Spotlight on South Asians

After a 'big year,' SAJA's vice-president talks about South Asia and their upcoming convention.

by Janine Sutherlin

<B>Indira Somani</B> is a freelance producer and vice president of the South Asian Journalists Association. She is also chair of this year's SAJA convention, held June 14-16 at Columbia University. Somani has worked as producer for CNBC's "Wake-up Call," a two-hour morning business program anchored from the NASDAQ, the "Today Show," Yahoo! Finance Vision, and Stockhouse Media Corp. She has also been a producer at several network affiliates around the country, including WJLA-TV in Washington, DC; WVEC-TV in Norfolk, Va.; WSBT-TV in South Bend, Ind.; and WICS-TV in Springfield, Ill. In 2000, she won the second place SAJA award for Outstanding story on South Asians in North America, for her piece on Indian CEOs in the Washington, DC area; in 1999, she won the third place SAJA award for Outstanding story on South Asians in North America for her piece on Diwali, a national celebration in India; and in 1998, she was given the Gracie Allen Award from the America Women in Radio and Television for a piece called "Working Woman." Somani earned her graduate degree in journalism from Northwestern, and her bachelor's of arts degree in English from Knox College.
She can be reached at <a href="mailto:"dirasaja@aol.com">indirasaja@aol.com</a>. In your opinion, how does the American mainstream media cover South Asia?
It's only really a story when it affects Americans, and that's basically because American media are very domestic-focused. It's always been that way, it's very focused on the United States. Now, that's not the same for the BBC and that's not the same for AFP and other news organizations based overseas. I mean, India and Pakistan are in the news now because there may be a nuclear war and the State Department has issued a warning that Americans leave both countries... This has been an ongoing war for many, many years. American media are not always international focused with other stories in Asia and I think that it's important that we pay more attention to what else is going on in the world, regardless of whether it directly affects Americans. How well or poorly is mainstream American media covering the recent events in India and Pakistan?
I would say that I would like to see more on television. I'm not impressed with the nightly newscasts. I think that it shouldn't take a possible threat for nuclear war to be sending correspondents over there. I think that correspondents should have been over there a long time ago. I would say the print coverage has been fairly decent. But print reporters are based in those regions as opposed to broadcast journalists. I would like to see more. ...A few days ago I was watching C-SPAN and I was impressed to see that they covered this (meeting) with both Vajpayee and Musharraf. But that's C-SPAN, you know. I'd like to see more. I mean, quite frankly, I think it should be on the cover of Time. It's a story that's sort of buried inside and the cover of Time is dealing with anxiety. How can journalists better cover South Asian communities or even just diverse communities in general?
Well, I think you really need to get in and learn those communities. You really need to spend time there, you need to talk to the people, you need to spend time in the neighborhood, you need to eat the food. This gives you a chance to really sort of understand the culture and the people and I think that's how people really learn to cover a community and find out what the problems are in the community. I don't think that we do enough of that because it's not so mainstream and these ethnic communities are, I guess, a small part of our overall population. But I think that's the best way to do it. What story would you like to see done about South Asia or about South Asians in the United States that you haven't seen before?
There's so many. Well, for one thing I don't think there is enough coverage on the development of technology in India. I think that there's that saying that Bangalore is like the second Silicon Valley. I have a broadcast background so I think in TV terms and I have not seen a lot of television coverage on that. I think that we only give focus to these countries when there's something controversial going on, something that affects Americans. We never really focus on some of the positive aspects of what's going on in these countries. These are very, very relevant stories. Right now I think a very hot topic is this whole visa issue and only issuing 30 days for people to come over to this country when, for the longest time, it's been a six-month visa. So many people bring their parents over here from India, so many people bring relatives over here. Indian weddings are such a big deal and it's so important to have your entire, extended family and it's impossible to issue the visas to all the relatives. But right now, this 30-day visa limit is affecting so many people in so many ways and, of course, I realize it's the safety for the United States, but from what I know a lot of Indians are talking about it. A lot of people from that region who live here are talking about it. Do you see a difference in the way that broadcast media handles diversity versus print media?
Absolutely. I think broadcast media, because it's a different medium, you really have to have access to certain video to tell the story and I don't think broadcasters always have that or they don't seek it. I think print media can tell the story without video. ... I think print media probably spend more time in the communities, and probably spend more time learning the regions and learning the areas and I think that's why we see more stories covering our communities and covering South Asia in the print media than we do in broadcast media. So many of these overseas bureaus have shut down in the broadcast arena. I mean, for all I know, the networks have maybe a bureau in Moscow, Tel Aviv, London, I don't even know if they have bureaus in Hong Kong anymore, or Johannesburg. Maybe they just have a floating photographer. These places have really cut back. They're using freelancers, and that's fine, but there was a time in the å80s when we had a bureau in Cairo; we had bureaus all over the world. How have events like Sept. 11 and the following military actions overseas affected how you planned this year's annual convention?
