I Think: There’s a clear class distinction in rape reportage
Sandhya Menon, freelance journalist and writer, Bangalore
Ithink newspapers and websites are much better at reporting rape and sexual violence than television.
My initial reaction while reading about rape is despair, anger — and then I try to understand the reason why. What do we do about this? We are raising daughters and sons: how do we go about this?
My instinctive reaction is concern for our daughters. Even as we all condemn rape and feel personally violated, there is that helpless feeling inside me when I encounter the story of a victim or survivor, of being unable to help.
Rape reportage was quite different earlier. Before Nirbhaya happened in 2012, reporting of rape was significantly less. And then there came a drastic increase in reporting of rape. We now read about rape across ages and geographies… every kind of woman, irrespective of social background or class, is subject to it.
As for Nirbhaya, the victim was immortalised. We made a hero of someone who was brutally assaulted.
I see a clear class distinction in reportage, in which Dalit women or survivors who are not public figures do not receive much coverage. Whereas in a high-profile case, like the one in which a Kerala actor was charged in 2017, the approach and tone are completely different, and there are constant follow-ups.
Over the years, I’ve never seen one newspaper go back to a low-profile case and follow up on court proceedings, and check on what happened to the survivor post the incident. I expect at least a 300-word gist, or two columns about the aftermath of these incidents. But they remain a cold statistic.
As a woman, I feel a personal connect and solidarity to the unknown faces of those women who have been raped. What do I do? So I go on social media to talk about all of this — but who are the people reading about this? Right now I’m severely desensitised by the way rape is reported.
The media publishes sensational images alongside a rape report in order to attract their audience. They need to find a better way to do that. In fact it puts me off from reading it when the image has nothing to do with the story.
It is an accepted narrative in media that rape is not about sex, but power. I think it’s a bit of both.
Let’s build an ecosystem around rape reportage — not only a report about the incident, but other conversations around it. Say, a research-based article from social scientists about why rape cases are increasing.
There needs to be a very strong editorial policy about sensitive reporting of details of the attack. Avoid quotes for the sake of quotes… those that have nothing to do about the case and are written only to fulfill word limits. There should be a standard list of questions that must be asked of law enforcement agencies to make a rape narrative sensitive and impactful. I have a problem when journalists do not follow the basics of reporting.
Organisations such as The Editors Guild, where editors and journalists come together, need to talk about how we can address rape culture with dedicated follow-ups, irrespective of filling news quotas or racing for deadlines. Unless the media changes its tone, readers will grow numb and desensitised to rape culture.
Sandhya Menon blogs at therestlessquillblog.wordpress.com. Find her on Medium at Sandhya Menon.
