Media Conference with Journalists in the Kannada Media

Date: 9-10 August 2008

Venue: Fireflies Inter-cultural Centre, Bangalore

Organized by: Pipal Tree & the International Journalists Alliance

Report:

The Journalists Alliance organized an intensive two-day conference of journalists working in the Kannada language media. Twenty journalists participated in the conference held on 9^th and 10^th August 2008. The meeting was extremely vibrant and interactive, prompting several of them to state that this was the first meeting of its kind to be held for Kannada journalists.

Siddhartha’s welcome speech outlined the objectives of the International Journalists Alliance and stressed the goal of getting journalists to do in-depth social and environmental reporting.

The following are the problems the journalists felt they faced in reaching that goal:

• The media establishment and the reading public are going through a kind of ‘poverty fatigue’. Apart from the more dramatic issues related to farmers’ suicides, other matters related to rural and urban poverty, and human right-abuses are not seen as sufficiently newsworthy.
• Sometimes the issues are reported rather emotionally, for example the suicides of farmers. The emotional nature of the reporting excludes the analysis needed to understand the issues related to the collapse of agriculture in many areas.
• Ten years ago some of the media institutions had unions which defended the interests of journalists and other staff. But today all these unions have broken up, and the journalists are largely defenseless. A favourite way of harassing journalists is to shift them from one district to another, creating enormous hardship to them and their families.
• A part of the responsibility of journalists is the insistence by the management to report events and stories that have no social relevance whatever. The majority of journalists have resigned themselves to spend a part of their precious time reporting gossip on film actors, other sensational events, etc., which can increase circulation.
• The growing importance of TV journalism has made the competition for the print media very difficult.  Many people who watch television expect the newspapers to be exciting, with reports of scandals and juicy stories. News analysis and reporting on the problems of poverty are almost considered boring.
• When reporting on technical subjects like coal-based power plants, or genetically modified cultivation, like growing B.T.cotton, rural journalists find it difficult to understand many of the issues. If this meeting led to a network of journalists in the region, perhaps a way could be found to providing the technical information needed.
• Sometimes the issues have two sides to them, making it difficult to take a stand for or against. Again the difficulty to take a stand is because the journalists lack information and political understanding.

K.P. Suresha talked about the media becoming a commercial venture and the pressure of financial profitability that caters to the demands of the newly created consumerist class.

Nagesh Hegde talked about the need for more environmental consciousness among journalists.

Parusharam Kalal said that in the context of globalization, powerful economic forces were at work that prevented the media from reporting fearlessly and objectively.

B.L. Sridar had a different problem with the situation of farmers committing suicide in North Karnataka.  The media was able to offer criticism about the situation, but not a single journalist was able to offer concrete solutions.

The journalists also reflected on their role in dealing with inter-religious conflict and violence.  Many journalists are themselves confused and influenced by narrow religious views rather than secular ones Also, the rise of religious extremism and identity politics would distract the nation from the real issues of poverty, social justice and climate change.

Mujafer Assadi spoke about the new economy and displacement.  While this is a major problem both in the state and the country, very few well-writing articles are available that investigated the topic.

The concluding session led to the formation of the Kannada Journalists Alliance where each participant volunteered to work on a specific issue with reference to his or her local district.