Media lessons from Afghanistan: Look at processes, not just events

 Broken News

Published in Newslaundry on August 19, 2021

Link: https://www.newslaundry.com/2021/08/19/media-lessons-from-afghanistan-look-at-processes-not-just-events

Images define events. They are the markers of memory of momentous events.

There is no question that of all the images from Afghanistan – following the takeover of Kabul by the Taliban and the capitulation of the US-backed Afghan government led by Ashraf Ghani – the one that will remain as a tragic reminder of what is unfolding is this video. It shows desperate Afghans running alongside a US Air Force plane at the Kabul airport. People are clinging to the wheels and anything they can hold.

Despite this, the plane takes off. Additional recordings reveal at least two bodies falling from the plane. The story of those two men was pieced together by Vijayta Lalwani of Scroll who managed to speak to the man in Kabul on whose roof the corpses fell.

Afghanistan has been, and continues to be, the dominant story in international media, and less so in Indian media. What is being called the "stunning" and unexpectedly quick takeover of the country by the Taliban, with practically no resistance from the established government or its US-trained and funded forces, has left experts and politicians asking questions as to how this happened.

As expected, the focus of much of the reporting is not only on the desperation of those who want to leave the country, particularly people who had worked for western governments and who fear reprisals, but also the future of women. For in the last two decades, the status of Afghan women has been one of the major justifications for the continued presence of the US and other forces in the country, given the severe restrictions the Taliban had imposed on them during its previous reign.

For the media, the story of Afghanistan, particularly over the last two decades after the US invasion and the removal of the previous Taliban government, holds out several lessons. These apply not only to how we cover conflict, and post-conflict, but also whether we listen to, and report the voices of those who do not automatically come forward to speak.

For instance, one of the questions being asked post the Taliban takeover is whether the coverage by the media, particularly international media, gave us an adequate understanding of the processes underway in a country of huge contrasts between rural and urban and a range of ethnicities. Academics who have studied Afghanistan closely point out that the Taliban was growing in its reach quietly in the last decade and that it was also changing in its composition from being largely Pashtun to a force that included many more of the multiple ethnicities that are part of their country.

Another question is whether the international media conveyed the growing disillusionment in the countryside with the incumbent Afghan government and the high levels of corruption. The New York Times, in an editorial titled "The tragedy of Afghanistan", writes, "The corruption was so rampant that many Afghans began to question whether their government or the Taliban was the greater evil." If that is so, was this reported? If it was reported, then why are people surprised that the Taliban were accepted without a fight?

Peter W Klein, executive director of the Global Reporting Centre, writes in the Columbia Journalism Review about how he thinks journalism failed in Afghanistan. Looking critically at conflict reporting, he writes, "Many of us who have reported on the war stepped into the trap reporters often fall into, entranced by the drama of battles and the spin of military leaders."

He writes of how "a giddy excitement burns through newsrooms when there’s talk of a military action. War has built-in drama, pathos, characters, heroes, villains, patriotism, action – not to mention gripping images, the kind civilians will never witness firsthand”. And yet, Klein writes, "What we often fail to do is step back and reflect on the meaning of the larger war, and its likely legacy. Patriotism plays a part, especially if a reporter is covering troops from their own country."

Only a detailed study of media coverage of Afghanistan over the last two decades can confirm this, but it would be fair to say the dominant focus in most reports by the international media was on the continuing conflict, and not necessarily on what was happening on the ground away from the capital city of Kabul.

Apart from the frequent clashes between the Taliban and Afghan forces that were reported, what else was the militant group up to in the last two decades? According to a report by the International Crisis Group, the Taliban had created a PR machine as far back as 2008 and the tools it used to spread the message included DVDs, pamphlets and cassettes as well as sermons in mosques. It is possible that because the media mostly focused on episodic clashes, such a strategy would have slipped under the radar.

The reason these questions have relevance not just for international media but also for us here is because reporting on conflicts within this country is also an important part of our job. Yet, we tend to report the event, and sometimes miss out on informing our readers and viewers about the context, or the processes that led to the conflict.

As an example, take Northeast India. The younger generation in the rest of India, referred to by people in the Northeast as the "mainland", would probably not be aware that for decades, several states in the region were dominated by different kinds of clashes -- between the Indian government and militant groups, between different ethnic groups within the states, and conflicts between the states. In contrast, today the region appears peaceful, but only on the surface. And when something bursts through that veneer of peace, people are surprised.

