{"id":111237,"date":"2013-10-23T03:45:45","date_gmt":"2013-10-22T22:15:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=111237"},"modified":"2013-10-28T01:31:45","modified_gmt":"2013-10-27T20:01:45","slug":"the-making-of-an-indian-expert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-making-of-an-indian-expert\/","title":{"rendered":"The Making Of An Indian Expert"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Malinda Seneviratne<\/a><\/span> –<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Malinda Seneviratne<\/p><\/div>\n

\u2018Indian Expert\u2019 can mean an Indian who is an expert on some subject or someone who is an expert on India.\u00a0 It is the latter tribe that is relevant to this story.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), along with the A J Kidwai Mass Communication Research Centre, Jamila Millia Islamia and the Nelson Mandela Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, organized a conference of senior editors in the South Asian region.\u00a0 The topic was \u2018Violence and Conflict reporting: The media debates its role\u2019.\u00a0 The inaugural session saw representatives of the respective organizations offering introductory cum welcome comments.\u00a0 There was also a special presentation by Adam Roberts, South Asia correspondent for The Economist, based in Delhi, where he is said to oversee political and general coverage from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, among other countries.<\/p>\n

Roberts\u2019 comments were interesting.\u00a0 Although based in a country birthed and engulfed in conflict, Roberts picked up examples almost exclusively from Sri Lanka<\/a><\/span> to make some points, pertinent points of course.\u00a0 He did not elaborate and indeed he could not, since this was not a comprehensive presentation on the subject.\u00a0 He did not contextualize either, again for the same reasons, one would like to think.\u00a0 However, if someone were to report on the opening session, what would come out would be cursory and de-contextualized remarks which of course would acquire lives of their own thereafter.\u00a0 Therein lies the irresponsibility (there were no caveats from Roberts).<\/p>\n

Roberts\u2019, correctly, questioned the term \u2018post-conflict\u2019, which assumes conflict-end.\u00a0 For some, the absence of fire-exchange implies conflict-end, for others the clash of arms is but one expression of conflict.\u00a0 Roberts\u2019 said that someone he had spoken to in the Northern Province had complained about \u2018military presence\u2019.\u00a0 That\u2019s evidence of persisting conflict. Agreed.<\/p>\n

What Roberts did not state was the context.\u00a0 Context includes sabre-rattling by pro-LTTE<\/a><\/span> sections of the Sri Lankan Tamil expatriates, terrorism-glorification from Tamil Nadu, and hero-worshipping of Prabhakaran<\/a><\/span> by TNA politicians.\u00a0 No Government entrusted with national security in a country that has suffered conflict the way Sri Lanka has can be faulted for erring on the side of caution.\u00a0 Roberts\u2019 comment was therefore flippant, misleading and irresponsible.<\/p>\n

He spoke also of Prabhakaran\u2019s little son, Balachandran<\/a><\/span>, being shot dead.\u00a0\u00a0 The circumstances of the \u2018how\u2019 are at best contested, but even if the confident finger-pointing that Roberts indulged in drew from uncontestable evidence, ethical comment demands at least mention of context, even in a \u2018issue-flagging\u2019 exercise.\u00a0 There were children that age who were sent to \u2018Receiving Centres\u2019 by the LTTE clothed in suicide jackets.\u00a0 Prabhakaran slaughtered children his son\u2019s age, abducted and forced into fatigues hundreds of others, and thousands of children held hostage by him were rescued by the Army at great cost.\u00a0 Roberts\u2019 cannot be ignorant of all this.<\/p>\n

Several participants, in conversation, spoke about \u2018journalists\u2019 they knew from Sri Lanka.\u00a0 More than one mentioned the \u2018only one\u2019 they knew: Sunanda Deshapriya<\/a><\/span>.\u00a0 Now if that is \u2018source\u2019, then it is not surprising that they utter comments that many in Sri Lanka would laugh at.\u00a0 A journalist from Switzerland mentioned a journalist (sic) called Francis Harrison by way of demonstrating \u2018inside knowledge\u2019.\u00a0 Shamindra Ferdinando of The Island<\/em>, who was attending the conference had this to say to this journalist:<\/p>\n

\u2018Francis Harrison<\/a><\/span>, in early 2009, said that the LTTE had a strategy to push back the Army.\u00a0 Sri Lanka cannot be expected to design policy to prove Francis Harrison right.\u2019<\/p>\n

QED.<\/p>\n

All this is symptomatic of a deep malaise that compromises journalistic worth.\u00a0 Roberts is no fly-by-night accidental tourist doing some freelance work as a side business.\u00a0 He was making some points, tendentious for sure but in the context of flagging issues for discussion eminently permissible.\u00a0 The issue is that there are many Roberts flying in and out of Sri Lanka or seated in some cubicle elsewhere writing \u2018stories\u2019 (!) as though they are experts.\u00a0 So they sound their friends, many of whom are considered (mis)informants.\u00a0 No cross-checking, no substantiation solicited or offered, no consideration of source-reliability all add up to irresponsible reporting.<\/p>\n

Most people who referred to Sri Lanka are intelligent journalists without political agenda and yet many were regurgitating the \u2018truths\u2019 that the likes of Roberts have drawn from dubious sources or else conjured up from cursory observation.\u00a0 There\u2019s a picture that gets painted and which they\u2019ve glanced at.\u00a0 And that\u2019s the \u2018Sri Lanka\u2019 they believe exists.<\/p>\n

This writer spent less than four days in Delhi, moving between airport, hotel and conference hall with a couple of hours at a shopping center.\u00a0 Considering all of the above, if Adam Roberts and others who consider Sunanda Deshapriya a journalist are experts on Sri Lanka, this writer has all the credentials necessary to warrant the tag \u2018Indian Expert\u2019.\u00a0 That should say something.<\/p>\n

*Malinda Seneviratne is the Chief Editor of \u2018The Nation\u2019\u00a0and his articles can be found at\u00a0www.malindawords.blogspot.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[…]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":105560,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,46,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-111237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-constitutional-reforms","category-editorial"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Making Of An Indian Expert - Colombo Telegraph<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-making-of-an-indian-expert\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Making Of An Indian Expert - Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"[…]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-making-of-an-indian-expert\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-10-22T22:15:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2013-10-27T20:01:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Malinda-Seneviratne-150x150.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"130\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"135\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-making-of-an-indian-expert\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-making-of-an-indian-expert\/\",\"name\":\"The Making Of An Indian Expert - 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