Role of development journalist

1. Development Journalism-
Concept, Challenges and Opportunities
Dr. Puja Mahesh
rani.puja@gmail.com

2. Development Journalism-origin
• The idea of “development journalism” was conceived
in the 1960s at the Press Foundation of Asia.
• Dissatisfaction with the dominance of Western news
and communication ideals in developing countries.
• Need of reflection on new type of journalism
specifically designed to function in the cultural and
political structures.

3. Development Journalism-origin
• Development journalism is derived from Development
Communication.
• Earlier, this was practiced by extension agricultural
workers in India and the Philippines. They used to
disseminate information on new agricultural methods
to farmers during a period of land reforms. Indonesia
and Malaysia followed suit.
• Today, development journalism is not confined to
agriculture alone: it has become a compendium of
activities.

4. Development Journalism- concept
• Jo Ellen Fair, Professor of JMC, conceptualizes 'development
journalism' as reporting that relates to the primary, secondary
and tertiary needs of a country’s population.
• According to Johan Galtung and Richard Vincent the
journalist’s task is to unravel the threads of the development
drama that take place both in the centre and on the periphery,
pick them out of the intricate web of relationships, hold them
up in the sunlight, and demonstrate the connections to
readers, listeners and viewers.
• In essence, therefore, development journalism must give
individuals a voice to articulate alternative visions of society.

5. Role of Development Journalist
• Journalists have to be the ears and eyes of
society and the voices of the voiceless through
bottom-up reporting.
• “Watchdog” role, reportages on development
issues that bring attention to, issues that are
overlooked or under-represented .
But do they really contribute to solutions?

6. Role of Development Journalist
• Development journalism is the use of all
journalistic skills to report development
processes in an interesting fashion.
• Their news must not be 'saleable commodity like
any other' but must be 'responsible' news.
• Their news must serve as a stimulus to national
pride and unity because, for the young nations,
such pride and unity are very important for
development to occur.

7. Role of Development Journalist
“ A good journalist must not only describe, but
delve, debunk and decode. International
development is complex, slow, non-
prescriptive and uncertain. It requires the
reporter to appreciate and explore the
interplay of diverse realms such as health,
education, environment, governance, local
and national economics, and culture," says
Ribbans.

8. Role of Development Journalist
• Development journalists believe that conventional journalism
is ineffective in helping a nation, especially rural areas,
develop.
• The background of development journalism clearly
demonstrates that unlike conventional journalism which only
aims at reporting the news, while development journalism
has a mission to fulfil.
• The call from Third World countries for a New World
Information and Communication Order, which reached its
height in 1970s, gave further impetus to the promotion of
development journalism.
• Thus, journalists become organizers, mobilizers and players
rather than merely observers. Tired of negativism, journalists
opt for activism.

9. Role of Development Journalist
• Development journalists have to understand the development
process.
• Development journalists talk with the people in the communities,
find out their concerns and report them.
• They invite or even force politicians to address these concerns if
necessary. The journalists are promoters of a healthy community life.
• Have to be competent and well-informed enough to cover the
complicated processes of national development or of community
reintegration.
• Development journalists have to understand complex economic,
technical, scientific and sociological information and translate and
interpret it to their generally lay audiences (readers, listeners or
viewers, depending on the media).

10. Role of Development Journalist
• Human experience. Journalists should write about people as
subjects, actors and agents rather than as objects or victims
with 'needs deficits'.
• Democratic Dimension. Using the media to make people
visible, both as objects and as subjects, becomes one task.
Using it to expose the system through investigative reporting
is the second and using the media to expose media that fail to
do their job, is the third.
• Report development constructively rather than as problem.eg
Success stories
• Allow the 'people' to talk. This means giving them a voice.
Discuss the meaning of development to generate 'an
enormous range of visions' as well as 'how-to' insights.

11. Role of Development Journalist
• Development Journalist frame and angle the stories
towards constructive social change and transformation.
• Development journalist’s primary task is to inform, to
interpret, to put the facts in a human context, and to
draw informed conclusions.
• Development journalist reflects on the question of how
the series of stories written over a period could in time
make a difference to prevailing realities.

12. Role of Media in Development
Journalism
Three types of relations:
(a) Long-term, as mutually dependent organisms: Media as
partners
(b) Short-lived or opportunist: Media as resource
(c) Conflicting: Media as critics/watchdogs
Through their news coverage – ideally fair, accurate, inclusive –
they turn the spotlight on those that are “out of reach, out of
sight, out of mind”. In other words, they maximize people’s space
in the media – something crucial in the empowerment process
and contribute to ensuring greater participation and
transparency—two concepts that are central to successful poverty
reduction and development approaches.

13. Characteristics of Development Journalism
• Participant observation of events and issues
• Sensitive assessment of readers and community needs
and interests
• Commitment of significant time and newsroom
resources to research-based stories
• Engagement with the grassroots while being highly
aware of opposing views
• Awareness of the impact of the story on the
development of grassroots resources
• Contextual, cognitive and experiential knowledge of the
issues reported.

