Diversity, Representation and The Embedded Journalist
The idea of getting into the thick of the action and truly becoming one with your cause has always been a source of intrigue to me. Journalists clearly attempt this, yet, we don’t always succeed at it.
As an international student and a foreign journalist in the United States, I can attest that most aspects of Indian culture and the representation of India in global media — while factually accurate in the tidbits of information given to you — miss the point and are drained of context in relation to culture. Both are crucial to building perspective. To be clear, I’m NOT blaming all foreign media. Hell, I’m pretty certain that’s exactly what every country thinks about how they are represented in the media globally. My point being, it always takes someone deeply embedded in a particular society to attempt to give you apt, factual, culturally accurate and contextual information that reduces the chance of misrepresentation.
We as journalists are always attempting to be — fair, accurate, objective, impartial — and every version of the word “unbiased” that exists. The truth is that’s near impossible. Well, what if the point is to depict things as is? It probably sounds the same as our synonyms of unbiased, I know. It also definitely sounds simplistic, I know.
But, it’s not.
Let’s take two steps back and look at this. We’re clearly not the only ones with careers where we attempt to, in a sense, embed ourselves into communities, societies or beats as we report on them. Social scientists and qualitative researchers are among a few who do it and let’s face it — if there’s anyone who with all their hearts and minds need to control biases in their research, it’s people publishing academic work. The researchers haven’t figured out a science to be unbiased. But, they have figured out many methods to help present things as is.
What Journalists can Learn from Ethnographers
Ethnography — one of the earlier qualitative methodologies used by researchers in anthropology and sociology — is the study of a culture or a subculture. It required researchers to not only travel to different areas depending on their research, but also live and co-exist with the communities in those areas for many years.
“In these fields, early traditional ethnography was often conducted by white, European/American researchers who would leave their home countries to live with indigenous people,” said Dr. Lisbeth Berbary, a researcher and an associate professor at the University of Waterloo, who wrote about this.
During this time the researchers would record every aspect of the culture through interviews, observation and collections of artifacts. The idea being that surely, someone who’d gone through so much trouble to understand a culture would be able to pass on information that is the “Truth”.
Dr. Berbary goes on to write -
“… (It) continued to be seen as a gold standard of qualitative research for many years. However, it thankfully became clear to the research community that there were instances where researchers who claimed to (or really believed that they were) creating unbiased representations, actually were often presenting the cultures through ethnocentric and at times racist lenses. This created representations, which rather than capturing unbiased Truth, actually ended up conveying distorted views of cultures that depicted “native” (a term that has developed a negative connotation and should not be used to describe participants) as animalistic, simplistic, and exotic, further sensationalizing other cultures and fueling the divide between “us” and “them”…”
Sound familiar? Definitely sounds like journalism to me. Qualitative methodologies like ethnography have since evolved. Unlike ethnography 1.0, subsequent ethnographies do the following:
- they’ve taken a range of steps — from having more ethnographies conducted by people of colour, women and insiders of culture to increasing participant voice and studying highly privileged groups rather than just the “less privileged”/marginalized
“These ethnographies simultaneously recognize that each research project can only capture a contingent (momentary) and partial reality that is both filtered through the subjectivity of the specific research and grounded in a specific historical and cultural moment.” said Dr. Berbary.
The parallels that can be drawn to journalism and what journalism can learn from this has me MIND BLOWN.
One: Inducting More People of Colour and Women
Journalism is very, very slowly catching on by increasing diversity in newsrooms.
But, is that enough? We need to make a difference between token diversity and representation. What’s the difference? I don’t think I can articulate it better than actor Riz Ahmed did, in this recent interview with Trevor Noah.
“It’s weird that it’s remarkable at all that I should be able to play a range of characters. If you think about it, that’s the basis of it all. That’s the basis of acting .. (that) I could be you and you could be me and the circumstances are all different, but the emotions are all the same. So it’s weird that certain people’s faces or experiences are seen as universally relatable but others aren’t. That’s obviously not true because you would not be able to be moved by any art about anyone else. In terms of diversity and representation, I don’t like to talk about diversity because it feels like the added extra. It feels like the fries not the burger. It sounds like something on the side. You’ve got your main thing going on and yeah, let’s sprinkle a little bit of diversity on top of that. That’s not what it’s about for me. It’s about representation. Representation is absolutely fundamental in terms of what we expect from our culture and our politics. We all want to feel represented. We want to be seen, heard and valued.” Riz Ahmed said.
I reiterate. We want to be SEEN, HEARD AND VALUED not just remain tokens of diversity.
Two: Changing Note-Taking Techniques
I personally found this very interesting. Ethnographers and qualitative researchers conduct interviews and observations similar to what journalists do. The big difference however lies in the depth of observation required of them. They collect “overt description” writes Dr. Berbary. Descriptions like,
Location (colors, sounds, textures, smells)
People (details of faces, not just clothing, race, gender, hair color)
Action (overt — not angry, but throws hands up in the air with fists clenched)
Language (grab any quotes you can, don’t make them up if you can’t hear it — switch from quotes to general content) — writes Dr. Berbary.