So when six Assamese policemen died in a clash on the border of Assam and Mizoram recently, most readers in the "mainland" would have been puzzled. Why should there be border wars between two Indian states? While the clashes were reported, only a handful of print newspapers and digital platforms took the trouble to explain the background to the clash and why the tension had persisted. As happens so often in these cases, the explanation was not simple. It included history but also issues concerning livelihoods, forests, clashing ethnicities, and politics.

Then, on August 15, the relatively peaceful and picturesque capital of Meghalaya, Shillong, was shaken up when masked men dressed in black drove around the city in a stolen vehicle brandishing guns and even threw petrol bombs at the chief minister's residence. They were protesting the alleged "encounter" death of a former militant in his home two days earlier. The city was placed under curfew. The state's home minister resigned. But who would have even known that there was militancy in Meghalaya?

In fact, as in every other conflict, there were reasons behind this sudden outburst in the relatively peaceful state of Meghalaya as this article points out. Yet, as several journalists from the Northeast have often complained, such processes are often ignored or cursorily reported by the mainstream media in India.

Both the Assam-Mizoram border clash and the developments in Shillong indicate that there are developments on the ground that we in the media largely ignore or fail to understand and report. Event-oriented and sporadic reporting of regions like the Northeast reinforces ignorance and misunderstanding about the people and their problems. As the Indian Express rightly pointed out in its editorial of August 19, "The Northeast has a long history of governance failures widening fault lines and leading to divisive ethnic mobilisations and violence...The administration has been swift and successful in containing the violence, but these localised events do point to insecurities on the ground. The government needs to recognise, and be sensitive to, the numerous fault lines that shape ethnic, regional and political relations in the region."

Given the nature of the Indian media, with its obsession with "breaking news" and the dominance of television news as well as social media, it is virtually impossible to negotiate the time and space required to do the kind of reporting that heeds the silent processes that precede spectacular events. Yet, the recent developments in Afghanistan should remind us of the importance of keeping an eye on processes, not just events.

Showing grisly visuals of Covid disaster is media’s job, projecting ‘positivity’ isn’t

 Broken News

Published in Newslaundry on April 29, 2021

Link: https://www.newslaundry.com/2021/04/29/showing-even-grisly-visuals-of-covid-disaster-is-medias-job-projecting-positivity-isnt

"I can't breathe". These words were immortalised by George Floyd, the African American who died after he was held down by a white police officer, Derek Chauvin, in Minneapolis, US in May 2020. Floyd's death after those nine minutes that Chauvin continued to press his knee on his neck is now history. It led to nationwide demonstrations and demands to end systemic racism in the US and change policing methods. On April 20, a court held Chauvin guilty of second and third degree murder.

In India, in this nightmarish fortnight since mid-April, hundreds of people have been saying these very words, "I can't breathe", as they lie outside hospitals, on stretchers, on the ground, in ambulances, in cars, and as their relatives desperately seek beds with oxygen. Others have died en route or at home, unable to reach a hospital or any medical help in time. Even in our worst nightmares, none of us could have imagined that a year after the Covid pandemic hit this country, we would be where we are today, a country that, as the Guardian put it, is "a living hell".

A great deal of credit goes to Indian journalists, especially those working for regional media outlets, for their persistence in recording the actual number of deaths due to Covid that are far in excess of those reported officially. Without that kind of incisive journalism, the government could have continued to delude Indians that things were really not that bad. Union health minister Harsh Vardhan continues to believe India is better off this year than last year. But the searing images of the cremation grounds and burial sites that we have seen these last days tell us the real story; they will continue to haunt us for many years to come.

Inevitably, because the epicentre of the current upsurge in Covid infections and fatalities is New Delhi, there has been more detailed coverage by the media of what is happening on the ground. It has also drawn the attention of the international media, much to the discomfort of the dispensation ruling this country that has wanted to project only the "positive" story from India.

Of course, supporters of the BJP and fawning followers of the prime minister continue to believe that all such reports, including those from outside India, are exaggerated, and are a ploy to undercut the image of India and its leader. They remain stubbornly blind to an essential part of a free, democratic country – a media that believes its right and its duty is to report the truth, however ugly it may be rather than amplify a "positive" or any other kind of narrative desired by the rulers.

Just as the exodus of migrant workers from India's cities last year could not be ignored by the media, including those who supported the government, this time too the evidence of death and disease is unavoidable. As a result, even the so-called "godi media" has now reluctantly begun to report some of the mayhem taking place around the country.

