The Hindu : `Media insensitive to women's issues'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Feb 06, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

`Media insensitive to women's issues'

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, FEB. 5. Allegations and accusations about "irresponsible" behaviour of the media in handling women's issues flew thick and fast at the two-day National Workshop on Gender Sensitisation of Media which began at the Indian Institute of Public Administration here today.

The workshop, organised by the National Commission For Women (NCW) in collaboration with the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC) and the Centre For Advocacy and Research (CFAR), brought together heads of various departments, professors and lecturers of universities and departments engaged in training students in journalism, mass communication and advertising, besides resource persons and senior media practitioners associated with different mediums of the media.

"Media often acts as a medium without a soul,'' said the NCW chairperson, Poornima Advani, in her inaugural address. Brought into the fore were incidents including reporting on the Ahmedabad gangrape case where the name and photograph of the victim were made public by the national Press without a thought about the `pain' the family would have to go through. "Incidents like this force us to wonder how responsible the national Press really is. The Press behaved in the most irrational manner and to a large extent we believe that it drove the victim in the case to commit suicide. We are especially annoyed with the Gujarat Press and the manner in which the issue has been handled by them,' added Ms. Advani.

Also participating in the workshop are the Chairman of Prasar Bharati, Mumbai, V. Kamath; member NCW Baby Rani Maurya; IIMC director, Delhi, B.P. Sanjay; member NCW, Nirmala Sitharaman; member-secretary NCW, Sunila Basant; and Manipal Institute of Communication director, Leela Rao.

An indicative model of the "Gender Sensitisation for Mass Communication'' course curricula, which the NCW hopes the University Grants Commission (UGC) would approve for use in various universities, was also released today.

"With many of the departments attempting to use innovative methods of training and teaching, a national consultation at this stage will help to share and exchange experiences on the methods that can be used to increase skills on gender, communication and development reporting among students of journalism and communication,'' said Ms. Advani.

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