Grassroots NGOs need more media exposure, say scribes

By Our Staff Reporter

BANGALORE, AUG. 29. Should the non-governmental organisations (NGOs) go the full length to grab newspaper headlines? Is publicity a necessity? Who should take the lead?

These questions left participants at a seminar on "Understanding Print Media for Advocacy" here on Tuesday, thinking aloud, walking the tightrope of the do's and don'ts of public relations.

Fully involved in their fields, struggling with challenges galore, the NGOs will not find time to prepare factfiles for public consumption, Dr. K.Gopa Kumar from the Public Affairs Centre drew attention to a practical problem.

But preparing publicity material should be part of the campaign, said Mr. Murray Culshaw from the Murray Culshaw Advisory Services. "NGOs need to gather evidence, that is indeed part of their campaign mechanism. That will help them relate with freelance journalists." The latter, the unattached scribes, were the best suited for jobs. The NGOs had to develop them, the development of freelancers in particular.

Was it media cynicism or misplaced priorities? The panelists were not sure. But most were convinced that the grassroots NGOs had no proper contact with the media, the coverage of marginalised sections of society was minimal. One reason, as senior journalist, Ms. Sharita Rai put it, could be the economic interests guiding today's newspaper industry. "Media is an economic entity. It sees itself as a means of revenue generation" was an insider's perspective.

Ms. Shakuntala Narasimhan, journalist, was sure that good NGO activists need not be good communicators. Journalists could go and look for stories on their own. Scribes with concern for social justice would not find it difficult to fish out stories.

Her long years in development journalism had taught Ms. Narasimhan the pitfalls of handouts. "There are NGOs who glorify their deeds too in their press releases. We cannot go by what the NGOs say," she said. "NGOs feed information that chips away at the journalists' credibility. That credibility depends on objectivity, home work, going to the spot and speaking to the beneficiaries."

But she admitted that the NGOs were caught in a "Catch 22" situation. Without their activities being publicised, due credit given to their work, the financial clearance would be at stake. Ms. Narasimhan had a suggestion: "Tackle the internet. This new medium could be used for development stories of human interest."

The seminar-cum-panel discussion was organised by Communication for Development and Learning (CDL). A user's handbook on Understanding Print Media for Advocacy: What Makes News? was released on the occasion.

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