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Journalism of Courage
Two weeks ago, amid the swirl of tsunami devastation, The Indian Express carried a piece pointing out apparent inconsistencies in BBC8217;s and CNN8217;s editorial positions 8216;8216;Can CNN, BBC get away with this corpse show in 8216;sensitive8217; Manhattan?8217;8217; December 30, 8217;04.
The flagrant display of bodies, of parents grieving over dead children, the intrusion into private moments: it was all so different from the standards the channels had set themselves on 9/11.
This response surprised us and, in fact, seemed to be missing the argument. It was nobody8217;s case that the global media had not done a good job in conveying news of the tsunami tragedy. The piece was only critical of one aspect of the coverage of two specific channels 8212; the only two international news networks accessible in India. It was certainly not a catch-all attack on 8216;8216;Western media8217;8217;
Indeed, nobody here saw it as a 8216;8216;West-East8217;8217;, 8216;8216;white-coloured8217;8217;, 8216;8216;them and us8217;8217; conflict. Those were dead, 8217;70s-era cliches. This was, if anything, a journalistic 8216;8216;best practices8217;8217; issue.
Our interlocutors heard us out politely and then went back to their radio programmes and websites to repeat The Indian Express had been 8216;8216;critical of Western media8217;8217;. You can beat anything, but not preconceived notions!
While a sideshow to the actual human calamity of December 26, this episode holds a window to both the potentialities and pitfalls of globalisation. The earthquake-tsunami disaster was a world event, not merely because it wrecked coastlines from Sumatra to Somalia, east Asia to east Africa. It was also the first such natural disaster in the time of globalisation, of 24/7 news channels, of the Internet.
In a sense, it indicated how we are likely to see, perceive and react to future tragedies of this nature. Thanks to, if nothing else, communication technology, the ambit of our emotions can never be the same. The world has logged on to Globalisation 3.0; for lack of a better term, the Globalisation of Compassion.
Till a month ago, there were two clearly identifiable strands to globalisation. The first was economic 8212; world trade, outsourcing, offshoring. The second was cultural 8212; reflected in smart tags such as 8216;8216;McDonaldisation8217;8217; or fears in, say, France of Hollywood swamping local cultural products.
These did lead to concerns and emotions. Sometimes, they brought people to the streets 8212; but always in negative terms. Globalisation8217;s postmodern causes 8212; anti-WTO protests, anti-GM food campaigns and, when all else failed, anti-Americanism 8212; were instinctually anti-globalisation.
The tsunami, if you pardon the unfortunate pun, marked a watershed. It defined the globalisation of concerns in a positive sense. Consider stray examples.
Dell Computers withdrew an advertisement made for American audiences and featuring the word 8216;8216;tsunami8217;8217;. It was rendered insensitive, given American media reports of the Asian devastation. Perhaps there was a bigger corporate decision too. Malaysia 8212; marginally hurt by the tsunami 8212; is home to one of Dell8217;s biggest production facilities.
Dell, like many other American corporations, was acting not with some sense of noblesse oblige. For it, many of the affected countries 8212; from Indonesia to Thailand to India 8212; were markets, business associates, partners in that grand project called globalisation.
Saturation coverage by the media made it imperative for Italian Serie A football teams to line up in silence in memory of the dead. Candlelight vigils on the northern coast of Canada, fund-raising across America and Europe: these are collateral benefits of globalisation. A disaster 25 years ago would simply not have evoked this empathy.
Finally, move to the Internet. The media story of the tsunami is in the blogosphere. tsunamihelp.blogspot.com has had a million and a half hits in a fortnight, acting, as an insider puts it, as a 8216;8216;giant clearing house of information8217;8217;. It points you towards where you could channel help, has reunited families. In times of disaster, the town hall in ancient Athens must have played a similar role.
While other blogs, too, have done their bit, it is noteworthy tsunamihelp is a blog coming out of Asia, in a sub-culture where 5,000 hits is a success and the most-read blogs are usually written in Boston, Berkeley or, occasionally, wartime Baghdad.
For years, third world politicians droned on about a 8216;8216;New World Information Order8217;8217;. They even set up such bogus contrivances as NAMEDIA. Well, the new information order is upon us, and it8217;s come courtesy technology, globalisation and, oh that terrible thing, capitalism.
Yet globalisation has another side to it. Capitalism8217;s basic urge is to chase lower prices. As such, jobs move from America to low-wage India; or Pizza Hut, which buys raw goods centrally and optimises economies of scale, easily undercuts a snobbish, standalone pizzeria.
Did the tsunami suggest a media analogue? Television channels do have to carry news of tragedy to viewers who may find the places being described unfamiliar. Yet is there no way to convey calamity other than resorting to what is, bluntly, the cut-price method: rows and rows of bodies? If the message is LDC, must the messenger be LCD? Less developed country meets lowest common denominator.
Perhaps Chaplin had it right in Modern Times. Perhaps the inexorable logic of globalisation pushes it to fungible processes, automation thinking. In a larger reckoning, is global appeal naturally inimical to sophistication? The answer may be as overwhelming as the tsunami.
