Same formats, few deep-dives: The media misses the women safety news peg again

Broken News

Published in Newslaundry on September 5, 2024

Rape, sexual assault, harassment, women’s safety – these words have found their way to the front pages of many newspapers in the last several weeks. 

The trigger was not just the August 9 brutal rape and murder of a junior doctor at the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata. Even as the outrage and demonstrations continued in Kolkata, a path-breaking report on women working in a very different environment from that of a medical college reminded us of the challenges and dangers facing women everywhere. 

On August 19, the Justice K Hema Committee report on the Malayalam film industry, finally released after a four-year battle through courts, gives us insights into what was known in whispers but is now substantiated by hard facts and testimonies by women in the industry. It paints a dire picture of the working environment of women in this industry, where they are sexually targeted by men at every level, as actresses, as assistant directors, as make-up artists or as technicians.  The report also confirms the reasons that women do not speak up as they fear losing their jobs and see no way to get justice.

The impact of the report is still being felt, not just in Kerala but across south India. Since its release, women in the Telugu, Tamil and Kannada film industry are also demanding a similar inquiry. 

 

The impact of the report is unfolding even as I write this. Within a fortnight, several prominent men from the Malayalam film industry have resigned from their film association – the Association of Malayalam Movie Artists or AMMA. Other actors have issued strong denials after some of the women who spoke to the committee followed up by filing police complaints against specific men. 

Predictably, given the nature of the accusations, and the prominence of the men involved, the media’s response, by and large, has been to report everything stated by these men in the Malayalam film industry, including their vociferous denials as well as the charges against them.

If the reporting by the media remains at this level, the storm following the release of the report could well die down after a while. Fortunately, at least some media platforms have gone beyond the usual “he said she said” style of reporting and used the peg of the report to dive deeper into the sickness that afflicts the film world.

Here, we must appreciate the consistent reporting by an independent media platform which has reported on stories of sexual assault and harassment in the Malayalam industry for many years. The News Minute has followed the story from 2017, when a prominent actor, Dileep, was charged with having organised the kidnapping and rape of a well-known woman actor. Today, if you want details about the past, and the contents of the Hema Committee report as well as the ongoing fallout, you need look no further than The News Minute.

Apart from The News Minute, at least two mainstream English newspapers have given prominence to the report and its contents, written strong editorials, and done some follow-up stories – Indian Express and The Hindu. 

In its editorial of August 26, The Hindu argued that the Hema Committee report could be a catalyst that could encourage many more women to speak out. Indian Express placed the report within the context of sexual assaults against women over time, and rightly pointed out that the road ahead is “rutted with deep power asymmetries”. 

Apart from the editorial, Indian Express has carried several follow-up stories on the Malayalam film industry such as this one by Nikhila Henry on make-up artists.  Many of these women are faced with the hard choice of either speaking up and complaining about harassment or quitting. If they complain, they are singled out and denied work. Despite years of experience, women make-up artists have had to struggle to get recognition even from their union. 

 

Another story in Indian Express brings out the caste angle, where women from the marginalised castes face a double challenge, of their gender and their caste. 

What we cannot overlook while discussing the Hema Committee report and its impact on the film industry is that it would never have come about had it not been for the relentless campaign by a group called the Women in Cinema Collective. Comprising actors, directors, editors and others in the film industry, the WCC petitioned the Kerala state government to set up an inquiry into the working conditions of women in the industry. 

Even after the government responded and set up the committee, it took WCC more than four years through courts to finally get a redacted version of the Hema Committee report released. And as Beena Paul, the convenor of the WCC points out in this interview to Scroll, the story is not yet over. “What the report has achieved is to point out that the film industry is an unorganised, almost feudal kind of structure.”

As far as the media is concerned, this report challenges us to dig deeper into the reality of not just the film industry, but all professions where women are employed. The Kolkata rape has already led to an inquiry into the conditions under which women in medicine work – doctors, nurses and others. What about other professions, including the media?

Also, as the Hema Committee report has exposed, the problem is not restricted to the physical work conditions, and the solution does not lie in just fixing these – better toilets, surveillance cameras, transport after night shifts etc. 

The challenge is much deeper. It is the systemic misogyny that prevails in many industries which is compounded by the absence of effective redressal avenues. The Hema Committee report has broken, at least for the moment, the silence that has enveloped the treatment of women in many professions in India.

 

Beyond the outrage: Media coverage of Kolkata rape-murder case has many blind spots

Broken News

Published in Newslaundry on August 22, 2024

Independence Day this year will be remembered not for the predictable statements made by politicians but for the images of thousands of women and men who came out on the streets of Kolkata to “Reclaim the Night”. They were protesting about the brutal rape and murder of a 31-year-old junior doctor at the RG Kar Hospital and Medical College on August 9.

Even as the story behind the brutal crime continues to unravel, with the focus now on the college administration and its responsibility for what happened, the protests that have spread beyond Kolkata remind us, yet again, about the pervasive violence that Indian women encounter in the workplace. 

Although the outrage over the rape and murder has received wide media coverage and would have contributed to the Supreme Court stepping in and taking suo motu cognisance of it, there are several questions about how media handles sexual assaults that must be asked.

Predictably, proximity and relevance to a media market continue to determine what sexual crimes get detailed coverage. Rapes and assaults in cities, where the media and its urban “market” are based, determine the extent of coverage. We have seen this in the past, and this holds true today. 

An illustration is the perfunctory reporting on the rape and murder of a nurse working at a private hospital in Uttarakhand. She was assaulted and killed on July 30, but the crime was known only after her body was found on August 8. Till today, we know nothing more about this crime.  

