When Pakistan's worst natural disaster struck on October 8, 2005, over 80,000 died including 30,000 children in classrooms more than 100,000 sustained injuries and 3.5 million were displaced, according to official estimates. The earthquake of 7.2 magnitude on the Richter Scale devastated large swathes of Pakistan-administered Kashmir and North West Frontier Province .
Along with schools, hospitals, courts, banks and government offices and private homes, media was a major casualty with dozens of journalists killed or missing and newspaper offices, broadcast houses and press clubs destroyed. The outcome of this was significant reduction in capacity of local media, adversely affecting information access and processing systems in these regions.
To fill in the gap, the local and national media community struggled to respond adequately to the tragedy: reaching victims with vital information about humanitarian response, and informing citizens and policymakers about the nature and scale of the earthquake and the progress of the relief effort.
While the significance of the media in informing the average citizen and the policymakers of the massive quake in real time cannot be overemphasized in a country like Pakistan where native private electronic mass media is a relatively new phenomenon and where government resources in accessing information on a large scale on an urgent basis is limited, there were all round shortcomings in the response to the disaster.
Capacity issues were one the disaster was spread over a wide area populated by people speaking different languages and specialized skills, such as post-disaster reporting encompassing research, reach and relevance, another. It did not help that the media capacities were drastically reduced in the quake-hit zones, triggering a general absence of local media voices informing the world at large about their regions in the early weeks. Yet another issue was non-preparedness by governments and the humanitarian community to cater to information needs of people.
Media Response of Government
The experiences of Pakistan and Indonesia with disasters like the earthquake and tsunami have shown that the government authorities are clueless, particularly in the first few weeks, about the use of media to manage crisis and ask for donations cash, kind and blood.
There is little coordination between the government and private sector in the early days of disasters. There is little trust and a lot of suspicions that tend to politicize issues. In such a situation, media can act as a clearing house of information by working closely with the NGOs and the government to help them find a way out of the chaos and confusion. In Pakistan 's case it was through live reporting from some remote villages that people were able to bring medicine and the authorities.
Another problem in the way of finding accurate figures, descriptions and analysis in the face of disasters in Third World countries such as Pakistan , is that the media often relies heavily on the government officials and quarters for information. As it happens, and as proved by the response and crisis management in the wake of the earthquake in Pakistan , the authorities are the least prepared and often the least organized and coordinated. Less than accurate journalism, therefore, is the norm made worse by lack of resources and capacity to focus on accuracy. The journalists need to be trained in news gathering and seeking multiple sources to verify information rather than dabble in generalisations.
Media Response of Relief Community
What with their resources and expertise, relief organisations, particularly some of the major international ones and the UN, often have first hand information about a disaster. However sharing this information, particularly in the early short-to-medium term days, with the media does not come easy to them. This, as observed in the case of Pakistan , is primarily because their priority in this period is immediate relief rather than talk to the media. At this stage public/media communications officers are few and far between. Which is a shame as vital information about the extent of damage and sociological data the relief community quickly gathers as they start reaching out to people with supplies and medical aid could be shared with the world at large to inform the quality of the emergency response.
The humanitarian relief community should share its early data and evolving strategy with the media so that their traditional dependency on the state-sources of information is reduced. This can only help inform better emergency response strategies by curtailing rumours and confusion that abound post-disasters. In Pakistan , when UNOCHA quickly established the cluster system of relief effort coordination, predictably there was none on information and outreach. The tendency was to keep media out of meetings instead of engaging them to put out information that could invite feedback to inform improved strategies.
Response by Media
Having little capacity to report humanitarian responses in the aftermath of large disasters, most journalists from the affected regions have no idea about the angles they can explore that could lead to effective response. Because of this lack of capacity, as well as resource constraints arising either out of the impact of the disaster or of general non-focus on HR development, local media do not go beyond event coverage or push for organised and greater coverage of emergency response.
In countries like Pakistan where it costs a fair amount of money and materials to send news gatherers out, most media do not encourage or motivate journalists to commit to a story. Journalists on their own are reluctant to go where the stories are because of travel, inconvenience and lack of institutional support and resources. Reporting disaster means being in the same conditions as affectees but journalists, especially in the early days of the disaster, depend on conferences, handouts and press releases.
Lack of institutional support and the right equipment is a huge problem in times of disaster even though journalists who fan out are at risk as they travel in difficult terrain and weather conditions. If local Pakistani reporters had video phones to show the people living out in the ruins, rain and thunder, it would have had greater impact.
In Pakistan 's case while most newspapers have their district correspondents, they cannot be reached through land, phones or mobiles (before the quake, there was only severely restricted, security-operated mobile phone connectivity in Kashmir ). So where they can be reached, the correspondents are either not qualified or good enough to report and there is a need for trained staff to be sent for reporting.
