I don't know why I try to be funny sometimes. It never works.
Why I'm concerned about ending up in jail has a lot to do with the way we are taught to treat our sources. Now I've read too many books and watched too many movies to know that a journalist's sources are what need to be protected and guarded. In this class, we have a strict policy of not accepting anonymous sources.
So essentially we're making a number of people uncomfortable by publishing their names and posts in the stories for our beat. These may seem like "random" or "ordinary" people (honestly, these are actual words which people use for staff the lower you go in the hierarchy) but if you really think about them, their randomness and ordinariness should not make us forget that they too have jobs to work on, families to support, and liberties which might be taken away from them if our stories get them in trouble.
It's good to make people uncomfortable sometimes and ideally it should lead to open and honest conversations about why and how we've made them uncomfortable. In the March 11 classes, we had discussions on our editorial policy in regards to Pakistan Ink and how certain sources were allowed anonymity primarily because we judged that the anonymity was essential to the source. So there can be times when we can step in to minimise some of the harm.
Who would know more about harm then people out there who are trying to make small but significant changes to cast aside this growing sense of apathy in our own domestic lives and in the lives of those around us.
Since 8th March - which was almost two months ago but hey, it is still important - was International Women's Day and women all over the world decided to share their stories, our teacher invited us to contact whomever we could to get insight about how they perceived this day and what it meant to them. The feature prepared by our class is available here, here, and here.
I was travelling on this day so I could not contribute but I did manage to see some discussions online. One interesting panel discussion was with Emma Watson where she sort of was her natural self, fumbling around with her notes and trying to keep the conversation going. It was one of the most awkward interviews I've seen and I loved it because of how genuine it was. I wish I had been the one asking her questions and tossing grand ideas of equality, representation, and combating stereotypes with her. My favourite part of the talk was this:
I've observed while interviewing people or just while talking to them, that women very often fit the stereotype of being expressive while men are generally attempting to come off as reserved. The former share their raw and unedited thoughts with far more ease than men do. The men I see on TV are, for the major part, trying to hide their emotions - the ones that present them as vulnerable - before asking or answering a question. The women on the other hand get their point across with far more clarity because of how they tap into most of what they are feeling at the time. I think people who attune themselves to what they are feeling and then share parts of it are all very brave.
Some recent lessons I've had on getting a message through or asking the right questions is really by watching people like Anderson Cooper and Jon Stewart. I've grown watching Christiane Amanpour and although I think she has a good interviewing style, I'm more comfortable with the informality of the men I've mentioned. It seems more real. If that realness can be transmitted through made up faces, camera angles, and all the space between us then I can only imagine what it might feel like to the people being interviewed.
(That's a Youtube version of this awesome panel discussion which Jon Stewart moderated in April. I learnt a lot from his moderating style. For those of us who cannot access Youtube, you can watch the facebook video here).
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