When politics is added to the brew, coverage by the media is assured. And this is precisely what has happened in Kolkata, where parties opposing Mamata Banerjee’s state government have used it as an opportunity to attack her and demand her resignation. This politicisation of a horrendous sexual crime detracts from what I consider to be the central issue: the continuing vulnerability of women to sexual assault despite changes in the law. 

Some in the media have compared the Kolkata rape and the widespread outrage and countrywide protests that have followed in its wake to the December 2012 gang-rape of a young woman in Delhi. Then too, there were demonstrations across India with demands for justice. Then too, opposition parties joined the protestors. And then too, a woman politician, Sheila Dixit of the Congress party, who was the Chief Minister of Delhi, was the focus of public anger. 

In 2012, the print media and television channels played an important role in amplifying the voices of the protestors. As a result, the central government, helmed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, was compelled to set up a committee, headed by Justice JS Verma, to look again at the laws related to rape and suggest changes. 

 

The report was ready in a month, and by 2013, the UPA government passed the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013. The new law incorporated some, but not all, of the suggestions made by the Verma Committee and added the death penalty for rape, something the Verma Committee had opposed. The government also allocated funds to set up one-stop centres that would come to the aid of victims of sexual crimes.

Despite this, and the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013, Kolkata is an ugly reminder that little has changed. 

In 2012, the media followed the law that requires us not to publish the name or give any hints of the identity of the rape victim or survivor. To get around this, several pseudonyms were chosen. In the end, Nirbhaya stuck, and that is the name that the government and the media continue to use when referring to the victim of the 2012 Delhi gang-rape. 

That rule continues to be followed by established media. But unlike 2012, when print and electronic dominated the mediascape, today we face a new reality: the internet and social media. It is now so pervasive that it is gradually becoming the dominant source of news for a growing number of Indians with smartphones. 

To know what’s happening, people do not depend on established media anymore.

The impact of this change is evident when something like the Kolkata rape incident takes place. Within hours, the social media space was overwhelmed with rumour and speculation. Despite the law that prohibits the identity of the victim being revealed, the young doctor’s name and photograph were being liberally circulated. What is worse, within days, her photograph reportedly also appeared on porn websites with details of the assault. 

In these circumstances, the task of sifting fact from fiction becomes even more difficult for journalists reporting on this case. The obfuscation by the hospital authorities has added additional hurdles in obtaining verified information. And the conflicting narratives put out by the warring political groups have only added to the confusion. 

Meanwhile, social media is swirling with rumours and conspiracy theories that are rapidly disseminated. One such rumour was that the mob that attacked the protestors and damaged the premises of the hospital on the night of August 15 also destroyed evidence of the rape and murder. While the mob attack was frightening, with videos clearly showing the absence of any resistance from the local police, the damage done did not include the room where the rape and murder took place as this report by AltNews clarifies. This is just one illustration of the problem that journalists reporting on this must face every day. 

The real tragedy of the shifting focus of media reporting, which is now on the hospital authorities and their inaction, is that the central issue of the safety of women professionals at the workplace has become almost incidental. The protestors have not forgotten and continue to highlight it. But the media’s gaze has shifted. 

For instance, there have been hardly any reports on the conditions under which women doctors work in government hospitals across India. Or, for that matter, women in any other profession. The stories would be similar – lack of basic facilities, the absence of redressal methods to deal with sexual harassment, the lack of safety, particularly when they are required to work at night, among others.  

An exception was the Hindustan Times, where reporters spoke to junior doctors in five locations across the country. The picture that emerged was familiar. Over the years, there have been several instances, such as during the Covid pandemic, for instance, when the work conditions of junior doctors came into focus. 

The BBC also reported on their conditions and reminded us of the case of Aruna Shanbaug, a nurse at Mumbai’s KEM hospital, who was raped and almost strangled with a bicycle chain by a contract worker in 1973. She survived, but only just. She was left in a vegetative state, and nothing could be done as Indian law does not permit active euthanasia. After 42 years, she died on May 18, 2015. 

We also read little or nothing to make readers understand that the justice system continues to fail women despite changes in the law initiated after the 2012 Delhi gang-rape. 

In 2012, because of the huge outcry and public pressure, the case was fast tracked, and the six men (including a minor) were apprehended and charged. By September 2013, the five adults were convicted and given the death sentence. The minor was given a three-year sentence in a juvenile correctional facility. Finally, on March 20, 2020, after they had exhausted all their avenues of appeal, four of the convicts were hanged. One had died in police custody in 2013. 

Today, there are literally thousands of cases that have not moved forward. Jyoti Yadav of Print has followed the 1992 gang-rape of a minor in Ajmer and reported on how the survivor has had to struggle to pursue the case. Finally, in August this year, after 32 years, the six men charged with the crime were convicted and sentenced to life.

Or take the more recent case of the Dalit woman who was gang-raped at Hathras in Uttar Pradesh four years ago and died thereafter. The story had drawn media attention, especially the way she was hastily cremated despite her family’s objections. A rare follow-up is this report by Nidhi Suresh in Newslaundry that illustrates the endless struggle of the family to get justice.

A noticeable difference visible in print media since August 9 is the way reports on rapes are now given greater prominence. These incidents would have been reported, but probably as minor stories, that in media jargon are called “crime briefs”. In the last few weeks, many such reports are more visible – a gang-rape here, a nurse raped in a hospital, minors sexually assaulted by school staff, among others. But the trend is unlikely to continue before other “breaking news” demands more space and time.  

One of the most insightful videos after the Kolkata rape case is this interview with lawyer Vrinda Grover in The News Minute, where she gives us a much-needed perspective on the criminal justice system and its failure. She reminds us that it is not the absence of law that affects women, but the way it is implemented, or rather not implemented. It is the justice system that has continued to fail all women, and particularly marginalised women who have no voice.