In the crucial early few week period of the quake in Pakistan , most major stories in the papers came from foreign wire services with their organized and extensive resources of deployment. Media even outside the quake zones were just not prepared for the wide coverage, particularly emergency response, that the disaster demanded. There was, therefore, little focus on the human aspects of the stories; they just abounded in general descriptions and guesstimates. There is a need for capacity building of the media and journalists, particularly in the remoter areas to report on humanitarian crisis. As it happened in case of Balakot, one of the hardest hit remote areas in North West Frontier Province (NWFP) that required two days to travel back and forth and a day of coverage, reporters sent out could only report on their return and by the time the stories were stale.
Broadcasts as a Useful Medium
The first that Pakistanis learnt of the catastrophe was on private television channels and FM radio stations these had been licensed only in the past three years, the first time in the country's 60-year history that independent electronic media started giving out real time news to a country of 160 million people with a functional literacy rate of barely one-third (and a newspaper circulation of a measly 3 million). Predictably it took a couple of hours before the state-owned electronic media broke the news by which time private media was giving the scale of the disaster.
If the nationwide state-owned radio and TV were slow in reporting the quake across Pakistan, the situation in the affected regions was worse there was no private radio or TV in the affected regions and the only source of mass information in the region state run Kashmir Radio and TV was silenced by the quake: 40 of their 160 staff died and the buildings completely wrecked. With the region's small printing presses and most press clubs also taking hits, and dozens of journalists either dead or losing families, the business of local news generation came to a halt.
The disaster presented the classic paradox: news about the calamity and its impact was going out to world at large but those affected at least 3.5 million had no means of traditional information access to learn what was going, what to do and how to get help. The situation in Kashmir was especially bad as there was no private radio in the security state to inform the people and save lives in the early stages.
A snapshot survey to gauge the state of information access was conducted two weeks after the quake in Batagram, Balakot and Mansehra in NWFP and Muzaffarabad, Bagh and Rawalakot in Kashmir . These were generally the worst-hit cities in their respective regions. Conducted by the Pakistan office of Internews, an international media development organisation ( www.internews.org.pk ), it showed interesting results: Before the quake, about 81% households had a radio and 52% had television sets. Of these, the radio sets of 76% and TV sets of 97% were destroyed by the earthquake.
The findings indicated that because the quake destroyed conventional sources of media there was a dramatic rise in non-conventional means of information giving way to rumours as the staple of information. Queried about their post-quake sources of information, a majority of respondents indicated multiple sources: 68% said they were now dependent on word of mouth, 28% on radio, 21% on newspapers, 15% on TV and 11 on the local administration. At least 8% said they were not getting any information from anywhere, whereas no one mentioned the mosque or religious leaders/local mosque prayer leaders as their source of general information.
Considering that people had lost TV sets and local newspapers weren't being published and there was no money to buy either, it was imperative that a cheap and practical means of information access be established to lower the dangerously high percentage of rumours flying about such as when the next quake was due or that daubing kerosene on your tent will get you rid of mosquitos or that bottled water was medicinal and only fit for washing hands, not drinking. Radio was the obvious answer: it was cheap (less than a dollar Chinese versions), would provide information in local languages and could be beneficial to even large groups.
Building the radio media was as difficult as the answer was easy: there were no local parties with private radio operational experience; no trained radio journalists; no digital audio recording and editing equipment locally or nationally available; and certainly this labor and cost intensive undertaking was economically feasible in the short-to-medium term. Internews provided an answer form their Southeast Asian post-tsunami experience in rebuilding media infrastructure and information access: issue zero-cost, limited-term, humanitarian issues-focused licenses to existing operators in the other parts of the country. Internews would provide small equipment grants to these stations, train their staff in disaster reporting and humanitarian information, generate a daily news-you-can-use format programming on relief issues and distribute thousands of solar-powered/crank radio sets to improve information access.
It worked: driven by the necessity to plug the widening need for information critical for survival, the otherwise prickly and picky Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority issued, in short bursts of two, a total of 10 three-month, non-commercial, humanitarian emergency private FM stations within a month after the quake to parties that were experienced radio operators in other parts of the country. This would also bypass the need to undertake a tortuous several months' long process of security analysis of would-be operators (to clear them of links with either enemy country' [ India '] or jihadi/militant groups) and issue them spectrum otherwise usually controlled by the military. The idea was that being non-commercial licenses, only serious' volunteer broadcasters committed to helping people in distress would be attracted.
