10th march 2021
Online Event at Zoom
The Research Study on ‘Locating Gender Perspectives in COVID-19 Reportage in India: An Analysis of Print Media (March 2020 to September 2020)’ commissioned by Population First and prepared by the Network of Women in Media India (NWMI) was released on March 10th, 2021.
Dr AL Sharada, Director, Population First, mentioned the backdrop on which the research study was commissioned. “The images showing the plight of the poor, the migrants going without food, has stayed with me for long. While watching/reading news about the lockdown, we felt the need to analyse the news from a gender perspective. We wanted to find out how women are projected during the lockdown in the media. We wanted to show a mirror to the media, while expecting diverse reporting even during the pandemic,” she said. She also spoke about the Laadli Media Fellowships 2020.
The lead researchers Sameera Khan and Dr Sweta Singh spoke about the whole process of preparing the study, the main findings and recommendations. “We understand that the safety of journalists who were on the streets was important. We don’t want to undermine the efforts of the media. Yet, we wanted to see how many of the routine pandemic stories featured women or the trans people, which subjects/themes were they more feasible in, etc.,” Ms Khan said. Dr Singh said that though increasing domestic violence was reported in newspapers, there wasn’t much to cover the scope of the issue. “Also there wasn’t much about increasing child marriages,” she added.
This was followed by a panel discussion which was moderated by Dr AL Sharada, Director, Population First, with three editors: Sachin Kalbag (Hindustan Times, Mumbai), Sudhir Mishra (Navbharat Times, Lucknow), and Seemantini Gupta (Anandabazar Patrika, Kolkata) talking about the challenges of reporting in Covid times. The event was organised on Zoom, and live streamed on YouTube channel of Population First.
Mr Kalbag admitted that the report was an eye opener for him. “It was enlightening. It made me think what we have done at HT and where we can go from here,” he said. He added that they had decided in the beginning that science and data would be the focus of HT reporting. They would be our primary drivers, he said. We didn’t speak of different communities, of gender, of classes, of classes, he admitted.
He said it was difficult to work because the economy was not at its peak, jobs were lost, pages were reduced, etc. “There were logistical issues, we had to take care of safety of staff, emotional well being of the staff, etc. Media got washed in the current happenings,” he said.
Ms Gupta also said that the report was an eye opener for her. “I have miles to go,” she said. “There aren’t enough women in the newsroom which makes a difference. It becomes an existential issue, not a professional one. When I joined ABP 18 years ago, there were very few women on the desk. I remember how the senior males would ask about details of a rape case someone would be editing!” She recalled.
Mr Mishra however differed and said that the coverage was better than before the pandemic! He spoke of how his colleagues at NBT used various people as their sources to get information and that included a lot more women than earlier. But he admitted that women from lower economic classes didn’t have as much representation. “Work from home started in the beginning. It was a big learning. We had to protect our lives and continue to work,” he added.
Shobhana Boyle, UNFPA, gave her remarks at the end of the discussion. She said that the pandemic deepened gender issues and gender inequalities in the society. Media should enable the audience to know more, must draw attention to these issues. “We have to see how we can sustain the covid generated focus on gender in reporting.”
Click here to watch the full session: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46484-_0-c4