I think it has a lot to do with the way we plan our panels and the way we plan our workshops. We do have a panel called "9/11 and Beyond." ... However our situation is unique in the sense that because we're the South Asian Journalists Association we have a lot of focus on stories in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal. Right now the situation between India and Pakistan isn't great and that is making our organization even more sort of in the spotlight and that story is very timely and it's an ongoing story and it also was relevant during a lot of the 9/11 coverage. So I would say that not only is it an even bigger year for international news this past year but it was a very big year for the South Asian Journalists Association. The convention's two featured speakers, Steve Coll and Sebastian Junger, are both known for their work in South Asia and Southeast Asia. Was there an effort this year to have a broader world view at this year's convention? We always have a focus on South Asia at our conventions so I think we have more people coming this year and sort of more mainstream journalists aware of who we are than in past years. Last year our keynote speaker was Fareed Zakaria, foreign editor of Newsweek. One year our keynote speaker was John Bussey, who's the foreign editor of the Wall Street Journal. We have always had a focus on international news. ... This year does stand out because we have more and we're growing but I don't know if it's in terms of the speakers. Last year another speaker we had was Riz Kahn, who, for the longest time, was the CNN international anchor. With the convention a week away, what are you most excited about?
I'm really excited about our panels, quite frankly, and our workshops because I think we have booked some amazing speakers and panelists, people who have traveled to Afghanistan, people who have traveled to Pakistan, who know that region, who know the stories going on over there. ... Every year is a great year, but this year, I think, is going to be better than years past. I think we have more people involved, that is, SAJA members involved who really want to see us successful. ... We have more broadcast, on-air, producing, radio workshops. We have "covering Washington," "covering the communities." More panels, more workshops, more than we've ever had. ... I hope I can even attend some of the things. Can you tell us a bit about the convention's tribute to Daniel Pearl, including the South Asia reporting award, and how that came about?
Apparently from what I understand is Daniel Pearl was a supporter of SAJA. He was also, I believe, a colleague of (Columbia University) Professor (Sreenath) Sreenivasan, who is the founder of our organization. He was very interested in, when he went to the region, what SAJA's feedback was on his stories, how SAJA felt about his coverage over there. It's very appropriate, as the Wall Street Journal has also been supporters of SAJA for many years, for us to pay tribute to Danny Pearl. His own family sent us an e-mail and spoke to Sree saying that our Web site was the one Web site that they consistently went to for information during his kidnapping and for information there afterwards. They have appreciated SAJA's effort to stay on top of that story. ... Many people within SAJA knew Danny personally and it's the least we can do. You've won a handful of SAJA and industry awards. What story that you've done, or that you have worked on, are you most proud of?
I'm proud of all of them. I think that there's one story I won an award on, it was called "Diwali," which is the national celebration in India. It stands for the festival of lights. It was very timely, because at the time, there was this correspondent at the station I worked for in Washington. They started a religion beat and I really pushed for that story because this is a religious festival that never gets any media attention. This reporter who started covering the various religions in the United States, she and I worked together on this particular story. I was very proud to see that that got into mainstream media. How does being involved in SAJA affect you as a journalist?
It's a support network for me. I really believe in the cause of SAJA. I really believe that it's important to have organizations like SAJA where people of similar backgrounds can network and can also share war stories about what's going on in their newsrooms. I was the DC chapter head for three years and I really, really enjoyed working on it there. We started from scratch there and we built it; it was started with like 11 members and then when I left, it was at least 100 people on the mailing list. ... It is so important to have these organizations. We formed because we were poorly represented at the Asian American Journalists Association. I also think, in all fairness, Asia is so big. I mean, we're talking about 40 something countries and ... so many different cultures, regions with different conflicts and different problems, how can you lump all these journalists of Asian descent in one category? I think that's impossible. ... I think diversity in the newsroom is so important. We are in a time when we need people of different ethnic backgrounds in our newsrooms. Otherwise, I think it really hurts the overall news coverage. I think we need more people of diverse backgrounds in management positions, I think we need people who come from different backgrounds who know what's going on in different parts of the world as well as in our own communities. Organizations like this help our particular ethnic group stand out in mainstream media. I've been in charge of helping to get people together for the recruiters' reception, and I can't tell you, it is so important, it's so rewarding, that I'm having people call me back and tell me they want to come because it's in a region that they really care about and they didn't even know our organization existed. What are your ideas on how to diversify news coverage and newsrooms?
I think you have to hire more people of ethnic backgrounds in your newsrooms. That's just it, bottom line. There are news organizations and people may say they are doing that, but they are not. There are news organizations where the entire management team is run by one specific ethnic group. There are news organizations where all the producers, who are primarily decision-makers in the newsroom, are one specific ethnic group. There have got to be people in decision-making roles of different ethnic backgrounds, otherwise, you are never going to have diversity in your coverage. That's where it starts.