Witoubou Newmai
Reporting in a conflict zone particularly in the Northeast India is running between two bullets. Intimidations are increasingly meted out to the journalists from various quarters. But in spite of this bleak situation a good number of David Halberstams have been produced in our midst, indicating enough that the grim atmosphere is not bound to dampen the journalism spirit here in our region.
The only complain is the lack of complete pair of hands for clapping.
At the moment the demanding factor from our society in order to help function the David Halberstam’s mantra is—our society should inculcate the right mental and attitudinal perspectives so as to make a complete pair of clapping hands.
In 1963, the United States of America, both the Pentagon and the civil administration had been compelled to change its course of action on Vietnam policy by just one courageous reporting of David Halberstam, a The New York Times journalist covering the Vietnam affairs.
President John F.Kennedy’s administration had eye-washed the American public by propagating that the United States’ policy of preserving non-communist South Vietnam was clicking well. Here, the US preservation policy was a force by arming its soldiers.
However, David Halberstam reported in The New York Times that the South Vietnamese were passive or rather, reluctant to retaliate to the American forces. At the time, the Vietnam’s communist guerrillas were retreating to the country side.
Mr. Kennedy jumped from his chair, demanded publisher of The New York Times, Arthur O.Sulzberger to bring Halberstam back to the United States from Vietnam. The publisher outrightly turned down to the order of the American President.
The following year David Halberstam won the world’s highest journalism award, the Pulitzer Prize.
The murky Kennedy affairs was ripped naked before the world. The American policy on Vietnam was changed then.
Another journalist Malcolm W. Browne, Associated Press (AP) shared the podium with David Halberstam in receiving the prestigious Pulitzer Prize. Browne had played an instrumental role in that development.
Had it not been the public opinion that had stiffly backed the stories filed by the journalists, the Kennedy administration could well had gone scot-free with the issue.
It had been reported that The New York Times office’s mail box had to be cleared after every one hour during the time.
Another interesting event was the Water-gate issue. Bob Woodward and Carl Berstein had shaken America in the early 1970s with their disclosures on the infamous Water-gate issue. The two journalists did it in the Washington Post in 1973.
In the height of the Bosnia conflict of 1992-94, the Clinton administration tried to close its eyes on the ethnic massacres in Central Europe when the Serbs turned on the Croats and the neighboring Muslims, it had been the media that forced US government to intervene.
The excessive coverage of the ethnic killings made the Clinton administration very uncomfortable that it no longer could divert itself from the Bosnia quagmire----that the moral obligation it ‘owed’ (from the public), had compelled the Yankees to act.
Back home, the wide-spread media coverage on the series of agitation against Armed Forces Special Power Act in 2004 in Manipur put the state at the centre of attraction for about three months stretch. The media in Nagaland is also doing likewise on several issues that needs appreciation.
However, none of the journalists are been rewarded by any social or human rights organisation, at least, for the service rendered---the NGOs and human rights bodies have the moral obligation to honour the media.
Mass movements/agitations, no matter how immense its magnitude loses steam if the media does not project it properly. More often than not journalists remain the unsung heroes. Here, only maturity of the society and its sophistication will help do justice to the media.
(The writer is the Editor of the Imphal based Newmai News Network)
