Reporting Disaster
Disasters are not what the media likes to report. They have to be at least the scale of Aila, if not tsunami, to be adequately covered by the esteemed dailies.
Many areas of India are reeling under recurrent drought. Flash floods annually destroy life and property. But these are never breaking news, not sensational ever to be so. Is that not a reflection of our own sensibilities?
There is also a pattern in what the media reports about the disasters, i.e., those worthy enough for more analysis than a small box insertion. A few items on the scale of destruction, a few criticism of the inadequacies in governmental response and if we are very lucky then an analysis by an expert about what went wrong.
While major disasters have had the media support in terms of collecting and organizing relief funds, the regular ones impacting the lives of the poor need their attention too. It is by sending regular alerts and directing analysis about the impact of these that journalism can be more responsible to the people. But then, are we interested?
-Ipsita Basu
Many areas of India are reeling under recurrent drought. Flash floods annually destroy life and property. But these are never breaking news, not sensational ever to be so. Is that not a reflection of our own sensibilities?
There is also a pattern in what the media reports about the disasters, i.e., those worthy enough for more analysis than a small box insertion. A few items on the scale of destruction, a few criticism of the inadequacies in governmental response and if we are very lucky then an analysis by an expert about what went wrong.
While major disasters have had the media support in terms of collecting and organizing relief funds, the regular ones impacting the lives of the poor need their attention too. It is by sending regular alerts and directing analysis about the impact of these that journalism can be more responsible to the people. But then, are we interested?
-Ipsita Basu
Tags: disaster
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Sally McNeal on -
With the explosion in news/media outlets and sources over the past few decades, there has been an obvious shift in the entire industry to a very competitive environment where everyone is more focused on driving page views, viewers, clicks etc., rather than actual stories. With that shift the quality of news coverage in general has gone down significantly in my opinion. Not just with disaster stories (although I agree fully with you on that) but even with general stories, you see major news outlets spending more and more time reporting on the new celebrity happenings cause it drives people to their sites than on what they should actually be focused on. It's sad in a way...but I guess they are businesses and like any business they sell what sells. What does that say about the general population?
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Permalink Reply by Ipsita Sapra on
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Various media surveys indicate that people love sensational news, celebrity gossips, etc. Naturally, it makes more business sense to report about such things. The need for media ethics cannot be overstated. As you have pointed out- we as a society tend to be indifferent to more 'real' news. However if media is reduced to yet another medium of entertainment, it is a sad commentary indeed on the society in general.
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