Message-ID: <v01510104ace4c9fda3cd@[205.246.26.16]> Date: Fri, 1 Dec 1995 10:19:09 -0500 From: Frank Baitman <mailto:fbaitman@MARS.SUPERLINK.NET> Subject: Re: Developing countries' communications systems To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L <mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU>
>On Thu, 30 Nov 1995, Michael Kay wrote:
>
>> On Thu, 30 Nov 1995, Hema Abeygunaward wrote:
>>
>> > On Wed, 29 Nov 1995, Frank Baitman wrote
>> >
>> > > It might indeed be very cool. But there's going to be an intersting
>> > > cultural bridge to cross. Having read many of these papers while
>>overseas,
>> > > they're not the NY Times! Nor are they even USA Today. The news in such
>> > > papers is dreadfully local (and I don't mean that in an
>>imperialistic way),
>> > > incomprehensible due to the excessive use of acronyms (as in India), and
>> > > Yellow. Journalistic standards vary greatly from what we are
>>accustomed to
>> > > in the U.S. Indeed, there are vast differences with Britain or even
>>Canada.
>> > > At the very least, it'll be an experience!
>> > >
>> > > Frank Baitman
>> > > Cranbury, New Jersey
>> >
>> > This will be an unique opportunity to get a sense of other perspectives
>> > people do have, who live in different parts of the world. Making ourselves
>> > more sensitive to,[at least to glance at their daily papers]
>>understand other
>> > stories.
>> >
>> > I guess most of us are now ready to go beyond the journalistic standards
>> > we are accustomed to in North Ameriaca in the search for knowledge.
>> >
>> > Hema
>> >
>> I totally agree with you Hema. Frank's comments seem stange to me. It is
>> large part the local news from Kenya, Kathmandu or Kandy that I cant get
>> from any other source. In the global village the gossip is lost by the
>> soundproofing that the NY Times or Le Monde insure. Surely the success of
>> CNN is more than just the temporal advantage elctronic media maintain
>> over print media. So, for instance, when a car bomb goes off in Colombo,
>> Cali, or Cairo-
>> it effects us, the international community,-and a deeper
>> understanding of the events of the world, what caused them and what the
>> reverberations will be is crucial. CNN or the NY Times just doesnt go
>> deep enough-nor are the contibuting journalists and editors able to
>> report frankly and openly. Anyone who thinks the US media is open and
>> free and fair should spend time with a US foreign reporter. I am not
>> saying the pentagon has a black pen to censore information-there is no
>> conspiracy-except during times like the gulf war. US reporters overseas
>> (esp. in the developing world) will be penalized for contributing to
>> articles critical to local governments. Any US reporter concentrating on
>> say human rights abuses by the Sri Lankan military in its campaign on the
>> Jaffna penninsula would have a hard time maintaining access to Sri Lankan
>> government officials, etc. etc. and may even loose their visa. It is a
>> nefarious power relationship that leads to self-censorship-in the best of
>> cases. To often US reporters dont speak the local language or understand
>> the context under which the news event is taking place-if they bother to
>> leave the local Hilton for anything at all.
>> Local angles to both local events
>> and internaltional events enable individuals to compare and contrast
>> information provided in ones home paper-and thereby give the depth needed
>> for individuals to decide what is REALLY going on.
>> So far I have recieved a dozen or so responses for www sites of
>> english language papers of the world. I will continue to search for
>> sites and will send out a list of such locations to all. Anyone with
>> knowledge of such
>> sites, or any other lists, chat rooms, news groups etc. that might relate
>> to this little project, please forward me the information.
>> Thanks
>> Michael Kay
>> Davis, CA>
mailto:>mdkay@ucdavis.eduMichael:
I think you might have misunderstood where I was heading. My experience with news in developing nations is that it is difficult to understand. It is full of acronyms, names, titles, etc. that are unfamiliar to a Westerner. Gaining access to this information might be fascinating, at first, but I'm not sure that people will want to learn what is necessary to understand what is being said.
On the issue of journalistic freedom, I concur with your assessment of Western reporters. I remember back in 1984 when I was in Sri Lanka and the civil war erupted. A curfew was put in place, and Westerners were requested to remain in their hotels. My hotel (in Colombo) was full of Western reporters who flew in to cover the excitement. They dutifully filed their stories from the hotel without ever leaving the hotel. In other words, they re-reported the news provided them by the Government. We ended up having some nice discussions over beer, but I have never trusted such reporting since 1984.
But that doesn't increase my respect for local reporting. Where the Government doesn't want something to be said, it rarely is. While local reporters can't have their visas revoked, they can be sent to jail. If they are publishing for an underground press, the news might not be *controlled* but I hardly think that those news sources will be regulars on the WWW! At least in the forseeable future.
My thinking is that Western journalists are only somewhat better off than locals in reporting stories, if they care to do it right. But the bottom line is that when John Doe in Nebraska logs on to a Web server in Calcutta, there is little doubt that what he reads will be very difficult to understand. If you've never been to Calcutta, reading about it in National Geographic or the New York Times will be much easier to comprehend that reading the Hindustan Times.
That doesn't make it better or worse. There is no easy answer here. But I think we're working with that perennial issue: filtering information. Without filters, information is rarely comprehensible by the layman. With filters, the expert decides what the layman ought to see, and how he ought to think about it.
Frank Baitman Cranbury, New Jersey