Kunda Dixit on democracy, technology,
and the challenge to journalism

IN THE AGE OF THE INTERNET, many expected technology and new media to be the great equalizers of journalism and society, giving the underrepresented a more equal voice in the public discourse. At the same time, the growth of media, both new and mainstream, was expected to push the universal values of freedom and democracy through to the most intransigent regimes.

Unfortunately, many of these expectations have not been met.

Kunda Dixit, the well-known editor and publisher of the Nepali Times and author of the media textbook Dateline Earth: Journalism as if the planet mattered, cautions media, both mainstream and new, from being distracted by the gloss of technology and the glitz of escapist entertainment, and from losing sight of the core values of journalism.

In a presentation he made at the Asian Journalism Fellowship conference on reporting people power in Singapore recently, Dixit noted how the bewildering growth of the media because of advances in technology has still largely failed to improve content in journalism. Dixit pointed out that the public may now be better informed, but with data that is basically useless or frivolous.

“The hope was that information technology would change all this. It would level the playing field and bridge the digital divide globally and within our countries,” Dixit said. “But the corporate values that drive the information revolution are the same that drove the industrial revolution, and it affects content. Just look at the saturation coverage of the centenary of the sinking of the Titanic, in which 1,500 people died 100 years ago, and compare that to the sinking of the Dona Paz ferry in the Philippines 25 years ago that killed at least 4,000. Almost no one today remembers the Dona Paz.”

The Dona Paz has been listed as the worst maritime disaster in history. The ship burned and sank after colliding with an oil tanker along the Tablas Straits in the Visayas region. By most estimates, more than 5,000 people died in the tragedy, as the ship was overloaded because of people going home for the Christmas holidays.

For example, Dixit said he was stumped once by the more than 100 choices of channels in 20 languages in his hotel room’s television set. Yet almost all the channels featured the popular game of cricket, not in the sports section, but in the main news.

“The threats to media freedom don’t just come from tyrants and dictators, they come from owners who see it as just another business, from undermotivated journalists, publishers who prefer tabloidisation and trivialization because it is cheaper and safer than doing serious in-depth journalism,” he said.

“Such content keeps us ignorant of the real state of our countries, the structural problems within our societies. It doesn’t throw the light on social injustice, discrimination, and exploitation. At a time when we need it the most, public service role of media is disappearing,” Dixit said.

“Let technology not distract us and dimour commitment to the core values we are trying to protect: press freedom, democracy, and social justice,” Dixit said.

The full text of Dixit’s presentation may be read here.