Sunday, October 14, 2007

Anatomy of a news report

The BBC ran a story headlined "Indian temple stampede kills 12" today, 14 Oct 2007; the URL is "http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7043762.stm". I believe it is instructive to examine it.

> Twelve people have been killed after a stampede
> at a hilltop Hindu temple in India, police said.

1. "Police said"? Which police, or who? The Gujarat Police's official spokesman, or the local officer in charge of the district, or a constable in Delhi who is the correspondent's acquaintance, and owns a pocket radio on which he heard about the tragedy.

> A further eight people were injured at the
> religious festival at a popular temple of
> Hindu goddess Mahakali, in the Western
> state of Gujarat.

2. Inappropriate choice of article: "a religious festival", and not "the religious festival".

3. Unnecessary capitalization: "western", instead of "Western".

4. Was this also said by the police? Or is this something the writer personally knows to be true?

> Thousands of people reportedly crowded a
> narrow path leading to the temple when
> the stampede occurred.

5. Interesting - who reported this? Still the same "police", or someone else now?

> Some worshippers are thought to have been
> pushed off the bridge while others were trampled.

6. Who is doing the thinking here?

7. Some are thought to be pushed off the bridge, but what of those who were trampled? Are they also "thought" to have been trampled, or is the writer now conveying a statement personally known to be true? One wonders how the writer comes by this personal knowledge - or is it indeed yet another source? If the latter, then this increases the potential number of distinct sources to five.

> The BBC South Asia's correspondent says
> there are accounts that thousands of
> people climbing up to the temple and
> thousands more descending after completing
> their visit were all trying to use one
> narrow bridge across a gorge.

8. Finally, a named source! Well, almost named. And this worthy correspondent speaks of "accounts"! Accounts by those present at the scene? Or did they see a news report on a local TV channel? Or read it on another news website?

9. Is the figure mentioned here reliable? Who is responsible for its truth value? The BBC? Well, they don't claim it is true - merely that it's what their South Asia correspondent says. Is he or she responsible? No, that's what he or she has been told by an unnamed person or persons, or read in an unnamed publication, or heard over an unnamed news channel.

10. The language leads one to believe that there is a single BBC correspondent for all of south Asia; using geography, one wonders if they have one person covering around 1.5 billion people. This is surely an interesting job. One more for China, a third for the rest of Asia, 85 more for Jerusalem, four each in Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan and perhaps that makes a total of hundred for Asia!

> There was a crush and then a
> stampede, he says.

11. Ah, it is a he! Now we know a little more - the unnamed correspondent is a man. Does he continue to relay an "account" he picked up somewhere, or is this statement his personal truth?

> The temple is situated in Panchmahal district,
> nearly 150km (90 miles) south of Ahmadabad,
> the main city of western Gujarat state.

12. This is probably the "most" true statement in the entire article. Perhaps they would have done well to be consistent, and add "according to the high-school atlas he bought two years ago".

13. Prefer a space between "150" and "km", i.e. "150 km" and not "150km".

14. "main city of western Gujarat state" - the last word is puzzling. Is Ahmadabad the main city of western Gujarat, or is Ahamadabad the main city of the western state of Gujarat?

15. The BBC choice of accompanying visual is as inane as ever: a map of the region! One wonders what the green bit above Delhi is meant to represent. Either an addition to the state of Gujarat, hundreds of miles away, has taken place, known only to the BBC, or the school-atlas the correspondent bought wasn't a very good buy.

Thursday, October 04, 2007

The BBC and the thin edge of the wedge

I had written a letter to the BBC and the Press Council about this a few months back; curious that I overlooked publishing it here. The Press Council responded that they did not think any ethical border had been crossed, and the BBC inexplicably said that they definitely mind their grammar, and thanked me for the letter. Sigh.


Dear Ma'am/Sir,

I write today to bring to your attention a most vile practice the media in general, and the BBC in this instance, thinks it acceptable to stoop to.

Here are the two articles I refer to below:

a) "Scheme to aid duped Indian brides" published on the Web on 23 February 2007
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/6389365.stm)

b) "India re-assesses menstrual forms" published on the Web on 12 April 2007.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/6547909.stm)

The first one seemed to me to be a sample of shoddy journalism, and I wrote to the BBC via their web-form (it drew no response), mentioning in particular that:

> 1. It had two pictures, the first of which showed the backs of vaguely Indian looking unidentified women at an unstated venue, not engaged in any particular activity, apart from the act of standing. How this picture was germane to the article is beyond me.

Some weeks later, I see that they used the same picture in a subsequent article, which had nothing to do with brides, duped or otherwise, titled "India re-assesses menstrual forms" with the caption "Female civil servants say they are being discriminated against".

