Early this year, at the peak of the Bird Flu scare, a panel
of doctors in Lahore held a conference on the effects of
the disease and how it differed from other similar ailments.
A general information session regarding the pandemic was
followed by a technical analysis of the disease cells, their
life cycle and their modes of transmission to humans --
a very pertinent discussion for an ill-informed public.
Now consider that it was
the task of the media to report this discussion, heavy
on medical jargon, to the public and the options were
basically two.
One -- a reporter covering
the beat should have waited patiently and should have, after
the lecture, gone up to the good doctor and requested: "Now,
sir, kindly tell me in a few sentences all that stuff you
talked about -- in English or Urdu!"
Two -- the editor should
have sent a health and science reporter to cover the event.
A section of media researchers
believes that under Pakistan's circumstances the first
option is basically the only one -- a trend that has prevailed
over the first half of the last decade. The other section
makes the argument for reporters to have professional
backgrounds in the beats they cover.
The latter option presents
challenges on several fronts. The practice in Pakistan's
print journalism has been such that actual reporting has
largely been left to novices. Street-reporting till the
early 1990s was restricted to newspersons receiving a
hands-on-training on the job and gradually developing
the skill set needed for covering events of a particular
beat.
"It all depended on
luck. If you were assigned the task of covering education,
for example, you would soon become a 'specialist' in the
subject thanks to the time that you spent covering education
issues. You developed sources and leads and with a continuous
link with the people of a certain subject you also started
understanding the issues facing that particular sector,"
explains a senior reporter who is now leading a reporting
team for a Lahore-based newspaper.
This policy runs the risk
of developing uninitiated experts with only a superficial
understandings of issues. "Young journalists are
exposed to the beat they are supposed to without themselves
having any sound knowledge of the issues they were expected
to write about. Their impressionable minds are often given
a tilt according to the vested interests of certain individuals.
It is vital for any young journalist starting out to read
up on the beat that he is allotted, trying to understand
its history and the stakes of all the players concerned,"
says Professor Jehangir who teaches journalism at a private
institute in Lahore.
But there is another side
to this argument. It is one thing to send a fresh graduate
from a mass communication department to cover the budget
speech in Parliament, but it is a whole new ball game
to send a BA-in-economics to do the same. The practice
in the first instance is almost a criminal offence in
journalism. A reporter who flashes only his new diploma
in Mass Communication is no doubt a journalist in his
own right, but sending him to cover the budget speech
is plunging him way over his head -- a practice that has
been the norm rather than the exception.
As for the economist covering
the budget, there is the risk that his writing or narration
comes out laced with financial jargon -- as we often labour
through in the business sections of the newspaper and
torturously hear on TV. It beats the whole purpose of
simplicity that journalism strives to meet -- a class
VIII pupil should understand the bulk of the newspaper.
Which is why we have another
and a higher level to this argument: get the professionals
and train them as journalists, or get journalists and
train them as professionals.
The recent trend in the
country has seen a bit of both. An increasing number of
newspapers are looking to convert their reporters into
'specialists' -- either through sticking with their beats
for longer durations or by actually training them in their
respective fields. An increasing number of workshops and
training opportunities are now available to an average
journalist than there were say ten years from now. "This
is a healthy trend. These 'specialists' can raise the
bar in quality to encourage other reporters to try and
keep it up. But this elusive drive for a raised standard
has fallen short of actually improving the quality of
newspaper reporting or even editing. You come across newsreports
failing to differentiate the Petitioner from the Defendant
in a coverage of a court case more regularly than before,"
says Professor Jehangir.
On the other hand, a number
of professionals have also raised their heads from their
work-desks to embrace journalism and bring a more 'learned'
view point to the readers. This trend is particularly
true for opinion pieces and reviews.
Specialists in art, sports,
business, music, fashion and other such fields are now
indispensable. Reviewing works and performances are now
only relevant if done by peers. "No one is any longer
interested in what a journalist thinks of how a certain
dancer dances or how a certain cricketer plays. People
prefer an ex-cricketer, preferably of some integrity,
to comment on their team's performance," says Professor
Jehangir.
The report on the doctors'
conference was still done by reporters. "Doctors
say the Bird Flu virus targets humans and is expected
to wipe out humans across the continent," blared
one Urdu-language newspaper. If this doesn't make enough
of a case for specialised mediapersons, what will? Maybe
this headline in another local newspaper will: "Influenza
on the rampage".
