Stalked by coronavirus, hounded by the state, losing jobs: Is nobody looking out for Indian journalists?

Broken News

Link: https://www.newslaundry.com/2020/04/23/stalked-by-coronavirus-hounded-by-the-state-losing-jobs-is-nobody-looking-out-for-indian-journalists

The post-pandemic media scene is grim, with fewer jobs and shrinking spaces to report without fear.

When journalists and journalism become the news, we need to be concerned.

In the course of the last 72 hours, three journalists in Kashmir have been slapped with cases, two under the draconian Unlawful Activities Prevention Act for posts on social media and the other for reporting "factually incorrect" news.

While such cases and intimidation by the police and the security forces are a daily hazard that journalists in Kashmir have had to contend with for decades, as this report in The Caravan documents, the FIR against one of the few women journalists in Kashmir is surely a first.

Masrat Zahra is an exceptionally talented young photojournalist whose work has appeared in Al Jazeera, The Washington Post, and elsewhere. She has broken new ground in a state where journalism has been almost exclusively a male domain. Today, apart from Zahra, there are several women journalists who stand out for their courage and for the quality of their work.

Charged under the UAPA for Facebook posts from 2008 and 2018, as reported by Scroll, and identified only as a "Facebook user" and not a journalist, the FIR against her is bizarre in more ways than one. Why she has been singled out, and that too for posts of photographs that have been published, will unravel in the days to come.

What is concerning, however, is the message that this sends out. By slapping cases on two experienced journalists apart from Zahra – Peerzada Ashiq from The Hindu and author and journalist Gowhar Geelani – are the powers-that-be in Kashmir, who take directions directly from New Delhi, reminding Kashmiri journalists that nothing has changed for them, even during this Covid-19 pandemic? That their freedom extends only as far as the rope that is held by the authorities, and that it can be yanked at any time without notice? Given this, journalists in mainland India need to respect, applaud and support their counterparts in Kashmir for continuing to report under these conditions.

The cases against Zahra, Ashiq and Geelani have reminded us of the ugly reality of Kashmir, a land of unfreedoms ruled by people who claim they are committed to democracy. There have been statements of support from the Editors Guild of India, Committee to Protect Journalists, Network of Women in Media, India, and others. Whether these will shift Delhi's determination to keep the media in Kashmir on a tight leash remains to be seen.

Elsewhere, journalists have been in the news for another reason, getting infected by Covid-19 in the line of duty.  When 53 out of 167 TV journalists in Mumbai tested positive for the virus, alarm bells rang in the journalist community. A pandemic cannot be reported working from home, or even from an office. It requires feet on the ground. And this is precisely what these journalists, many of them fairly young, and the cameramen from television channels were doing. But without proper advice on precautionary measures, directions that ought to have come from the seniors in their organisations, and the necessary equipment to stay safe, it was inevitable that some of them would pick up the infection.

What is tragic is the feeling amongst many of them that they lack support from their organisations.  When one of the young journalists tested positive and informed her senior in the office, the message she got back was: “Take care and don’t step out for a few days,” according to this report in The Wire.

Since the Mumbai testing of media professionals, other municipalities and governments, such as Delhi, have also made these provisions. But that is not good enough. Journalists need to know before they step out at such times the risks they face, and be informed of the support that will be available to them.

Indian media organisations generally lack any established protocols when their reporters are sent out in situations that could be hazardous for them, be it war, internal conflict, riots, or pandemics. Journalists are expected to wing it with no assurance that if they are affected physically, or psychologically, their organisations will step in.

An experienced reporter with a magazine wrote recently on social media, "While there is nothing new in the callousness shown by media houses for the well being of their reporters, this time, the consequences are going to be deadly. Despite my initial restlessness at not being allowed to go out to report, I am just so glad that my organisation stopped us from putting our lives at risk. We continue to write stories from our homes without compromising the quality or our health. Because let's face it: our organisations don't provide us with any safety gear, whether it be a war zone or health emergency." She adds, "Every time I have gone into unsafe terrain, it is another reporter or civil society contact who has had my back."

This should not be the case. If there's anything salutary that can emerge from this crisis, as far as the media is concerned, it ought to be the institution of safety protocols for journalists in all media organisations.