The last time these three Indian-looking women showed us their backs, the caption read "The women will be entitled to financial assistance".

This picture is cropped a little in the second article, and so one of the ladies (all of whom have gone from being a duped bride to a discriminated female civil servant) is missing.

From this, I see that the BBC does not care whether or not a picture in an article has anything to do with the article itself. This is disturbing, and it is long past the thin edge of the wedge. What's next? A picture of a ugly brute thrashing a child, captioned "Muslim families protest against domestic violence" - the journalist probably will get away with it, even if the man is not Muslim, or the pair are professional actors from a Hollywood movie, assuming what was intended was a vilification of the Muslim male or middle-eastern/Asian family values, all at the expense of a little thing called integrity. Even if Muslim males are actually harsh to their wives and children, I would still insist that a "fake" picture not be used.
Not every "news story" needs a picture. If the BBC does not have one relevant to the story, they may not take a random one from their probably immense database.

Laxity of integrity is dangerous, and must not be resorted to, even in cases which appear to be harmless. For instance, when one writes about "World leaders discuss African poverty", one can put in a random image of a small, scantily clad, black skinned African child with haunting eyes titling it "Many children in Africa live dangerously below the poverty line"; this picture could have been taken fifteen years ago, for there are no distinguishing marks in the background. However, journalism is not art. Art can (and often strives to) be representational. Journalism is about specific incidents, with specific people, and entertainment and base gratification ought not to be part of its brief.

Quite apart from this, is another issue this abuse of visual impact raises. Does the BBC seek out certain stereotypes and attempt to propagate them, out of boredom or interest? In this case, we see vaguely brown skinned women, wearing a certain sort of dress. Indian citizens have various racial types and modes of dress, both reflecting often enough upon their religion and language. I see no reason why these women should be shown with their backs to the camera. Why backs, and not more distinguishable or prettier parts of their anatomy? If one accompanies adverse articles on Venezuela with images of drug lords and their gunned-down victims, or writes flattering articles showing grand horses and fine boulevards, one achieves rather different results. Pair an article on China with a peasant wearing a hat, and it reinforces China's poverty and backwardness. A picture can be a less exact vehicle of truth than ten hundred words. There should be no word limit for stating the truth.

If their column-inches prerogative denies a comprehensive view, then that's where I expect a native sense of fair play to drive the paring-down process. If a murder is committed, one can devise the headline as "Murder at Kensington last night", or "Murderer was black", or "Murder: attacker was drunk Chelsea supporter", or "Blonde mother of two killed", or "Cheating woman slain", or "Born again Christian charged with homicide", all of which might be perfectly true, but all of which are prevarications, not very subtly aiming to lead the reader to a partisan view. How about "Human being kills human being", for every human life ought to be treated as equally valuable in the main, irrespective of alcohol level in blood (of the victim or the accused), race, religion, clothes, immigrant status, apparent motive et cetera. It is quite possible that it was a hate crime, or one of passion, or just a horrible case of mistaken identity, but this is subordinate to the basic fact (that one killed another). All extenuating and exacerbating factors might indeed have a part to play in the overall scheme of things but they may scarcely be neatly assigned into a cause-and-effect flow diagram, which is what a sensational headline usually seeks to do.

I could ramble on (if such a mild word be permitted to the anguish, indignation and anger I experience), for though I have long given up television and newspaper subscription, I occasionally do look at journalism today, and care enough to write about it. If you believe I have naively misunderstood the matter, please feel free to so inform me. Perhaps I should think of becoming a Style Consultant, the consideration of style not encroaching upon a sincere desire for the whole truth, or as much of it be known.

My original letter (sent via the BBC's web-form, as I mention earlier) to the first article drew no answer from the BBC, hence I write to you. As a matter of form, I intend to also send the BBC a written complaint, but I'm not certain I shall get any response this time either.

Wishing us all years of of ethical journalism, founded on fairness and a respect for truth, I remain,
Sincerely yours,
S
Lost tribes and lost values

Spotted on the BBC website: the following story http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7027254.stm , titled 'Unknown' Peru Amazon tribe seen, published on 04 Oct 07 had an image of the sun setting over a river.

Was this picture taken in Peru? Was it close to where the tribe was spotted?

The picture was titled "Logging is forcing tribes deeper into the jungle"; even with the most generous of interpretations, I cannot say that the picture has anything to do with the caption, or the story.

Does the BBC feel compelled to put a picture in every single story irrespective of whether or not it has any relevance? (this is not the first time that an entirely irrelevant picture has been thus abused)

We should worry about infecting the tribals with diseases, and also about the lack of journalistic ethics in our own society.