Descriptions like these are common in more long-form pieces of journalism and its definitely not completely absent. If in-depth observations do become a part of the regular note-taking process of a journalist, regardless of whether we end up using it or even need it in a story, it should put help stories in perspective especially once an interview is done and when we’re expanding notes. More importantly, it definitely sheds light on the temperament of the person and its relation to the ambience in the interview space. All of the subtle cues add up to create nuance in a journalistic piece.
Three: Inducting and Becoming “Insiders of Culture”
Journalism has probably all but skipped ethnography 1.0 to be honest. So yes, let’s also talk about some parts of ethnography 1.0 that can be applied to journalism. The part where researchers actually go live, co-exist, learn the language, observe and record their findings. Sounds extreme? It probably is.
One man has done it. Foreign correspondents definitely have in parts probably. But, I find Dutch journalist and current Tehran Bureau Chief for the New York Times, Thomas Erdbrink, especially special. He is a good example of someone who’s been there and is viewing journalism through an ethnographic lens.
Erdbrink been reporting out of Tehran since 2002. That’s nearly 17 years of working in the country. He’s learned (mastered? I can’t tell) the language. He’s married an Iranian photographer and journalist (I’m not saying he did this for journalism’s sake, and not advocating that anyone should either. Just an observation about how it can help him understand their culture). And earlier this year, he produced a documentary, ‘Our Man in Tehran’, published by Frontline. The two part documentary documents Iran and its people, sans the sensationalizing, sans the stereotyping.
“It was so different than I expected. People were so nice, and friendly and welcoming. And the death to America that is always propagated by the Iranian leaders, you just wouldn’t come across it when you walk into the supermarket or when you — or you’re waiting for your doctor’s appointment. So I was intrigued by this place, and yeah, I never left.” he said in this interview to NPR on his experience.
Guess what. They’re NORMAL people. With families and lives that don’t revolve around the idea of murder. The point is, the type of sensationalism that causes this type of stereotyping can be said of most news stories today anywhere in the world. I believe this stems from a lack of understanding of cultural nuances and also, from parachuting into societies to report on stories.
Again, I agree, living and co-existing and all of that sounds like an extreme step for most other types of journalism that we do. But, I do believe that there are bits that can be incorporated.
- We can learn the language, a language, any language other than our native tongue. Not only will this help us be more empathetic generally and understanding of culture, it will definitely help communicate in a globalized economy where the hegemony of the english language is being challenged. (Read: communicating with sources)
- Ensuring “insiders of culture” are given the resources to be a part of a news organisation and are actively hired
- Spend more time with your sources/communities/beats, participate outside of the news cycle at cultural events and such
Which brings me to my next and final point.
Four: Increasing Participant Voice/Participatory Action Research
In the evolved forms of ethnography, researchers also “are more and more inclusive of participant voice in order to decrease researcher authority and equalize power relations between researcher and those researched.” said Dr. Berbary.
More modern qualitative research methodologies go further. Speaking to our social journalism class, Dr. Berbary also talked about how the future lies in what’s called “Participatory Action Research” to democratize and control bias even further.
“It begins with a specific problem in the community. Local specific, oriented to a particular case. Aim is always practical, kind of change or practical application. Ex. Photographic exhibit for the community. Often seen as applied research.” said Dr. Berbary in her writing.
The method must address a number of other questions as well like — the power dynamics between the researcher and the researched, issues of positionality i.e. insider vs outsider and what to do if the research group’s beliefs clash with the researchers personal beliefs etc.
“It is built on (the) premise that individuals are the best source of knowledge about their own life.” said Dr. Berbary.
This applies to journalism. Or should to every evolved form of journalism. We need to do a better job of connecting communities to each other and to solutions to their problems.
This too can be done and has been done before.
Allen Arthur, a freelance journalist featured in the Marshall Project, has worked extensively with the formerly incarcerated. Through the course of his journalism he has reported extensively on the community. This included investigating the Tennessee prison system’s “safekeeping” law. As a result of his work, the law was revised through bipartisan support. More importantly, he has managed to give back and fill in the needs of the community he’s working with. He recently helped put together the “Art of Return #2” an art and culture event that reflected on the consequences of juvenile incarceration and had a ‘returning citizen’ as a headliner. He’s also working on a magazine that helps formerly incarcerated people transition back to everyday life.
Point here being — it’s important, in addition to reportage, to help create a feedback loop that communities need, want and can benefit from. It too is a sort of embedding by a journalist.
As an Indian journalist in a different country, I, like any “outsider” anywhere in the world, value representation in its truest sense. There needs to be more of it from journalism. Learning from qualitative research methodologies will definitely give us a shot at getting there. No, we’ll never reach the ultimate truth and the objectivity we sought in traditional journalism. We don’t live in a binary world anymore. We never have. But, if there’s anything we can learn from qualitative research techniques, it’s that we can improve interviewing techniques and attempt to control our biases through disclosure and increased self-awareness as journalists. That’s the only way we can present information as is.
*Thanks to Dr. Lisbeth Berbary, Assistant Professor, University of Waterloo from whose work I have referenced heavily and to Dr. Carrie Brown for sharing her awesome piece with us.