Organisations like the BBC, for instance, have safety protocols for journalists in dangerous situations and there is also mandatory training before a person is sent out. In the current crisis, according to a BBC staffer in London (who asked not to be named), "The intranet site has a Coronavirus help site prominently displayed and we have a whole Health and Safety and Risk management team who are involved."  There is also a doctor on call.

While people have been given the option of working from home, many producers have to go to the office because they need to use technical equipment. "The producers, previously not entitled to take taxis into work...have been allowed to use taxis (which the company is paying for) to and from work and they have also secured free parking around the building in central London so that those who want to can drive. This keeps us safe from the crowds on trains and the underground...this is one of the best things they have done."

None of this is rocket science and is the very minimum that media houses can do for their employees who literally risk their lives to step out to record the news as it happens.

In the current economic crisis, given the precarious financial state of most media houses, perhaps asking even for this much is wishful thinking. In my last column, I noted the salary cuts that some journalists were being asked to take and predicted that job losses would follow. This has already begun to happen, with a slew of layoffs even in bigger media houses. The longer the pandemic persists, the more chances of job losses. This is happening not just in India, but also in other countries around the world, including Britain as this report by the BBC points out.

Meanwhile, journalism as we have known it will suffer. If the journalists who are eager and keen to go out and report are not assured that their interests will be looked after, or even that their jobs are secure, why would they take a chance? The problem for most journalists today is that quitting what they have in hand is not an option as there are few alternatives available. Freelancing remains precarious. It is poorly paid, and payments are slow to come if and when they do.

So in a post-Covid future, what do we envisage? On the one hand, the state has tasted the power to make the media fall in line, either through direct intimidation as experienced by Kashmiri journalists for decades, or by putting pressure on owners to fall in line as we have seen in these last years in India.

India has fallen two places in the 2020 World Press Freedom Index, from 140 to 142 out of 180 countries.  Perhaps, this means little to the ordinary reader or viewer. But it will become evident in the content they consume. As far as journalists are concerned, the post-Covid media scene is grim, with fewer jobs and shrinking spaces to report without fear.

The other pandemic of domestic violence

My column in Mathrubhumi (translated in Malayalam)

Even as COVID-19 spreads worldwide with no signs of stopping just yet, there is another pandemic that is riding on its back-- that of domestic violence.

The nation-wide lockdown here in India and in many parts of the world has led to a spurt in incidents of domestic violence, virtually doubling in many places. Even this does not tell the whole story because we know the violence and abuse women experience in their own homes, in spaces that are supposed to be 'safe', are rarely reported.  The official figures represent a very small percentage of the total number. 

Also, we would do well to remember, again, that violence within the home, and by persons known to the survivor constitutes the majority of recorded incidents of violence against women, much more than sexual assault and rape.

So imagine then what a woman who is subject to such abuse, and who even in normal times is afraid to report it because she fears she will be thrown out of her home by her abuser, must be feeling being locked in with that man 24/7 for days on end?

If in normal times these men abuse their wives, think of how much more violent they must be during this time when they have no work, little money and are forced to sit indoors? The easiest targets for their frustration are their wives, the women who must continue to take care of the house, the children, the elders, and even their violent husbands.

In India, according to the National Commission for Women (NCW), the help calls from women abused in their homes has doubled -- from 116 between March 2-8 to 257 between March 23-April 1, after the national lockdown.

India is not unique in this.  Just as the virus has hit most countries, rich and poor, so has the pandemic of domestic violence.  Reports from Britain, France, the United States and many other countries show a sharp increase in such violence against women. 

So what can be done?  In many countries, including India, women are not just afraid to report because they will end up homeless, but also have no faith in the justice system even if they do report. As a result, the majority of women stay silent and just accept such brutal treatment as their fate.

But they need not if governments recognised the seriousness of this problem and stepped in to help.

In France, for instance, where women have campaigned long and hard for measures to deal with domestic violence, the government has offered to pay for hotel rooms for women who want to escape the violence. They have devised a novel way to encourage women to report. As most women can legitimately step out during a lockdown to go to buy groceries or go to a chemist, facilities are now available in these shops where women can report violence.

In India, the one state that seems to have moved firmly on this is Kerala. It is heartening that the Chief Minister has taken a personal interest and issued posters encouraging women to report through the 181 helpline.

However, as in France, there also need to be shelters where women can be safe, from their abusers, and from the virus. A helpline is not enough. They also need counseling and assistance to file cases if needed. This is not asking for too much at this time.  The final toll of this global pandemic will be much greater if we fail to recognise the cost of this parallel pandemic on the lives of millions of women.

