Journalism About People or Journalism About Numbers?!

On December 26, 2004, a 9.3-magnitude earthquake struck the Indian Ocean off the coast of Indonesia. The earthquake triggered unprecedented massive waves that devastated entire cities and villages in what became known as the “tsunami.”

Some 230,000 people lost their lives, while millions were displaced across 14 countries, making it one of the deadliest natural disasters in modern history. Indonesia was the hardest-hit country.

At the time, Egyptian newspapers and television channels competed to send field correspondents to cover the disaster. Readers and viewers were provided with substantial journalistic coverage. The human face of journalism was on full display, with stories and reports coming directly from the heart of the disaster, where the victims and survivors were the protagonists.

Last Wednesday, floods accompanied by massive avalanches and mudslides swept through crossings, bridges, villages, and towns along the border between Nepal and China. The scenes were horrific. Dozens of towns and villages were devastated. Hundreds were killed, while tens of thousands were reported missing.

Media organizations and journalists from around the world rushed to cover the disaster, producing compelling human-interest stories and interviewing specialists to understand exactly what had happened. Some newspapers created visual guides to the disaster, combining photographs, video footage, and eyewitness accounts to provide a powerful and moving narrative of the scale of the human and material destruction.

Environmental and climate journalists also took part in the coverage, amid debate over the possibility that massive ice formations and weakened soil conditions may have been linked to global warming. Coverage has continued in an effort to determine the full extent of the devastation and its impact on local communities.

How Did Our Media Cover the Disaster?

The coverage in our media and press was largely limited to the news itself: casualty figures and the scale of the destruction were highlighted, as though the tragedy were nothing more than a set of statistics.

Unlike the 2004 tsunami, Egyptian journalists were absent from the scene. We relied almost entirely on Western news agencies. Diplomatic condolences and statements of solidarity issued by the Egyptian Foreign Ministry dominated the coverage.

The human stories were missing—interviews with survivors, accounts of their suffering, and detailed descriptions of the devastation.

I read most of what our newspapers published. I found myself going through dry reports focused almost exclusively on the toll: the number of dead and missing, the amount of aid, and statements from Nepalese officials.

There was little room for the ordinary people whose lives had been destroyed by the floods and whose families had been torn apart. There was no voice for the cries of children or the suffering of survivors.

The numbers became the protagonists of the coverage. The anguished faces of those devastated by the catastrophe disappeared.

I am fully aware of the financial difficulties facing our media organizations and newspapers, difficulties that severely constrain their ability to send journalists to the scene of a disaster.

But that is not the whole story.

A particular pattern of coverage has taken hold—with only rare exceptions—in which such disasters are treated as distant events that do not warrant much attention, as though our own local crises were all that mattered.

What is unfortunate is that we often approach our local issues in much the same way: dry, official reports in which the ordinary person has no voice.

Journalistic principles are indivisible. Those who take local issues seriously and cover them professionally should show the same degree of commitment when covering disasters abroad.

Unfortunately, a large segment of our media and press also treats climate change issues—such as melting ice and its impact on flooding in different parts of the world—as something of a luxury. The connection between these developments and the direct threat they pose to the lives of millions of people is rarely made.

Our media and press need to engage in serious self-criticism so that we can return to a form of journalism that cares about people as human beings—not merely as numbers.

Reprinted from Al-Masry Al-Youm.