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Harassment In Newsroom

By Prabhat Sharan

15 March, 2011
The Verdict Weekly

News organisations like the show business are fast becoming centres of
sexual harassment. Like the celluloid screen, it has become a
hypocritical world where the inner workings of the work-place exist in
total contradiction to what it purports to stand for to the outside
social world.

Recently, a national newspaper published from Mumbai suspended two
persons- an associate editor and a principal correspondent- on charges
of alleged sexual harassment. The duo had reportedly made life
miserable for a young female sub-editor. The allegations were that
apart from hurling sexually charged abuses at her, the duo apparently
used to hound her even after duty hours making her wait outside a
dimly-lit beer bar in the middle of the night on the pretext of
sharing the night drop vehicle provided by the office.

This is not an isolated case of sexual aberration. Nor is a simplistic
generalization being inferred from one random incident. It is a case
in point of the growing sexual harassment being meted out to female
journalists by their male colleagues who usually hold high positions
in news organisations. It is precisely for this reason that during
the inquiry when some women journalists demanded dismissal, the male
committee members hooted for an "apology."

Prior to the cropping up of this case-which incidentally was taken up
only when a non-journalist complained to the higher-ups of the alleged
goings on-there have been at least two similar cases wherein the
management was forced to take up the sexual harassment issue after
much hiccups.

Incidentally, these kinds of happenings are not just confined to one
particular news organisation.

Similar cases have been reported from other news rooms of other
organizations also. Ironically, such cases rarely get highlighted;
they are quietly given a quiet silent burial. Most of the time female
journalist has to fight it individually, or just leave the place, or
retreat in a disquieting suffocating shell.

In a major Mumbai-based Hindi language newspaper, a female journalist
was asked to leave after she complained of sexual advances being made
by her male colleagues. And in another case, a national news agency in
Mumbai, two young female interns finding no solace or help coming from
their superiors left the place in disgust.

Recent times have seen girls opting for journalistic career. And
though it is argued that despite the growing presence of female
populace in the journalistic fraternity, the reportage continues to
have a tinge of male perspective it would be erroneous to squarely lay
the blame on women journalists. Gender sensitised reportage can take
place only when the people who hold the reins have a sensitised
approach towards issues.

It is an irony that prior to the orthodox economic structural
adjustment, popularly called economic liberalisation, news
organisations carried more women-centric and women oriented stories
attacking the moribund gender exploitative values.
However, with the creeping of corporate values into news
organisations, women oriented stories appear to be more of a
justification and eulogy of commodification of women physical
attributes.

This intrinsic male oriented perspective manifesting in news stories
which sometimes border on verbal pornography is also intrinsic in the
recruitment of women in the field.

Aspiring female journalists are not being taken for their skill in
collection, collating, formalising and analysing information; they are
viewed as one who will have easy access to top industrialists, police
officials, politicians and bureaucrats primarily because of their
gender.

The perspective like a sinisterly gliding ice berg with frozen
moribund values hardly reveals the deep-rooted bias, prejudices and
myopic view towards women in news organizations, or the patriarchal
corporate ideology’s sole aim-- reduce everything to a saleable
commodity including their employees.

A national newspaper which on one hand goes around espousing "bold
journalism," while in reality practising anti-people reporting, some
years back had put up an advertisement seeking reporters with a
tag-line "only females apply." Topping this was another newspaper.
Launched a few years ago in Mumbai, the top brass in this newspaper
during recruitment instructed female business reporters that they
should be prepared to 'accompany (escort,)' industrialists in late
night parties.

The issue here is not of attending late night meetings for gleaning
information; rather it delineates the callous male exploitative
perspective hidden behind the so-called ' dare devil journalism,'
instruction.

In such an atmosphere, financial circumstances forces many a female
journalist to stay quiet and carry on with their work diligently even
though it is contrary to their beliefs and knowledge.
Within months of entering the profession, young journalists of both
genders and specially females find that the news room is nothing but a
crematorium where ideals are consigned to corporate ideological
flames; a graveyard where grave robbers strutting as journos, thrive
selling bones gilded with glowing phosphorous in the darkness to
market God.

Senior journalist Geeta Seshu who has carried out several surveys to
ascertain the workings of corporate media establishments vis-a-vis
female journalists says, " There has been a distinct down slide (in
the working conditions) and young women are a part of the
backlash...sexual harrassment is an unspoken issue and strangely no
media house till date has bothered to implement Vishakha guidelines.
This fact came up with the Sultana case. Sultana from Sahara TV was
thrown out of job after she filed a sexual harassment complaint.Her
cross-examination got over last month...after six years. The news
organisations rarely bother to follow Vishakha guidelines while
carrying out an inquiry into any sexual harassment allegation. In such
an ordeal for any young girl, the savagery of incarceration leads to
an internalization of desensitization and feelings of helplessness and
alienation just swallows them…so much that ...it’s a long haul."

Prabhat Sharan is a Senior Journalist with interest in social, working
class, wild-life conservation, philosophical, media and literary
studies. He can be contacted at [email protected]

 


 




 


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