Coronavirus is a crisis, and a chance at redemption, for the India media as well

Broken News

https://www.newslaundry.com/amp/story/2020%2F04%2F08%2Fcoronavirus-is-also-a-crisis-for-indian-media-and-a-chance-at-redemption?__twitter_impression=true

It’s in the nation’s interest for the media to remain free and questioning during this pandemic. But can cash-strapped organisations resist the pressure to toe the government’s line.

When we look back on this time of disease and death, there are some images that will remain etched in our consciousness, and our consciences. 

For irrespective of the age, class, caste or creed of persons infected by Covid-19, or killed by it, there is one reality that we as a country have been forced to confront. The reality of the invisible millions, the men and women who literally build and keep our cities running, but who are forgotten when a crisis hits us all.

Even the government does not remember them. How else can one explain the March 24 announcement of a 21-day lockdown giving four hour’s notice with no planning strategy in place for these millions who live on the margins?

Despite the prime minister’s advice to media owners, proffered a day before his dramatic announcement, that they should run “positive stories” at this time of the epidemic, the Indian media did tell the migrant story – vividly through photographs, and poignantly through the heartbreaking stories of thousands of men, women and children setting out to walk hundreds of kilometres to their distant homes because there was no source of sustenance in the cities where they had slaved for years.

These are the images we must continue to remember: of the father carrying his child on his shoulders, while another feeds his newborn baby even as he walks. Pictures of calloused feet, of women and children walking alongside the men, carrying small bags with all their worldly belongings. Or of this heartbreaking report about Ranveer Singh, 38, who collapsed and died even as he was speaking to his family.

This exodus from our cities represents over one third of the population, based on the 2011 census data, as this article in the Indian Express explains. That is, one in every three persons in this country is a migrant, either interstate or intrastate. Also 29 percent of the population of our big cities consists of people in the so-called informal sector living on daily wages, exactly the kind of people who picked up their belongings and fled once the lockdown was announced.

What these facts and images ought to have taught us, as Sanjay Srivastava presciently observed, is that “informality is not a staging post on the way to formality. It is a persistent condition of life with no indications of a dramatic change.”

Srivastava also points out something that we in the media ought to heed: “The odd thing about an epidemic is that though it might be global in nature, it is impossible to understand its impact without paying close attention to the local conditions within which it circulates.”

It is India’s local conditions, this persistent state of informality, in which millions are permanently caught that will determine the ultimate nature of this pandemic, how and where it spreads, and who it strikes down and kills.

Given the nature of news, the migrant story has virtually disappeared from our news pages.  But it is still the biggest story that will need to be followed up. This will not be easy, given the spread. Yet, we need to know how many of them made it, did they carry the infection with them and are district level health facilities able to cope if the infection spreads to rural areas. This story in Scroll gives some idea of the challenge we are yet to face. 

We also need to know how the migrants who were held back at state borders are surviving; if they will march on once the lockdown is lifted; when and if they will return to the cities.

Which brings me to the other crisis that the media is confronting. Such stories require investment in newsgathering. Media houses need resources to send out teams to distant places to investigate this reality. But the economic slowdown has also impacted the finances of the media. With cutbacks in advertising as companies cope with the economic downturn, news media has been hit, especially print, which depends heavily on advertising.

Already, the Indian Express has announced wage cuts and it is more than likely that others will follow. It is possible that multi-edition newspapers might have to close some editions. It is almost certain that journalists will face not just salary cuts, but also job cuts.

While running newspapers, and even digital platforms, with a small, lean staff is feasible given the nature of technology today, it’s not conducive for doing the kind of follow-up stories that are needed to record the full impact of this pandemic on all sections of the country. And if the media does not record it at this time, it will not be known. The people who are invisible, who came into focus for a moment during this crisis, will once again fade into anonymity.

There have been a couple of other worrying developments in the last weeks that concern the media. One is the direct message to media owners to focus on “positive” stories. This is nothing short of telling them not to investigate and report the government’s shortcomings in dealing with this crisis, stories that will be seen by those at the helm as “negative”.  No right-minded editor would accept this given that the job of the media is to dig out the truth.

