The Power & Influence of Journalism [speech transcrtipt]

 By Jennifer Arul
  
 [Full Text]
  
Over the past year since the last conference of Christians in
journalism so much has happened in India and around the world; so much
that has tested the faith of many Christian journalists. My colleagues
who, like me, are privileged to be here tonight will know what I am
referring to.
  
An Australian missionary, Graham Staines and his two young sons,
were barbarously burned to death in their vehicle in Orissa. Nuns were
raped in that same state, while in Gujarat, another state in India,
churches and schools were razed to the ground. There has been violence
against religious institutions in Kerala and Karnataka and, nearer home
in Tamil Nadu where I come from, there have been incidents of
persecution of different kinds.
 
Persecution is not merely persecution of Christians, but of anyone
subjected to any form of  discrimination. A woman targeted for standing
up for what she believes in, a group of people ill-treated because of
the community or caste they belong to.
 
Every story that involves any form of oppression tests me as it does
every dedicated person of the print or the visual media gathered here
tonight. Everyone of us who is involved in telling the story just the
way it is tested in this way.
 
I am frightened whenever I pause to think of the awesome task we
have chosen to carry out. It would be convenient, and appreciated by
the powers that be, to brush these stories of dishonesty and oppression
aside, but then, you and I would have to live with memories of the eyes
of desperate, terrified human beings and with our own inconvenient
consciences.
 
As journalists we are often only focused on the news value of a
story we are reporting. A few weeks ago, I reported a dowry death in
Pondicherry, a town three hours away from Chennai, the city in which I
live. Let me tell you about it.
 
Two years after her marriage, Parvati’s parents and family continued
to be pressured for further amounts of dowry by her in-laws. When this
was not forthcoming, they made her life miserable. One night she was
raped and murdered by her brother-in-law, in her in-laws’ home where
she lived with her husband in a joint family. Her husband and
father-in-law were not in the house on that terrible night.
 
After the 26-year-old Parvati was raped, when she tried to phone for
help she was stabbed repeatedly. She dragged herself from room to room
seeking help but was prevented from contacting anyone. The horror of
the crime was added to by the fact that Parvati’s mother-in-law was
actively involved in the murder. Her brothers were hastily summoned
only when Parvati was taken to hospital. Sadly she died on the way. The
brother-in-law was himself admitted into another hospital with wounds
that later proved to be self-inflicted. He claimed they were both
attacked by an intruder who had, according to him, committed the
ghastly murder.