Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Coimbatore
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
Outside just in
|
The vastness of South Asia comes through in a recent book
|
photo: Rajeev Bhatt
Reporter’s diary Two of the editors of the book, John Elliott and Simon Denyer
Hinged on a certain immediacy, journalism often enjoys the position of being “the first draft of history”. The Penguin publication, “Foreign Correspondent, Fifty Years of Reporting South Asia”, celebrates this proximate histor
y. Recently released at The Ambassador Hotel, the book also marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Foreign Correspondents’ Club (FCC), originally founded as the Foreign Correspondents’ Association of South Asia.
John Elliott (president of the FCC of South Asia and Fortune magazine’s India correspondent), Bernard Imhasly (author and journalist and former FCC president) and Simon Denyer (Reuter’s bureau chief for India and Nepal) have edited it. It is a collection of articles by reporters of the FCC from 1949 to the present. Some 400-pages thick, the editors had to whittle down 400 articles to 79, which are in the book.
The more noted articles of the collection include two by Daniel Pearl, the James Cameron article on the death of Jawaharlal Nehru and Barbara Crossette’s account of Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination, “Then the Wailing Started”. Speaking before the release, editors Elliott and Denyer explain that each of the editors sieved through a different time period. Through impassioned discussions and without casting votes, they decided on a unanimous list.
Going through the collection, what are some of the differences they notice in journalism over time? For one, technological advancements have also forced reporting to change. But Denyer further explains, “Post-1947, reporting was still done through a colonial prism. In the early days, there is more first person. But with time, the first person retreats. And slowly, India is seen in her own right.” While the editors feel that the initial pieces might have been written with a foreign audience in mind, they are quick to assert that that is no longer the case.
The increased interest in India abroad is obvious by the growth of foreign journalism in India. While in the 80’s, Reuters had only five reporters in India, today they have 67 reporters!
With South Asia holding both the amazing and the abject, the selection of articles also expresses this variety.
NANDINI NAIR
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Coimbatore
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
|