But as I pointed out in my last column, it is striking how little we read about the failures of the government and how much more we see uncritical reporting of all that is given to us. There are always exceptions, and these media houses and particularly digital news platforms have continued to report incisively. But taken as a whole, the image of the Indian media, as this article in the New York Times notes, is of one that echoes the government’s tune.

What better illustration of this than the manner in which Covid-19 was forgotten and the incipient as well as blatant Islamophobia that is prevalent in this country came out in full view on television channels once a link was established between the spread of the virus and a Tablighi Jamaat event in Delhi.

Even those media houses that did not want to feed this anti-Muslim fervour indirectly fell into it by headlining every case that could be traced back to the Tablighi Jamaat meeting. Few took the trouble to explain, as this article in Scroll clearly does, that the sudden rise in positive cases was also because there was much more focused testing over this period, something that had not been done earlier. In fact, many experts have continued to emphasise that the spread in India is probably much wider than is being reported because not enough people are being tested.

Also, given that Indian Muslims have already felt under siege for months with the threat of the National Register of Citizens hanging over their heads, this drumming up of the anti-Muslim rhetoric by the media has ratcheted up their fears to the point they are suspicious of anyone seeking information during this health crisis, as this report in the Huff Post vividly documents.

When India will emerge from this pandemic is not yet known. What is known is that the most marginalised will suffer the most. As many of those migrants making their weary journey home said, even if they don’t die of the disease, they will die of hunger.

What is also clear is that an economically beleaguered media is even more susceptible to pressure, especially from a government that has used every means possible to make it toe the line in so-called national interest. At times of crisis, it is in fact in the nation’s interest that the media remains free, questioning, and unafraid.

This crisis has exposed much about our society

My column for Mathrubhumi (translated in Malayalam)

Appeared on Sunday March 29, 2020

https://english.mathrubhumi.com/features/social-issues/covid-19-measures-should-also-acknowledge-mumbai-s-poor-1.4673545

 She lies on the pavement, every part of her body covered with a thin sheet. I pass by her every day.  This is Uma, a child of the street, who will turn 18 next month.  At the age of 16 she gave birth to a little girl, who will turn two next month. 

As our world staggers with the reality of a deadly virus that is crossing borders and regions, spare a thought for those like Uma and her child.  She has no walls that can provide her social isolation.  She has no water with which to wash her hands. And she has no confidence to approach a health provider for fear she will be turned away.  And this, in India's richest city, Mumbai.

The crisis the world, and India, face with the steady spread of Covid-19, has exposed much about our societies.  In India, above all it has exposed the callousness of the entitled and the weakness of our public health system.

The fact that the virus came to India because those with the money to travel abroad brought it in has still not sunk in.  Every day you read stories of people who have travelled refusing to accept that they should voluntarily stay at home and not infect others, that they should get tested when required, and that they should accept isolation if tested positive.

Instead, what we witness is many who are simply not following this protocol.  As a result, even though so far we are being told that there is no community spread of the virus, do we really know?  Already in Mumbai, a domestic help tested positive because she works in a house where the owner, who had just returned from the US, tested positive.  Multiply such instances and you get the picture.

And then, the women who work as domestics live in over-crowded urban settlements, where dozens occupy tiny spaces, where water is scarce and sanitation inadequate.  The idea of  "social isolation" in such a place is unimaginable. 

How long before the infection spreads, if it has not already done so?

I ask because even as we concentrate on limiting the spread of infection, and increasing our capacity to test for Covid-19, we also need to address the unchanging reality like the living conditions of the urban poor that make the spread of infection virtually inevitable.

The most vulnerable are those without any shelter, like Uma.  She is part of a family of waste pickers.  Every day, they sort dry waste.  They touch paper, cardboard, plastic and other forms of waste that would have been touched by many hands, including those with the infection.  I haven't heard of any plan to keep these citizens of our cities safe from infection.

Instead, middle class housing societies are talking of ways to shut the poor out, in the belief that they are the ones who carry the infection. Typically, they refuse to accept that it is their class that has contributed to the spread of the infection. Not just accidentally because they happened to be in the countries that had already been stung by Covid-19.  But by refusing to take the necessary precautions, such as social isolation and testing to ensure that no one else gets it.

If there is anything I wish at this time of death and disease it is that those with wealth realise that if we have a system that works for the poor, it will work for everyone.  On the other hand, no privatised health system can prevent the spread of a deadly virus because it will automatically exclude those who are the most vulnerable, people like Uma.