‘Delhi waalo ko lagta hai, Delhi ke bahar kuch nahi hai’

Indian journalists have been receiving criticism for their insensitive coverage of the Nepal floods. PIC/PTI

A wise person once said, "Facts without context are like individuals without society." The newsroom's job is to deliver the reader facts with the right context to the best of its ability. But what does a newsroom do when the facts they're reporting are outside of their realm of understanding? How does a reporter from New York report on Indian elections? Well, they "parachute".

Parachute journalism is the practice of sending reporters into unfamiliar places to cover a breaking story without having deep local knowledge, language skills, or cultural context. Many Indian journalists recently parachuted to Nepal to cover the devastating floods that have already taken over a 1000 lives and over 5000 people still remain missing. The climate catastrophe has wiped out nearly 15 per cent of the country's GDP in damages.

Over a 1000 people have lost their lives and over 4000 people still remain missing due to the floods. PIC/PTI

And yet, a few reporters chose to focus on the alleged "face of Lord Shiva" that appeared on a hill in Nepal. Others shove microphones into crying victims' faces. Such insensitive coverage of one of the biggest tragedies ever faced by Nepal makes us ask: Is it time to say goodbye to parachuting? Is it better to let local journalists report issues they have the best context to?

Bal Krishna Sah does exactly that. He's a Nepal-based journalist who contributes stories to news organisation that may not have a base where he's reporting from. "I work with a lot of international news organisations, like Newsreel Asia, the Swiss weekly WOZ, Sky News UK, ReligionUnplugged, and have investigated for the BBC documentary on Nepal's Gen Z Revolution." Sah is also a senior correspondent at The Himalayan Times, Nepal's leading English daily.

Bal Krishna Sah

When journalists parachute to Nepal, he usually collaborates with them. "They have no lay of the land. So, I guide them around, and we speak to experts or government authorities." "The scale of devastation in Nepal right now is unimaginable. Entire villages have been wiped out. Thousands of people have died. The Nepalese people are no strangers to floods. Every year, there are floods in the same rivers, and there are some casualties. But this time, eyewitnesses are telling me that the water level goes up to 30 metres," Sah says.

There is no dearth of brilliant Indian journalists, Sah says. "I have worked with many of them. They know how write a good story. But they don't know the local context. It's only human. It would be very difficult for me to understand everything about Mumbai."

Sidharth Bhatia

Sah runs into a unique problem with Indian journalists. "They say India and Nepal have a roti-beti ka sambandh. Sometimes journalists think that just because Nepalese people speak Hindi, Indian journalists can navigate here easily. They think, ‘People in Nepal speak Hindi, so we can just talk to them, and we'll just do a story from our angle.' But that's not the case. You need to understand Nepal," Sah says.

He believes the answer lies in collaboration. "There should be no other option. When you are reporting something so sensitive, where people are suffering, there is pain; and then you just go and start asking your questions, start trying to meet your deadlines, and you don't try to put everything into context, I think that's bad," Sah says.

Journalist Anderson Cooper would often report from foreign countries. PIC/LINKEDIN@DEAN LEVITAN

Sah emphasises the consequences are dire. "When the Gen Z revolution happened last year, initially it was being reported that the reason was because of a social media ban. The protest appeared like it happened in just two days. But, frustration had been brewing for a long, long time. The social media ban was just a trigger point," Sah says, "When someone reports information without context, it damages a country's reputation for years."

Things were always not like this, says founding editor of The Wire Sidharth Bhatia, "The Western papers have always had correspondents scattered throughout the world. In fact, in the '50s and '60s, many top Indian papers had a lot of domestic and international correspondents."

Barkha Dutt was one of India's first journalists to report right from the battlefield during the Kargil War. PIC/X@Mrsinha

"Insensitive stories are not done because of parachute journalism. Insensitive stories are done because there is a lack of training. The journalist today is geared towards doing insensitivity, especially in television, because it immediately gets you eyeballs. It happens because there is an eagerness for a cheap scoop. So you ask, ‘How does it feel to lose so many people in a disaster?' But ‘How do you feel?' is not the first question to ask."

He adds, "Actually, no media company wants to spend money. That is why no one posts permanent correspondents. So parachute journalism is inevitable. With digital, whenever there has been something really big, I can give you our example [The Wire], we choose a local journalist and see if that person can write for us, which brings a certain local sensitivity to the stories."

Sohit Mishra

Right now, there is a strong sense of FOMO in certain journalists," says independent journalist Sohit Mishra, "Because they think that they are the centre of the story, instead of the story. They want to show audiences that they're the ones getting the story."

He explains how parachuting usually happens. "When reporters go to Nepal, obviously they don't have all the information needed. So they rely on local stringers, get information from them, and then do second-hand journalism from the spot. They do not even give credit to those who brought the story in the first place," Mishra says.

In the newsroom, there is always a tendency to undermine local reporters. "Delhi waalo ko lagta hai Delhi ke bahar kisi ko kuch nahi aata [People from Delhi think no one outside of Delhi knows how to do journalism]. Because they think that they are in the city, at the centre of journalism, they know how things get done. And things have always been like this, unfortunately.

Faye D'souza

People don't take you seriously if you're not in Mumbai or Delhi. The poor stringer is given '2000 or '3000 for a story, and for that, they are expected to go around 100 km in a village without any job security," Mishra says, "But still, a stringer does his job because they're interested in journalism. So exploitation happens and no one takes it seriously, until something big happens and you need that reporter."

Parachuting is also on the rise because of the current anchor-centred reporting. "Earlier, a political expert - or a disaster expert in this case - would be sent to cover a story. They were expected to have a deep knowledge of their subject," Mishra says, "But now, with the anchor-centred model, there is an emphasis on debate rather than facts, which only leaves space for a shallow analysis. Or they think that sending anchors to some place means that we are very serious."

Journalist Faye D'souza's newsroom Beetroot news is entirely desk-based. "We're a deliberately slow newsroom. When there are a 1000 videos coming out and you don't know what to trust, we will give you measured, verified information. That's the job," D'souza says.

Although they don't have any reporters in Nepal right now, "In India, we collaborate with local journalists all the time," she says, "But I do think that, given the infrastructural challenge that Nepal is currently facing, where their roads, bridges, and communication lines have gone down, we're only adding pressure to an already fragile infrastructure by sending a hundred reporters from India."

"There are journalists who are experienced at handling this sort of crisis - someone who has reported on this sort of thing in the past and has the ability to understand and deliver a certain perspective from the ground. It makes sense to send that person," D'souza says, "War correspondents are war correspondents for a reason." D'souza also says that the local journalist one collaborates with should ideally be their first-hand reporter.

For Sah, it is most disheartening to see Nepalese stories be told by international media without being able to comprehend the context. "This is why so many of us are losing faith in traditional media. Because they just report from their perspective. They just want to sell content. They are not telling stories," Sah says, "And beyond damage that happens to the media house, they're hampering Nepal. In the case of this disaster, not the entire country has been flooded. It is at a huge scale, of course, but it's just one part of the country," he emphasises, "Tourism is the biggest source of income for Nepal, and this will cause a huge panic for tourists. So, every word matters when we tell a story."