Monday, June 12, 2006
Sainath and the Journalism of Courage
Palagummi Sainath has won the Judges' prize (newspaper category) in the 2005 Harry Chapin Media Awards, New York.
The award is given for journalistic writing that "that focuses on the causes of hunger and poverty," including "work on economic inequality and insecurity, unemployment, homelessness, domestic and international policies and their reform, community empowerment, sustainable development, food production".
As Amartya Sen and others have pointed out, there is a serious issue confronting honest newspapers in developing countries today, and that is the 'incentive structure' associated with reporting of poverty and hunger. Farmer suicides in Vidharbha are nowhere near as 'sexy' as the Rahul Mahajan saga. Exploding newspaper competition and rising costs of newsprint, both ongoing phenomena in India, only exacerbate the pressure on publishing houses to focus on 'news that sells'.
What place then, for warrior-journalists who are on the formidable 'hunger beat'? As Sainath himself has argued, "The dominant feature of the media scene is the growing disconnect between mass media and mass reality. The duty of the journalist is to overturn that paradox and help bring about an informed state among people. That happens by showing up the contradictions. By not merely speaking the truth to power, but by speaking the truth about power. And by challenging unjust power itself, if need be".
In a country like India, with possibly more poor people than anywhere else in the world, nothing, not even the possibility of financial losses, ought to divert responsible newspapers from incisively reporting and editorializing poverty, hunger, unemployment and discrimination. If they are so diverted, something of the very soul of substantive democracy will die.
The award is given for journalistic writing that "that focuses on the causes of hunger and poverty," including "work on economic inequality and insecurity, unemployment, homelessness, domestic and international policies and their reform, community empowerment, sustainable development, food production".
As Amartya Sen and others have pointed out, there is a serious issue confronting honest newspapers in developing countries today, and that is the 'incentive structure' associated with reporting of poverty and hunger. Farmer suicides in Vidharbha are nowhere near as 'sexy' as the Rahul Mahajan saga. Exploding newspaper competition and rising costs of newsprint, both ongoing phenomena in India, only exacerbate the pressure on publishing houses to focus on 'news that sells'.
What place then, for warrior-journalists who are on the formidable 'hunger beat'? As Sainath himself has argued, "The dominant feature of the media scene is the growing disconnect between mass media and mass reality. The duty of the journalist is to overturn that paradox and help bring about an informed state among people. That happens by showing up the contradictions. By not merely speaking the truth to power, but by speaking the truth about power. And by challenging unjust power itself, if need be".
In a country like India, with possibly more poor people than anywhere else in the world, nothing, not even the possibility of financial losses, ought to divert responsible newspapers from incisively reporting and editorializing poverty, hunger, unemployment and discrimination. If they are so diverted, something of the very soul of substantive democracy will die.
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