past and usher in a new era of peace, prosperity and equality.