Within 100 days of the quake, with funding from the DFID of UK and SDC of Switzerland, Internews under its Pakistan Emergency Information Project had helped seven of the 10 broadcasters go on air by providing small equipment grants (for radio production studios) including digital minidisk recorders, and trained their staff in post-disaster reporting and humanitarian information. This was augmented by content generation a daily one-hour programme called Jazba-e-Tameer (Urdu for Spirit of Reconstruction) produced by a group of 10 journalism student-volunteers who would span out everyday across the quake regions to report on relief efforts including feedback from the affected populations, the international and local humanitarian community as well as government authorities.
A follow-up information access survey conducted in the same cities as above four months after the baseline produced evidence the public-private partnership of rebuilding information access was proving useful. Summary findings established that the new community radio media regime launched by the authorities and helped by Internews had in a short time become a major source of independent, reliable and useful information for the affected populations.
Radio as a Tool of Survival and Recovery
In late Oct 2005, a few weeks after the quake, 28% said radio was one of their primary sources of information. In late Feb 2006, the percentage had gone up to 70%. In the follow-up survey, respondents mentioned one or more of all seven emergency response (ER) radio stations on air at the time of the survey as their station of choice.
The follow up survey also revealed that four months after the quake more people are consuming more media: From 15 per cent respondents watching TV in late Oct 2005 in the quake regions, there were 24% doing it in late Feb 2006. Of these all 24% said TV was one of their primary sources of information. Virtually all watched state-run TV channels). The follow up survey also shows 33.3% (one-third) respondents including newspapers as one of their primary sources of information (up from 21% in Oct 2005).
The following outcomes of the Pakistan Emergency Information Project represent a fairly successful model of how an oft neglected aspect of major post-disaster relief operations (reliable flows of information critical for survival and recovery) can be realised in a little time (100 days) with not too much money (less that 150,000 pounds of the 300,000 pounds project money spent in this time in this instant):
1. Improved timeliness, accuracy and credibility of information flow to affected population.
2. Increased relevance of information reaching local populations.
3. Increased reach of information to isolated, information-dark areas.
4. Improved two-way communication flows between affected communities and the relief operations
5. Increased flow of information from the earthquake zones via media to policy-makers and to the general public
6. Empowered local populations through the inclusion of their voices in local and national media
7. Ongoing international attention on the needs of affected populations
8. Increased understanding in public and policy circles of role of local media in emergencies
9. Increased space for independent media and professional journalism
Lessons From Pakistan
Pakistan 's experience demonstrates that the summary lesson about media's critical role is that information about relief operations in the short term and the reconstruction and rehabilitation is critical for survival and recovery in the disaster regions. Sustainable local media capacity to provide reliable information, particularly in local languages, gets badly hit as there is no specialist capacity in local media in post-disaster humanitarian reporting.
Since media outlets and journalists do not have adequate resources or the capacity to provide much-needed specialized post-disaster information to victims, general audiences and policymakers, media and journalists need swift help after a humanitarian disaster strikes.
The primary focus of media assistance in the face of future humanitarian disasters should be:
Support for specific local private and state broadcasters within the disaster zone to broadcast, so they can provide vital news and information to victims. If there are no FM stations available, these should be permitted by the authorities swiftly; suitcase radio stations such as those deployed by Internews in tsunami-hot areas of Indonesia are very affordable, easy to set up and operate. Infrastructure needs include transmitters, antennas, mobile radio studios (these are usually not immediately available in-country and need to be imported; all taxes and duties should be waived on them) and generators.
Support for production teams and journalists working for and with those media outlets in the disaster zone. Production needs include mobile production equipment such as minidisk recorders, portable computers, satellite phones, transportation, and technical support.
Support for the broader journalistic and media community to cover the disaster and relief efforts with speed and accuracy. Needs include: access to information sources such as humanitarian relief organizations, the government and military, access to technical assistance in the form of satellite phones, field production equipment, transportation, and technical assistance to coordinate, share, and update information.
Emergency FM radio stations (interim non-commercial, limited period licenses perhaps to already licensees based closest to the affected regions), information centers (rebuilding the press clubs with facilities for both print and broadcast media) and mobile production units.
Distribution of radio sets preferably solar-powered or crank radios that require no battery (one each family) to affected populations including those being housed in tents and camps (In Pakistan, Internews imported 10,000 radio sets for distribution among the quake-affected but for several weeks they remained stuck in customs due to red tape despite permission from government). During harsh weather conditions such as winter, summer or monsoons, radio could be the key medium for the government authorities and humanitarian organizations to be in direct and regular contact with the millions of displaced persons in their tents. Ends
Adnan Rehmat is Country Director of the Pakistan office of Internews (www.internews.org.pk), an international media assistance organization. His e-mail is: adnan@internews.org |