While the shortages of beds, oxygen, drugs and ambulances in our cities are being reported by mainstream media, there still remain huge gaps in coverage, particularly of rural India. The first few reports that are finally beginning to emerge, such as this one in Scroll and this in the BBC, suggest that India is sitting on a time bomb, that the problem of infections and deaths from Covid is far greater in this second wave than perhaps even the most dire predictions.

Reporting and images are the most significant aspects of the media at these times. Together they are able to convey realities that readers and viewers, currently locked up in their homes or localities, would not have been able to imagine.

But another side of the media is what is said editorially, the comment sections that analyse policy and performance of the government. These might not be the most read sections of newspapers, yet they perform an important function. For they are read by those who make policy and by readers looking for a context and an analysis of current events.

Here we see a stark difference between the comments carried by the international press and the Indian media. While there are critical voices in the Indian media by way of columnists who have long been known to be critics of prime minister Narendra Modi, the editorial stance of most newspapers remains nuanced and careful.

For instance, the Indian Express has been critical of this government's actions on a number of issues. Its editorial and opinion pages contain a mixture of pieces that oppose government policies and support them. But its unsigned edits are what reveal the stance of the paper. Here, even though there is criticism, it is interesting how the person who has concentrated power in his hands since 2014 and increasingly after re-election in 2019, namely Modi, is rarely named as responsible for the mess in which we find ourselves today.

On April 28, in a strong editorial, the Indian Express went as far as to state that "it took the case load to surge so completely out of control for the PM to pull himself away from the over-long election campaign”. But other than this reference, it blames the empowered committees set up by the government for their failure to meet and recommend action, the election commission for not limiting the campaigning for the state elections and the "Centre".

Other papers too have criticised the "government" or the "Centre" but almost never Modi or home minister Amit Shah by name. It is mystifying why that is so given that it has been apparent for several years now that nothing moves in the central government without the approval of these two men, that the prime minister's office has centralised power to such an extent that the different ministries cannot act on their own, and that the parliament also rubber stamps what is approved by this powerful duo.

Some columnists, however, have not hesitated, such as Ruchir Joshi in this trenchant piece in the Telegraph where he begins with these lines: "It’s best to state this simply: Narendra Modi needs to go. Amit Shah needs to go. Ajay Mohan Bisht aka Yogi Adityanath needs to go. The bunch of integrity-free incompetents Mr Modi has gathered around him as his ministers all need to go. In order for the country to launch the mammoth operation of recovery and repair needed for our survival, the departure of these people from positions of power needs to happen immediately — tomorrow is too late, yesterday would have been better."

The Telegraph has been, amongst English language newspapers, the strongest critic of the Modi regime. But regardless of the stance media houses might have taken in the past, surely it is more than evident that as compared to last year, when Modi personally took it upon himself to give out messages on the seriousness of the pandemic to the Indian public, this time around, not only has such messaging been meagre, ineffective and contradictory, but he has been absent during the most crucial period when the second wave was hitting its peak. Both he and Shah were campaigning for the Bengal election.

Given the way decisions are made in India, their absence at this time has proved costly, resulting in a crisis that has run away with itself. Hence not naming the people who should be held responsible contributes to the narrative that they are not really to blame, but that it is the "system". But these two are the system.

As for international coverage, the editorials have been scathing. Apart from this editorial in the Guardian, which clearly states that the buck stops with Modi, other international media platforms have also been critical. The Washington Post came down heavily on the Modi government over how it got Twitter to remove tweets that amplified the current crisis and wrote that "restricting the free flow of information doesn’t help public health; it only hurts”. An article in the Australian that held Modi responsible for what it called "a viral apocalypse" was countered by the Indian high commissioner there. And the New York Times has carried reports almost every day on the under-reporting of deaths and the chaos that prevails in Delhi and elsewhere.

Through this difficult time, it is easy to forget the brave journalists who have been out in the field, reporting, taking photographs that speak louder than many words, bringing out the pain, despair, kindness, heroism of ordinary people. As the Columbia Journalism Review notes, "Journalists in India aren’t just confronting a national health risk – the country’s Covid surge comes amid a period of deteriorating freedoms for the press, specifically."

Indian journalists have had to pay a price for reporting the truth, not just by way of threats from governments – with Uttar Pradesh chief minister Adityanath leading the charge against even routine reporting about shortages – but also by contracting the very disease they are writing about.

According to this crowdsourced list, at least 145 journalists have succumbed to Covid. Without their reporting, and the personal risks they took, we would not have known even half the horror story that is unfolding today.