14. Traits of a Development Journalist
• Keen empathy with the grassroots
• Capacity to inspire trust in sources across cultures, age,
education, gender, race and class
• Broad research and intercultural communication skills
• Informed conviction on social issues
• Commitment to the social, cultural and political
development of the grassroots
• Sensitivity to multi-dimensional perspectives of issues
• Flexible sense of news values and judgment of what is
newsworthy.

15. Challenges for Development Journalist
1. The digital age has made it difficult to defining the role
of the professional journalist vis-à-vis the citizen
journalists (the receiver who is at the same time the
producer of news).
2. Mediated global challenges such as climate change,
cultural and resource conflict among others are
paramount to elites believes; the interest which the
mass media serve and depend for economic survival.
3. Ownership pattern is a pertinent issue.
4. Lack of modern equipment to reach those who lack the
wherewithal to contact the massmedia and make news
is a serious problem. The Marxist ideologists have
submitted that he who owns the means of production
also controls the media.

16. Challenges for Development Journalist
Odugberi and Norri have said development journalism
often faces obstacles in the form of:
1. low professional journalistic standards
2. a lack of financial resources
3. technical skills
4. fragmented legal frameworks
5. an undemocratic political system
6. risk of patronage- the media may not be able to break
free from its political constraints and may operate
according to clientelism or be captured by private
interests.

17. Challenges for Development Journalist
7. The need to beat deadlines is also a major constraint
to development journalism.
8. Commercialization of news hampers development
journalism.
9. News releases are tailored to further the interest of
the public figure that issued it so instead of our
media becoming development journalism it has
become “envelopment” journalism.

18. Working Attitudes of a Development Journalist
• My articles should instigate and influence policies
• I see my profession as a tool of social change and
development
• I am not a dispassionate observer of events. I
participate in community development projects,
interact and live with the people so that I can
understand the process of change as they
experience it
• I can stimulate social and economic changes in
the life of the grassroots in a direction as seen
through their eyes, not mine

19. The Synergy Mission
Baba Balbir Singh Seechewal, popularly known as the “ecological
saint” in Punjab -community development project- cleaning up of the
Kali Bein rivulet.
Villagers of Muktranwala consider the Bein river as their lifeline and
an important source of water for agriculture, it had been a picture of
woeful neglect.
The Punjab Government’s Drainage Department and the Punjab State
Pollution Control Board did little to clear the blockages created by a
bund along the Beas which, in turn, blocked the source of the Bein.
Newspapers such as The Tribune and The Indian Express gave wide
coverage to Baba Seechewal’s ecological crusade. Time magazine
featured him as one of the ‘heroes of the environment’ (Singh, 2008)

20. Conventional Journalism Developmental Journalism
Formation of public opinion is vertical-
from dominant mainstream group to
grassroots.
Moulding of public opinion is horizontal-
actual views of grassroots and those
affected by policies are given priority.
Highlights individual achievements and
accomplishments.
Highlights “community empowerment” as
source of self-reliant community.
Follows prescribed and tested rules and
procedures in journalism.
Tries out new methods and procedures,
takes risks - so has more ways of gathering
information and its ultimate narratives.
Right to information without hindrance or
censorship. Free press.
Aware of conflict between reporter’s and
state’s needs to promote development
projects.
Deals mainly with crime, law and order,
development, disasters, and deviant
dramatic events. values,
Deals mainly with social-economic
inculcation of development-oriented basic
needs for food, shelter and security.
Profit maximisation. Popular appeal. Runs risk of low readership. Less popular.
Factual reporting, objective, consumption
subjective, oriented.
Interpretative (narrative) reporting,
community-growth oriented.
Mass entertainment; ‘infotainment’ Understanding, attitude and behavioural
change.

21. Conventional Journalism Developmental Journalism
Mainstream source oriented. User-source oriented.
Report on random events (What) Report on causes and processes leading to
the events. (What, how, why)
Weighs news against criteria of
objectivity, interests of readership.
Weighs news against criteria of
development. (community access,
equity, participation, self-reliance).
Dominant news value. Development news value.
Balance in terms of neutrality. Balance tipped towards the grassroots.
Dispassionate observer. Participant observer.
Story is descriptive Story is descriptive and prescriptive.
Occasionally provides possible solutions
to issues with minimal consultation with
people.
Elicits alternative solutions to problems
solutions to issues with minimal as
understood and interpreted by the
consultation with the people.

22. Development Journalism Experiment:
“Our Village CHHATERA”
• Village Jat Chaupal
• Television sets in 80 villages by Dept of Atomic
Energy.
• Krishi Darshan
• Syndicate Bank branch opened in village in
1970
• Fertilizer companies helped, women’s club
promoted.

23. Development Journalism Experiment:
“Our Village CHHATERA”
• Our Village Chhatera is a village 25 miles
northwest of Delhi.
• It had population of 1500- landowning Jats and
Brahmins and landless Harijans.
• Focus of fortnightly column published in 1968
by The Hindustan Times by the editor BG
Verghese.

24. Thank you!