Media Lessons, Two Years after the Asian Tsunami

On the eve of the second anniversary of the Indian Ocean Tsunami, bring together senior journalists from across Asia and development officials tasked to manage disasters and what do you get? This report was filed by Lynette Lee Corporal of the Inter Press Service, who was a participant.

Having played key roles when the Asian tsunami struck on 26 December 2004 – which killed over 225,000 people - media institutions and development agencies two years hence are asking themselves whether they could have done better and saved more lives in the process, and can do better in helping prevent disasters in the future.

For two days, on December 21 and 22, a 'wave' of conflicting and complementary ideas on key communications learned from the tsunami came up from the 30 media professionals and development communication specialists from all over Asia.

At the discussions, each side held up mirrors for each other to see where they have failed in providing for the information and practical needs of the public.

Lack of understanding of each other’s systems and goals, as well as lack of trust, cropped up. Some asked for a redefinition of the word 'disaster'.

"Generally, the media have been largely obsessed with megadisasters, such as earthquake and tsunami, because it carries shock value,” Amjad Bhatti, regional coordinator of Duryog Nivaran, the South Asian Network for Disaster Risk Reduction, said during one session.

Five hundred people being killed in a train accident, he said, is considered a major disaster and goes to the front pages. “On the other hand, if 500 people died turn by turn, day by day, in a drought, does that not become a disaster story as well?" he asked.

Amjad said that other kinds of disasters, whether man-made, technological and biological, are hardly taken up by the media. “We are not supposed to wait for something to happen. We must be enterprising in reporting a disaster and should not be passive reporters of events as they come. Active reporting can potentially reduce an accident and to ignore this could lead to a much bigger disaster," he added.

Jose Maria Carlos, programme manager for the Kuala Lumpur-based Asia-Pacific Institute for Broadcasting Development (AIBD), said that media should start looking into the benefits of pre-disaster preparation. "We're not talking about a day or a week before a disaster happens here, but five or 10 years. Preparedness is a way of life so it has to be communicated effectively,” he said in an interview.

One thing that stood out in the two-day sessions, added Carlos, was the media's need for further training in different aspects, including trauma reporting. "The journalist has to confront a lot of issues, death, damage and you wonder whether he is as traumatised as the victim. Is he prepared psychologically, emotionally and even physically? These are the issues that must be looked at," said Carlos.

Citizen journalism and other forms of new media were also been hotly debated. For a lot of journalists and disaster managers, accounts by ordinary citizens during disaster situations are vital in providing vital information.

During the tsunami crisis, media and audiences relied on amateur videos taken by residents and tourists who were on site when the tragedy happened. Initial news and images that trickled in the first few hours mostly came from ‘citizen journalists'.

Those who had access to the Internet put up blogs, while others sent SMS via mobile phones.

“The new media can come in to complement disaster-related coverage,” said Joanne Teoh Kheng Yau, executive producer of Channel News Asia, during one panel discussion.

Shahidul Alam, director of Bangladesh’s Drik Picture Library, stated that alternative media should not be relegated to the backseat. “Make alternative viewpoints into mainstream viewpoints. Find out what works and what doesn't,” he said.

For UNDP Nepal communications manager Lisa Hiller, it is apparent that people do not have enough venues with which to express their sentiments. “We also have our share of disasters in Nepal. But most of the media is in Kathmandu, which means that 90 percent of the population are not getting information on certain issues,” she said.

Thus, she added, community radio has become a powerful medium in Nepal. Blogging is becoming very popular and non-media networks are starting to share the information with the public, she said. While journalists expressed reservations about bloggers and citizen journalists, saying that it is difficult to hold them accountable for what they report online, others are more open to the idea.

Said freelance journalist and new media activist Frederick Noronha of India: "Blogs should be made part of the solution. For the first time, it allowed the man on the street to have a positive, active role in what’s happening around him. I think they are responsible enough and are accountable to their own readers.”

The love-hate relationship between disaster managers as well as development practitioners with the media came up again and again at the Bangkok discussions. Questions about how different both sides' needs are as far as information is concerned and the tracking of donor aid elicited very passionate responses.

Among these differences are that the media's complaints about difficult-to-understand jargon by development workers, and that latter does not recognise the media's need for timeliness in delivering information.

“I did not realise there's quite a lack of understanding from both sides on how each operates on the needs of each side,” commented Hiller. “We have a very narrow definition of communication. It means getting the information to the people before, during and after the disaster. It means empowering people to protect themselves from experiencing further disaster situations,” she said.

For Cherie Hart, regional communications advisor for UNDP RCB, the two-day conference exposed the different kinds of divisions that media professionals feel they have with disaster managers and development workers. Among these 'divisions' include media versus development or disaster managers; mainstream versus alternative forms of media; media as commercial entities or as public service, to name some.

“I think there are ways for both sides to bridge this 'dotted line' that separates them from achieving a common goal. What we are seeing here is that reporters are not our enemy, and I also hope that some journalists will not look at the people at the UN as pointy head technocrats who speak 'blah-blah' jargon,” she said.

According to Nalaka Gunawardene, director of TVEAP, a report of the meeting will be released in early 2007. A regional book on communicating disasters will also be published that will include inputs from the meeting.

"We may not have answered a lot of questions in this brainstorming session but it is very important to ask the right questions in a dialogue. I feel we have asked them here," he said.