Media guidelines for Disaster Reporting Part 2
By Malini Shankar, Digital Discourse Foundation
In the immediate aftermath of a natural or man-made calamity the Media
can save lives, limbs and
livestock by broadcasting and publishing / disseminating Dos and
Don’ts for survivors. For this – state of the art brick and click economic
power houses that modern Media are - Media Houses and studios need to be
self-reliant. Media houses / studios must have ready-made dossiers comprising
of:
Plan
A:
1. Dos and Don’ts,
2. Demographic databases,
3. Research material,
4. Contact persons database / directory,
5. Civil List of Officers / ranks, responsibilities and contact
details along with timings for
meeting and contact
6. Infrastructure maps,
7. Geographical atlases,
8. Revenue maps,
9. Topo sheets, (Topography survey maps are called Topo sheets in
administrative parlance)
10. Database of Natural resources, Bio and Zoo Diversity,
11. Database of Anthropological / demographic diversity
12. Linguistic heritage of a place / Languages spoken in the place
13. Financial / revenue database (tax patterns, incomes expenditure
and consumption patterns),
14. Gazette publications (not just in the library but should have been
read digested and made
note of by specialist beat reporters),
15. Forms for Media accreditation and privileges
16. Reporters / crews must be trained in ethics (let us not forget
that two CNN reporters lost
their job in Iraq – one for smuggling an artefact stolen from a museum
in Babylon; and
another for not cross checking facts before reporting it during the
First Gulf War in 1991) /
professional detachment, how to cross check facts and figures, in collecting
anecdotes /
research material, conducting interviews, location planning for
filming and photography,
should be all part of the training for Disaster Beat reporters.
Plan
B must be for state information and
publicity departments to be able to give all this even to the evening newspaper
reporter from a hinterland district who might not be able to afford all the
above mentioned resources. That is how capacity building for district level
newspaper personnel can be undertaken while on the job.
The Media’s role in cross checking facts cannot be overemphasised in the day and age of social media overdose. Media has to be a gatekeeper of facts, not fiction. The lines blur when both wire news as well as social media feeds draw up on the Internet! Rumour mongering especially on interfaces like social media can wreck havoc. For example on 11th April 2012 when INCOIS in India had sounded a Tsunami watch for three Islands in Nicobars, after a strike slip earthquake off the coast of Sumatra, Facebook users on the US West Coast apparently were alarmed to find alerts of unwarranted warnings.
Rana Mathew who was the PRO of the UT Administration of Andaman Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal at the time of the Asian Tsunami coordinated the Media personnel’s visit to Tsunami hit Nicobar Islands, told the author in an exclusive interview “the Administration did not have knowledge of Tsunamis in the region before December 2004” before this event.
So then there was no question of disseminating information from the Information and Publicity Department. The officialdom itself was overwhelmed. Adds Mathew: “I think the Administration was not prepared for such a calamity. It took them some time to put their act together. The Govt. of India created the unified relief command merging the civil and military assets which was the best decision.
In hindsight I think the relief and rescue operations undertaken by the Administration was probably one of the best ever in India. The local population was panicking and there were about 4000 tourists on that day in the Islands. They all wanted to go back as soon as possible. Plus the officers and employees who were on deputation on the Islands from other parts of India also wanted to get back.
So it was pretty chaotic initially” adds Rana Mathew.
On the day the Tsunami stuck, aiding a perplexed, überfordert Administration was Mathew: “I was called to office at about 9 AM by the Director and was asked to be in office as a review meeting was going on headed by the then Lt. Governor. After the meeting, the Lt. Governor went on an aerial tour of the Southern Islands which took maximum impact of the tsunami. After his tour, I was asked to issue the first press release on the status of loss of lives and destruction and relief actions planned. By 27th December, we had the entire global media on the Islands I was in the thick of managing them. We decided to have a daily evening briefing by the Lt. Governor and the commander in chief of the Joint Relief Command. Subsequently everyday evening we used to update the Press with the latest news on relief and rescue efforts”.
In Syria BBC’s support to rebels was only comparable to UK’s covert support to rebels – with chemical weapons - as it emerged in late July 2014. Embedded journalism – especially in wars, civil strife is challenged by one sided reporting at the risk of putting at stake credibility and even objectivity.
In this regard NDTV’s independent reporting of the ISIS crisis in Iraq in June – July 2014 as well as in the Gaza conflict of July – August 2014 are shining examples of independent coverage without vested interest / agenda driven reportage.
Another example of reporting in a man-made disaster is Syria, and the BBC’s reporting of the Arab Spring. I have immense regard and respect for the BBC and not a day goes without me listening to a BBC bulletin. But the BBC almost seemed to have a vested interest / political agenda in seeing democratic results of the Arab Spring.
BBC is as synonymous with Democracy as Tsunami is with disaster in Andaman Nicobar Islands! BBC’s reporting of the capture and killing of Libyan dictator Gaddafi was almost euphoric with a hitherto unknown BBC reporter lording over the corpse of the slain leader, posing to the cameras with a trophy – Gaddafi’s slain corpse as if to prove the BBC was right in supporting the Arab Spring. The BBC has failed to highlight the inadequacies / loopholes of legislative democracies. It accounted for Indian Media’s glee at a coalition government formation in the UK. Disaster reportage has a great potential for growth as it offers multiple avenues for specialisation. It also bears the responsibility of saving countless lives in the day and age of climate change induced hydrometeorological disasters. But that demands international competence, grip of the Media and extensive general knowledge / background knowledge, matrix of reliable cultivated sources; credibility is central; exposure to earth sciences is quintessential indeed. Writers have onerous responsibilities indeed. Let us study this by examples and case studies. We have read in avid detail the Media’s ignorance of the Tsunami and how it cost millions of people their lives and millions of dollars in economic terms. That learning and executing responsibility go hand in hand can be learnt from the following example:
(http://www.monitor.bbc.co.uk/) has gathered snippets of Indian Press coverage of the Pune landslide in end of July 2014. BBC Monitoring mentions the Times of India covering the Pune Landslide where the TOI reports that it was a man-made disaster in the making.
(http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Landslide-in-Maharashtra-kills-17-200-fearedtrapped/articleshow/39317452.cms) Well, instead of crying hoarse after the event if only the Media keeps an eye on breach of laws like say deforestation on the hill which caused the mudslide, there is every hope of being able to avoid / mitigate an imminent disaster. If journalism is pen aided activism, it can indeed make a positive difference.
If all News Media keeps a tab on breach of all laws, - which any conscientious Media professional must do – then automatically “recipes for disaster” can be lessened and hopefully avoided. The recipes for disaster will obviously reduce with robust media scrutiny. When for instance the Times of India reported that the Pune landslide was a man-made disaster caused by deforestation on the fragile hill slopes of the Western Ghats and triggered by the monsoons, it emerges – logically that this recipe for disaster – long years of deforestation - was ignored by the same media.
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