M E D I A

News Stories that Desperately Need to Be Told

THIS happens all over the world. Issues of poverty, peace making and building a just social and economic order find a little or no mention in the mainstream media. Every year, the U.N.'s Department of Public Information announces its list of the world's 10 such under-reported stories. These take backstage where superficial coverage of politics or murder and sex scandals take precedence.  Newspapers barons and editors often take the plea that these do not sell.

The list, released by the United Nations last fortnight, covers a wide range of stories -- from the plight of asylum seekers and refugees in ongoing conflicts to earthquake relief and post-war reconstruction -- that received little or no play in the world media.

Indian born Shashi Tharoor, U.N. under-secretary-general for communications and public information asserts and rightly so,” We all know that violence and conflict, and the threat thereof, always seem to make the headlines -- 'if it bleeds it leads', while 'good news is no news'," "We've tried over the years to show that development issues can make good stories too -- by pointing out the human interest aspects, and by helping demonstrate that such stories can be made 'readable', 'watchable' and interesting.

Tharoor sought readers’ full participation in order to make possible that the media does not neglect these stories. "We'll continue doing our best, but unless readers, viewers and listeners don't also let editors know that they'd like to see more of such stories (especially by offering overwhelming positive feedback when such stories do appear), it may remain difficult to persuade the media guardians that such material really has appeal to the audience,” Tharoor told journalists at the United Nation’s head quarters in New York. His initiative had begun in 2004.

Asked why the mainstream media and major international news agencies still continue to focus primarily on political issues and pay increasingly less attention to development-oriented issues, Tharoor flipped the question back to the reporter: "This is a question for journalists and editors to answer!"

According to Tharoor, the ten stories the world should hear more about include post-war reconstruction in Liberia; the new challenges faced by bona fide asylum seekers; the upcoming historic elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo; children caught in the ongoing conflict in Nepal; and the compounding effects of a drought threatening to undermine stability in war-devastated Somalia.

The list also singles out several other stories under-reported by the world media: the plight of millions of refugees living in limbo; the problems of relief efforts in the aftermath of the South Asian earthquake and tsunami; the alarming number of children in conflict with the law; the collaborative solutions that have prevented conflicts over scarce water resources; and renewed violence that threatens to undermine the peace process in Cote d'Ivoire.

Ernest Corea, a former newspaper editor in Sri Lanka and that country's one-time ambassador to the United States, says the media (of all varieties) in industrialised countries focus on issues such as Iraq, Iran, nuclear proliferation etc., because these are of primary interest to their readers, viewers or listeners. But even their coverage is mostly superficial. Is it not a fact that mainstreams American media played to the tune of the Bush Administration and made the public believe that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and that Saddam Hussein was responsible for the attacks on September 11, 2001?

These media are also influenced by a culture of conflict. A good fight, of any kind, therefore makes news -- sometimes even before the fight takes place."

Development-oriented issues are of primary interest to readers/listeners/viewers in developing countries.

Over the years, several international efforts to set up news agencies or news feature services focusing on developing countries -- including the Non-Aligned News Agency Pool, Gemini News Service and Depth News -- have failed to get off the ground.

Were they too political and less professional? Or were they too resource-poor to compete with Western giants?

"All of the above," said Tharoor. "There was a legitimate fear that such agencies would exist to peddle a governmental view, paid for with governmental money, as an alternative to 'unwelcome' free media, at a time when free media had legitimate questions about the message being put out by the governments concerned," he added.

"And of course, despite some governmental backing, they were woefully under-resourced, and what they produced could not compete credibly in the media marketplace," Tharoor said.

Corea had a different take on it. He said that all of the earlier efforts, though different from each other, were afflicted by a common problem: lack of support from developing country media.

"Gemini and Depth News were features services, not news agencies. Gemini features were highly professional products and its founder, Derek Ingram, tried valiantly to keep it going but he simply did not have a sufficient number of paying clients," Corea added. Inter Press Service, a credible news features service is respected, but many newspapers in the developing world do not buy this service while paying huge sums to other news services.

Early this year, Malaysia, in its capacity as chairman of the 114-member Non-Aligned Movement, embarked on the creation of a Non-Aligned News Network (NNN).  It is based on a model of open-exchange of information rather than control of information, and is open to postings from freelance journalists as well as national news-agency correspondents.

If that is so, said Tharoor, it will be seen as adding to the valuable sources of information rather than restricting them. "I look forward to seeing it in operation." Corea found: "Malaysia's initiative will have a good chance of success if (a) the new agency has strong financial support and (b) the agency is professionally run."

Let us see what really happens on that front. In India senior journalists have been trying to float one such service but till date success.

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